An Open Letter to My Husbands Mistresses

This Letter was given to us by one of our readers. With the author's permission, it has been slightly altered to eliminate specific details, but the message remains the same.

Submitted by - Sofia Monarch

I looked for a long time for one of these that was in recovery, until I finally decided to write my own.

An Open Letter to my Husband’s mistresses.

First off, I will spare naming you as you know who you are, even though I don’t know when or if you will see this. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t hate you, blame you and, despise you for essentially murdering my marriage.. I’m not excusing my husband in saying this to you. You have left an ugly trail of destroyed marriages in your wake.  You are ill and though I don’t know what is going on in your life right now, I know the path you were on when you were with my husband will only lead to you and your family’s demise. I feel sorry for your children.

I don’t even think that you know the severity of your actions. You don’t know the long reaching and long lasting effect of what you have done. I spent a lot of time and energy thinking about how much I hated you. How I could somehow make you feel the deep pain and sorrow that I did.  When I found out about all this filthy garbage, all my fears and what I thought was happening, was happening. It was a nightmare.  I felt angry, hurt, neglected, rejected, lonely and alone.  I felt withered, and like I had lost everything. I couldn't understand how human beings could invite so much pain and harm deliberately into my life and feel nothing themselves.

Then I made a realization, and a decision.

You are powerless.

You have no permission to even have presence in my thoughts. You don’t deserve any of my time or my energy. My time and energy will be spent on healing myself and my family. I may see you on the street someday and recognize you, and not give you a second thought. I cannot condemn you. That is God’s job, and all our lives are in his hands. Perhaps one day you will see what you have done and walk the road of repentance, but that is irrelevant to me.

I have made my choice.

I choose to release myself from the burden of allowing your actions to dominate or even come into my thoughts. I refuse to allow your actions to have any decision in regard to my emotions. I choose self mastery. I choose personal happiness through the peace of my Savoir. This process is called forgiveness. My forgiveness is not for you, nor does it excuse or condone a single thing you did. You will still have to be accountable for that personally.  What it does do is liberate me. My forgiveness of you is for me. The forgiveness comes with boundaries and rules in my life to ensure there is not a chance of this occurring again. It doesn't come with forgetting either, how could I? What it does come with is being able to remember what happened without pain, but with peace.  I can be whole, and this is a step in that journey. I am not alone in my situation, and neither are you.

With this I walk away from you and leave you to find your own path. Honestly, I hope you can see the light and cease the slaughter of families and of your own soul, for your sake and for the sake of others. But if you do or do not, it has no bearing on me.

I choose peace, light and happiness. These are CHOICES, not effects. And the choice is between me and my God, which means that nothing and nobody has permission to change it.