An Open Letter To My Friend’s Soon To Be Ex-Husband

I wish you could understand how much your children still learn from you, despite the fact that you don’t see them every day.

I wish that you could understand that while gaslighting may have worked on their mother for a while as she was trying to come to terms with the fact that not only was her marriage ending, but that you had been carrying on an affair for years and lying about it, the kids see right through you. Your smarmy charisma may charm court appointed staff, to the point where they allow you to break procedural rules, but your charm is meaningless to your kids. After the last several years, your kids have come to understand that you wanting to be with them is less about wanting to be a dad, and more about making their mom’s life complicated.

But what I really want you do to is to start preparing for how you’re going to handle it when your daughter comes to you and tells you that she was raped or sexually assaulted. I want you to know that when that day comes that you are partially responsible for what happened. What you have done over the last several years is model that you believe that women are inferior and that men are superior. You have taught her that she has no agency. She has learned that despite the fact that her therapist, her attorney and the judge have said that she has the right to decide if she wants to visit you or not, that your temper tantrums and manipulations when she chooses not to are not worth it, and that it is just easier to give in than for her to stand her ground to choose what is best for her. Given all this, how can you expect her to know that she has the right to say “No” when a man wants something from her.

And for all those people out there that this letter isn’t specifically addressed to, think about what behavior you’re modeling for the children that may be in your life. When you call a woman a bitch for doing something you don’t like, how do your daughters internalize that? Your sons?