Hey asshole,

so lets see.

i have had to shift cities 4 times in 2 years because of you. i gave up my job, my life, my family for you, only to be met with unwelcome hostility, lack of enthusiasm about starting our life together, entire nights within the first week of our marriage which you spent out with your friends without me, entire days where you ignored me because you wanted to play playstation. you then proceeded to beat me and alienate me from your family. there were also instances in the middle where you didn’t let me enter the room (as if you were an angst ridden teen and i was your mother) when your friends were in there because you didn’t want me around because “you guys couldn’t talk while i was there”

then of course you never gave me any money, even after you encouraged me to quit my job so i had no funds of my own. you spent all my savings, didn’t leave me money for even water or food, and spent entire days at work without a care in the world. then of course you got jealous when i took money from my parents and started socializing with my own friends. you broke my phone, dragged me out of the house in my pajamas and proceeded to beat me again.

and i still get back together with you! after i come back, you don’t bother apologizing for anything, your sister leaves me locked out of the house for 2 hours because she has “errands to run”, doesn’t let me use the driver to go the Emergency room when my foot is swollen to the size of a football, and then proceeds to bully me in every way from not letting me use my own groceries to not letting me use the kitchen fridge for my own food. and you defend her every step of the way, tell your parents a whole lot of private shit that you shouldn’t have, and then proceed to humiliate my parents by heaping my issues in front of them without consdering any of your injustices.

you agree to a separation, then proceed to cuddle with me and try to have sex with me the same night.

your sister steals my laptop and debit card and you say nothing.

you misplace your watch and call me a robber and a whore when i find it for you.

you lock up the house so i can’t get to the kitchen to pack my things, pull a gun out and shoot holes in my painting collection.

i have to tell all the people at work and my friends and move to a different city, start living with my parents, see a therapist, endure endless discussions on marriage and men, all without knowing if we are using this separation to get over each other or to try to find the best solution to work it out. all the while you ignore all my attempts to talk about where we are or what we’re supposed to do, telling me you hate me and are not interested in talking to me. you tell me “please don’t contact me again”, and whine and complain about me to my dad (“she’s sending me emails, tell her to stop”, “she’s writing about me in her blog, tell her to stop”, “she’s sms-ing me tell her to stop”)

then i have to eventually make a trip to Karachi, stay without a car or an ATM card at my poor sisters house, and then quit my job and move back.

then, two months later of “not being interested in reconciliation or therapy”, it dawns on your stupid selfish head that we’re still fucking married. you start sms-ing me, trying to discuss the situation (with a lot of childish rejoinders like “i hate you” “you’re still so annoying” thrown in) basically suddenly feeling the absense of having someone to talk to, and the only way you can contact me is by trying to be as hurtful as possible in some kind of sick way to talk to me, yet at the same time communicate your hate. then the brilliantly eloquent sms – saying something badly worded and totally misspelt to the tune of “i miss you in my bed”

THEN

the cherry on all this

you call me yesterday at 1:00 am, tell me you’re coming next week, and i need to drop everything because you, lord and master, has decided to grace this city with your presence. for work! not even for a trip here. you’ll basically are deigning to talk to me about the marriage .. and why? because “you don’t want a paper marriage. you hate me, you don’t want me near your family and you don’t think it will ever work out between us”.

so you want to have sex because you’re horny, and you can’t do it with me, so you need to start the divorce proceedings because you want to jump into another marriage.

ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!?

IS THE WORLD FUCKING CRAZY!? WHY CAN’T THEY SEE YOU’RE INSANE?!?

Thursday night

Dear Z

It’s so sad that you felt the need to forward my emails to my dad. How lame are you. I cringe to think I know you, let alone married you.

