|
"I Can't Go On With This Marriage"
Dear
Rodney,
I
don't think I can go on with this marriage. It is just impossible
to talk with you and I have never felt more distant from you
in my life. You are selfish and moody and you make me feel
as though I would be better off living alone than to be stuck
in this rat hole with somebody that I can't stand being with.
You never help me around the house. You spend your entire
weekend with your nose stuck in the television. And do you
have to wear that stinky tee shirt the entire weekend? I am
embarrassed if someone comes to the house because I don't
want them to know that I am married to such a loser.
And
your temper is a fright. If you talk, you yell. If you don't
talk, you are so caught up in the television that you might
as well not be here. In fact I would rather that you were
not here most of the time. You are not anything like the person
I thought I married. You are a total loser. I guess that makes
me a loser too because why would someone who is not a loser
marry such a loser?
I always knew that I was not
the best prize in town. I tried to take care of myself and
be attractive but I guess that I just never thought that much
of myself. Loser. Loser. Loser. How could I have been so stupid?
I thought I could be happy and have a good life and underneath
I guess I always knew that it would not be possible. I feel
like a prisoner in my own house.
I hate it when I remember how
my Dad used to talk to me. He was always angry and I had to
watch out for when he was drinking. Which was most of the
time. I felt like a prisoner then too. I just stayed out of
his way and learned how to be nearly invisible, at least whenever
I could. I tried to be so good and yet I could never please
him. Oh Dad, why wasn't I ever good enough? I got good grades
and always was polite and yet you were so angry. Always angry.
(And now I am writing to you instead of Rodney. Come to think
of it, Dad and Rodney are a lot alike.)
What is it with me that I had
to end up with another man who was mean and angry and didn't
treat me nicely? First Dad, then you. I guess there is something
wrong with me. I just don't know what it is exactly. I am
not the most beautiful woman but not the ugliest either. Other
people seem to be happy and get along with their husbands
but not me. I always end up being unhappy.
Maybe I am just an unhappy person.
I have always been unhappy, as long as I can remember. Well,
almost always. When I was taking that art class down at the
community center, I felt pretty good. The teacher liked my
work and the other students often commented on how they liked
what I did. But when I got home, you made me feel stupid by
making jokes about my painting. I let you get to me and stopped
taking the class. Why did I do that? I felt good about the
class.
You know what? I think I am going
to take another class. There is no reason to spend the entire
weekend being drowned out by a football game or a wrestling
match or whatever else is on the television. I may not be
the best artist in the world but I liked myself better when
I was doing that. Okay, that's what I am going to do.
I feel better. Rodney, you can
just go to hell with your television. I am going to do something
that feels good for me. Ha!!
- Barbara the ARTIST!!!!
Commentary
By Patricia
Lawrence Pomposello, CSW, psychotherapist
This is an example of a letter that
is not meant to be sent. It is an exercise for getting a lot
of powerful feelings out in the open. As you can see it moves
from Rodney, to Barbara's father, to herself and then back
to Rodney. That is because Barbara allowed her thoughts to
be free-flowing and didn't try to "edit" the letter.
Barbara has let herself just "dump".
It may be that Rodney has his good qualities as well as the
ones she is angry about. But she has made no attempt to be
"fair". The point of the letter is to help her get
in touch with what she is feeling. As she let her feelings
flow into words, she made a connection that she is being treated
by her husband the same as she was treated as a child. This
idea may grow in future Unsent Letters. For now she has let
a plan arise naturally from her free flow and the "letter"
has served its purpose.
Obviously this is not the sort of
letter that should be left lying around. It should be written
on loose paper that is not a part of a journal which could
be read by Rodney or anyone else. It is quite possible that
at some point she may want to let Rodney know how she is feeling
but this is not the way to do it.
Therefore, as soon as she is finished,
she crumples up the paper and takes it to a place where she
can burn it. Barbara lives in an apartment so she finds an
old pan in the kitchen and takes it outside where she can
put the crumpled paper inside and light it. As it is burning,
she does a release ritual where in her own way she releases
the feelings and the words into the air and claims her freedom
from her sense of being a prisoner.
|
