My wife is sleeping. When she wakes up she will see this letter.

At our Turpin Bld. house, we sat in the basement. I can’t remember what year it was but the basement was finished by then. This was the first time that I told you… I wasn’t happy. I felt that you had fallen out of love with me. I had been holding this thought for some time. I had held it in. You denied it. I asked you to please be honest. At least admit it. You would not. You didn’t offer to help make things better.

This was the beginning of a cycle, I’d push down all of my frustration and sadness until at some point it exploded out. We’d have a big fight (whatever they were about, they were always about our intimacy issues). A few days after the fight, we’d have the talk. I’d say I wasn’t happy …………..

Years went by. Intimacy was dead. The sex was infrequent and minimalist. It was like… ‘I better do this for him but I really don’t feel it.’ That’s ok. I get it. If you don’t feel it you don’t feel it. You should have just told me. I should have just left. When my partner can’t kiss me passionately and hasn’t gone down on me in 20 years, it doesn’t matter what the fuck’n Christmas card says, I’ve lost her.

That you feel like, I use you for sex, says much about your feelings for me. If you were in love with me, you would never feel that way. That is the most hurtful thing you’ve ever said to me. I love you. I have worked myself almost to death for us. I’ve shared everything with you.

I believe our worst year….we had sex twice. Many years were barely better than that. The marriage became a facade. We became business partners and roommates. As a man, it has hurt me. To be so cast off, has killed my self esteem. I can’t imagine the affect this perpetual frustration, yearning and resentment has had on my health. The stress of wanting you, to want me, is almost unbearable. It’s eaten at me.

And now, when I’m finally going to leave, you want to fix it. Why now? I have begged you over the last 20 years and now you want to fix it? It seems that when it was a ‘me’ problem it didn’t need fixing. That I was living so unhappy, was ok. It didn’t warrant investigation or examination.

But now, that I finally got the balls to do for us what should have been done years ago, it’s time to fix it? I’d truly love to fix this but the only reason you want to fix it, is because I’m leaving. How does that make me feel?

Fucking sad.

It’s over. It needs to be over.

I love you so much but I’ve gone out into the world everyday feeling so unloved for so many years. You are the love of my life but I’m leaving cause my heart can’t survive this anymore.

I got in the shower on New Years Eve. We were going to make love, I wanted to make sure I was clean. I lingered in there. I so wanted you to come in, to kiss me deeply. We would soap each other up, it would be spontaneous. I would not ask. I couldn’t take the rejection. Remember when I got in the shower with you recently and you looked at me like I was a stranger. You waited your turn for the shower.

So we made love in the pitch dark but we did not kiss cause you can’t bring yourself to kiss me that way, and that’s ok because you feel how you feel, but it’s so devastating for me.