But it’s now (a little) amusing as well. With every childish maneuver, with every tattle, with every complaint about my behavior my father is slowly understanding what you are – a tiny vacuous small minded petty criminal. He cannot believe that you – while being so wrong – can cling to the illusion that you are right. He is still (as I was) waiting for you to come to your senses and realize how stupidly you are acting. I stand in the shadows and let you weave your magic, and my father too will eventually realize how pathetic you truly are.

Good luck with whatever you will do. I am so terribly glad that awful spell I was under is over. Self esteem back, I forge ahead to the much greater life that I have always led.

Lots of affection, still a little bit of love, and a lot of indifference,

S

PS: I strongly suggest you bathe your nether regions more often, you’ll get far more sex from your future wife / girl friends. Should you need any more tips (and really – you need a lot –) feel free to come to me.

Tuesday 8 April 2008 12:26:23 AM

Dear Z

I forgive you.

I think.

And S. And your mother.  They were bystanders to our out of control misery.

I love you. We had good times together. I loved how we fit. I loved how we could talk for hours. I loved how nice you were, and I’m sorry I was so miserable I couldn’t appreciate it (it was just concentrating on all the wrong things!). I know you tried, and you tried very hard, and I’m sorry now that my only reaction was to get even more annoyed at you because you completely missed the bigger issues and concentrated on the unimportant things. I – women in general – don’t need solutions and advice and flowers – we need someone to listen. Thats all. Thats all that was missing. You will make some smarter girl who doesn’t work and who will have the energy to deal with men very very happy one day, and I’m really really sorry that girl isn’t me. I’m sorry we couldn’t get past being on mars and venus. If only we had gotten help sooner we would have been saved. I should have known better.

I’m sorry this has all ended. I am sorry you aren’t talking to me. And I’m sorry I hurt you.

I will always have had all my firsts with you. I will always think specially of you. It breaks my heart that this had ended in a way you and I could never have imagined. It breaks my heart because you are more special to me than you think. And I know we would work on it so much differently if we were together again. I would work on it so much more differently. I realize now that at the end of the day, it is the bigger picture that mattered, and the bigger picture was fine.

I love you, and a part of me probably always will. Maybe one day, one day, a long time from now we will be whole again. I will be whole again.

That I will be able to think about this and about you without crying. That I can talk to my therapist without finishing her tissue box. That I can fulfill myself and not rely on someone else to complete me.

Thank you for teaching me so much.

Goodbye.

Monday, April 07, 2008 1:19:59 AM

Dear Z

Hey baby. Work beckons so I’ll be coming back soon. Now if I could just combat my insomnia I would be able to do some damn work.

Anyway. You really need to listen to me – all you need to do is go to a therapist and have a third person explain it to you – we were a textbook first year head case. Really. I’ll send you the book. With highlights so you know which lines to read. Its our arguments in there, word for word thought for thought. If you just start talking to me instead of having this tantrum I can explain it to you. It all makes sense.

If you don’t, my life will go on. It can roll on and I still don’t fucking want that. Why? Have I ever understood anything about us? Have you? Have any of our friends? Have our families?

I sat in the dark with my mother today. The electric was gone and I made it to her room and lay down on a corner of her giant bed.

She asked me what I wanted.

I said I didn’t know. it could go either way.

And then I knew she didn’t want me to stay with you either.

And it broke my heart more than anything else. More than my friends, more than what my own head rants at me, her silence broke me.

Seems to be all I’m doing these days. Falling apart. Putting myself back together to find a missing body part here and there. Lost in the folds of a bed, left in the sheets, fumbled for in the dark. I’ve left such a big chunk back there in you. God knows where you’ve thrown it by now.

I wonder if I’ll stop writing these letters soon. Will this too die out eventually like everything else?

Saturday, April 05, 2008 12:42:00 AM

Dear Z

John Grey PhD says I must remember the love with the pain, experience the pain first hand while concentrating on the love. The pain will disappear. The good feelings will eventually remain. And to think you said books don’t teach you anything about life.

