No Need To Explain Myself

Updated…

I wrestled with myself a little last week…

I received an email from Kindle Direct Publishing for my ex’s father’s account. At one point, a few years ago, I was helping him edit and self-publish his books. I kept telling him I was not a literary agent nor an editor but he wanted my help anyway. I know I should have never taken on the projects and stuck with letting my “no” be “no”. It was a very stressful and time-consuming process and he was a very difficult man to work with; manipulative, egotistical and narcissistic. He had not updated his email address on the account so I forwarded the email and asked him to update his account information.

A little background:

While I was still together with my ex, his father always made sure to let me know how much he adored me. He would take me to lunch and I often went to help him with some task or another. I spend 3 day’s cleaning and arranging one of the rooms in his house because he is a hoarder.

The summer before we broke up, my ex’s father ended up in the hospital in a medically induced coma. He has COPD and took a turn for the worst. For two weeks I visited him in the hospital everyday. Then, when they moved him to an after care facility, I went Monday – Friday, for three weeks to sit with him until his wife could show up since they didn’t live in the area.

When the breakup happened with my ex, his new fling sent me the most horrendous and foul text messages, and I did not respond. I later found out that he and his fling told his father about the texts and his father laughed and high-five’d them both. I was crushed to learn of his reaction and felt deeply betrayed.

I ended up having to file a restraining order against the ex for the numerous death threats he left on my voicemail and texts. Within the same month that I found this out about how his father reacted to the texts his son’s new girlfriend sent me, he sent me another (actually several) email requesting more edits and updates and another book to edit and format. I was beyond insulted! This man, who condoned his son’s treatment of me, and laugh and give kudos for the text message sent to me, was off his f****** rocker if he thought I would do anything else for him! So, I sent him an email letting him know that I would not be doing any more work for him.

Now back to the original story…

He responded to my email:

Hi Terri,

After two days on the phone with several people I believe I was successful in getting the account transferred my email address. They said the transfer will take a couple days from today. Thank you again for forwarding the email. Obviously, if you do receive any emails I was not successful, and please do let me know.

Thank you, I hope all is well with you. I am sorry we had our business differences which I do blame myself for. I had no idea what an ” literary agent” did either. We had the blind leading the blind. I know you did your best. I am sorry for what ever caused you to be upset with me.

God Bless you and your family,

Red

P.S. I am caregiving Marty3 now. He burnt all his bridges (better term “nuked” them) and as you know he became self destructive. Pray for him please.

Oh did I struggle! I wanted to blast him back with all the reasons I was upset with him! I wanted him to “understand” what he did that upset and hurt me so. I wanted to really give it to him but, I didn’t.

You see, after planning my response all out in my head, I took a step back and thought about what I would accomplish by responding. Would it change how I felt about him? Would he even really understand? Would he validate my feelings or just tell me it wasn’t true and dismiss what happened? Would it add any value to my life? NO! If I responded, I would only be dancing a dance that I did not need to and stressing about someone who means absolutely nothing to me today.

There truly is no reason to respond as it will add anything to my life nor it any better than it already is. And it’s pretty darn good! I do not owe him any explanations nor do I need to let him occupy space in my head.

See, doing what’s right for me! I love when that happens!

P.S. I know if I pray for Marty it would sound something like this song so, I won’t. 🙂