I'm going to regret this

I told you all about Wife wanting to come to my family's Christmas. In the end it came to nothing, but it took a while to get there. Son 2 was staying with her for most of the season; and what I arranged with him was that maybe she could show up when I wasn't there. But then nobody called my mom to make arrangements. Turns out that Son 2 told Wife, "I'm not your social secretary. If you want to visit Dad's family, you have to pick up the phone and make the arrangements." And she never did it. So that was good, as far as it went.

But I couldn't stop wondering about next time. So today I wrote Wife an email, as follows:

Hi.

You asked to join my family's Christmas this year, and that got me to thinking about what "family" really is. It's not a perfect definition -- certainly not complete -- but I think part of it has to be this:

Your family are the people who always put you first (and you them, of course).

That doesn't mean you always hang out together, or you are always interested in the same things. But it means that you don't betray each other.

But by this definition you chose to opt out of my family years ago, by your own actions.

The day that became really clear to me was July 14, 2008. That's the day you paid Boyfriend 5's electric bill with our credit card, after I had spent an hour begging you not to.

You had never met Boyfriend 5 in the flesh. You had never spoken to him on the phone. In fact, you remember that he turned out not to exist at all; you were just being played by a lonely girl in Dallas who pretended to be a terrorist from ----.

And if you had been willing to act like family, you would have gone along with me when I asked you not to pay "his" bill, ... just to make me happy, for no other reason than that I asked. In reality you pressed me for reasons.

So I told you that Boyfriend 5 looked like a fraud. (He was.) I told you the Internet is full of thieves and scam artists who harvest other people's credit card numbers for purposes of identity theft. (It is.) But you decided you were in love with Boyfriend 5, ignored what I said, and paid his bill anyway. With our credit card.

And here is the important part. When I thought about it later I realized this was exactly in character. When it came down to a choice between me or The Other Guy, you would always choose The Other Guy. You and I can both think of other examples too, but this is the one that crystallized it for me. In some ways this was a very tiny betrayal, but this is the one that made me realize I could never trust you not to betray me.

But if I cannot trust you not to betray me, then we are not family. Simple as that.

If you want to visit my mother on some other day, or prowl through thrift stores with Brother and SIL, ... it's up to them. If they enjoy your company and want to see you, it's a free country.

But please don't ask to join "family celebrations" ever again. By your own actions, you chose to opt out of my family.

Happy New Year,
Hosea

After clicking "Send" I forwarded the same email to my mother, and to Brother and SIL, so they would know I had made the request. Since I assume they know nothing about Boyfriend 5, I included a cover letter as follows:

Dear Mother, Brother, SIL,

I hope this finds you well. It was great seeing you all for Christmas.

You remember there was some discussion about Wife wanting to join us some time over the holidays. The more I thought about it, the more that felt wrong to me and I finally figured out how to express it in words. So I sent the attached note (below) to her today, asking her never to make that request again. I am sending it to you as well, so we are all on the same page.

The event that I reference in my letter took place over a decade ago. I had better explain what happened, because I realize I jump into the story in medias res. If you don't want to know about it, you can skip this part.

Wife had met someone on the Internet who claimed to be a terrorist from ---- named "B5", and after a while she decided she was in love with him. I was pretty upset at that part, but then it got worse: one day he told her he couldn't afford to pay his electric bill, and so she paid it for him online with our credit card. She called me at work first to ask if it was OK and I said "No, absolutely not." I explained the risk that "B5" was an identity thief and that giving up the card number could be very dangerous. But after I got off the phone she decided that I must be wrong. She "knew" that B5 was a wonderful person whom she was in love with, so it would be perfectly safe.

In the end it turned out that "B5" really was a fraud, but -- thank heavens! -- wasn't interested in stealing our credit cards. But the event was a turning point. She had done worse things before, and would do worse things after. But somehow this event, small though it was, made me realize that nothing I said was ever going to matter. And so it was the beginning of the end.

Mostly I have kept pretty quiet about the things that went on at home while I was married to Wife, and I'm not trying to dump garbage in your laps today. But since I asked her please not to ask to come to Christmas again, or any other holiday, I wanted to be sure you knew I had done so. Then in the interests of transparency I decided to send you the same letter I sent her. And then I realized that I had better attach this cover letter because otherwise you wouldn't know what I was talking about.

In other words, it's not my plan to start complaining about all the bad things that are securely in the past by now. I consider this to be an exception.

And of course -- as I say in the letter to Wife as well -- if you enjoy her company and want to spend time with her outside of family events, by all means feel free to do as you like.

If you think I'm wrong about any of this, I should probably understand why so please drop me a note.


Thank you,
Hosea

And I have spent the rest of the day on tenterhooks.

I have gotten no reply from anybody yet. But I worry that sending these will prove to have been a catastrophically bad idea. I guess I'll find out.