I’m proud of me. Instead of bundling you away into my box, I’m bringing this out. I’m experiencing the damn pain. Sometimes that’s all I feel. And by God does it hurts. Who knew I was capable of all this girly emotion – we both sure didn’t. Maybe it was in there all along and I had locked it too far away and even though you came close I was smart enough to never give you the key – because look, look at where we are.

Look at where you’ve left me.

I can’t get that last morning out of my head. How can everything wrong be so right? How can the one person who has destroyed me inside out be the only person who can put me back together again? I don’t have the energy to do it myself.
I never will.
I can’t live the life Dr Grey says is possible. Its too goddamn sad and lonely. I can’t be sad and lonely any more. I fucking miss you asshole. And I know you’ll never remember this website, so I can say this: take me back. Please. Please. God, please.

Forgive me for whatever the fuck it was I did. I’ll forgive all the beatings and the torture and the mind fuck and your awful sister and you parents who hate me because of how you twisted them over to your side last year. It really means so much that people justify your existence doesn’t it? Just fucking take me back.

Monday, March 31, 2008 1:39:25 AM

Dear Z

So here we are. Alone at last.

I saw a therapist yesterday – well, day before. She was pretty hot. We didn’t really have much time together, and towards the end she checked her watch now and then, but it was pretty helpful. I think she can help me.

I now know what I did wrong. I know now what the world’s image of a wife is: quiet, silent, suffering her duty as she watches her stupid bungling man make a botch of both their lives – but she is also smart. Conniving even. She bears with the stupid man because she must, but does not rely on him for anything. She saves her own money for her own nest egg. She does what she wants and when she wants, but only agrees with the stupid man whenever he asks her of something (he’ll never check if it actually gets done, he just wants her to agree). All insults must be swallowed, all cheeks turned for another slap, all suffering bourne.

For years and years. Till the money comes in and she can shop. Till the kids come in and she can raise them to not be like him. Till he loses interest and gets on with his life and hobbies and she can get on with hers.

That’s a successful marriage.

How stupid I was to expect things of you.

To expect you to want the house and car and savings. To expect you to have the same moral compass. To expect you to know that lying and stealing and hitting was wrong. How stupid of me to give up everything because you loved me and that you swore you would care for me forever. How stupid of me to think you would always be nice to me – even when the going get tough. You didn’t even know the meaning of half the words you swore to me did you? Unconditional love? Ever lasting paramour? Getting old and gray together?

So here I am exchanging sms’s because you don’t answer my phone calls, begging for bits and pieces of the lacs and lacs you owe me. Begging for bits and pieces of myself that I left at our place. Bits of pieces that I will never get back because you gouged them out of me and threw them in the trash.

Is that where all our memories are as well? In the trash? Memories of the good times john grey PhD insists I must fully remember to move on. Memories of lying spooning on the last morning, ignoring the wonderful oasis we made on your half of the bed, as fathers and work called, as the world knew that we had separated and that all hell would break loose and all the hate would culminate. Every day memories to toss out at the end of the day so that hameed would get it in the morning – memories of just sitting and talking and time weirdly passing so quickly. Memories of kissing randomly here and there. Memories of not fitting sideways on the sofa anymore because we both got fat. Memories memories memories. Memories of trash.

Saturday 20 October 7:18 pm

Dear Z

Why do i flatter you by continuing to write to you? i don’t know – love is strange if nothing else. life is even stranger. how can i still be with you? how can i find myself falling in love with you again and again, a little shoot taking root and grabbing hold despite all tendrils against nature. we are more stable post seperation. its like when i came back you started working as hard as i do at this relationship – who knew it could be so hard? hard hard work, terrible tedium and frustration and annoyance. you say you care for me beyond doubt - but does anyone? can we all really see beyond ourselves and give and give and give beyond the point where there is nothing left and we are scared that we will collapse and our empty husks be blown away into great nothingness? i have seen my mother do that – i cannot. i know i cannot. yet.

maybe one day our dreams will come true. maybe one day we will have our giant house, our ungrateful teenaged kids and our twice a year vacations which we go with our giant families. i don’t know if such mountains can be encompassed from such humble black valleys, but at least we can have courtesy and companionship and sex along the way. i love you baby.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006 2:32:46 AM

Dear Z

 

When I picture being married to you, I mentally zoom through the functions (GOD knows how they’ll go – but I’m secretly scared that the valima will be horribly sparse and undecorated because if you’re handling it then we’re screwed because you’re a boy and you hence don’t know anything about décor – plus where will you get time to do beautification of hideous creek club halls?). Anyway. So then we get married and the only clear thing I CAN imagine is the time period we stay back for the dinners and stuff and I get to wear my new clothes and dress up and wear my jewellery (yaay), and then we go freeze on our honeymoon (still seems unlikely we’ll go because you’re so against it) and then we’ll start the drudgery of corporate work. Basically can’t imagine anything but the family post wedding dinners.

What do you think it’ll be like?

Monday, August 14, 2006 7:01:10 PM

Dear Z

I’m furious with you. I’ve lived in constant terror for the last two weeks over you-know-what. I feel my gut clench and spasm with horror as I recall every dizzy spell, the hyperventilating I had at Dubai airport and the constant need to eat meat.

Then I’m furious with you in making your stupid inconsiderate doltish mock serious SPEECH about how “I should take this seriously and it’s not funny”. You bloody idiot, what the hell do you think I DON’T know how serious this is? Will you have to go through ANY trouble at all? Will you be compromised physically, socially, mentally in ANY way? Will you even have to miss a single day’s work or a single night’s sleep over this? Will you have trouble conceiving for the rest of your life because you were stupid adolescent and amateurish in your bloody precious sex drive?

Fuck you and fuck all men.

 

I’m done with trusting you to be the grown up and take care of things. I’m done with it. You get NOTHING done, all your promises are crap. You have failed to deliver on every single thing I have relied on you to take care of. You whine and complain about the stress and the finances, but haven’t compromised either. You don’t buy three hundred rupee phone cards yet pay fifty thousand rupees of your father’s debt. It’s like there are two boats, one with your parents and one with you. You feel the need to help them by cutting holes in your bloody boat and throwing it at them. I know you would love to be the good son, but frankly you’re not in the position to play savior. You yourself and in pathetic amounts of debt for pathetic reasons, you have no game plan to get out of it, and you proudly dig your self deeper in massive strokes while patting yourself on the back for saving three bloody hundred rupees.

Congratulations. I can’t wait to sink in your boat with you. If you can’t control your dick and your finances soon, there’s going to be trouble.

Friday, August 11, 2006 4:51:33 PM

Dear Z

You bastard. You’ve gotten me used to this absolutely unrealistic level of commitment that you made initially by calling me a million times a day and basically worshipping the ground I walk on. Where’s the worshipping now!? It’s downright cruel to do that. EVERYONE knows that the honeymoon period of relationships is unsustainable, so everyone tries to compensate by setting realistic standards. That’s a GROWNUP relationship. And there you go and disregard all these basic norms of common sense and build this up toting it to be forever and then we crash and burn and I end up feeling ignored, used and slightly resentful.

Basically you’re not calling me and I don’t like it. And when you do call, there’s this annoying tone to our conversations that’s dissatisfying and vaguely irritating. Plus its VERY rude to not say goodbye before hanging up.

Anyway. Lahore is in full insect bloom these days. Summer quarter springs unfortunately to memory, with leaving a single plate in a kitchen and having a swarm of a million ants infesting every scrap of edible substance. Of sitting on a bench next to the pond for five minutes with the dorm delivered pizza and picking it up again to find it overrun with black teeming masses from ecological hell. Yuck. All the greenery in Lahore has its downside. On that note I shall depart and carry on with my own life that is slowly strengthening here as I pull away from us.