Open Letter to Carrie

She'll never read this. No one she knows will. Except me. This is for me.

Carrie,

I want to forgive you. Right now, I can't. I understand, even if you don't, that you have Borderline Personality Disorder. This started as a child and manifested in your late teen years/early adulthood. You need to be the center of attention. You crave attention and fish for compliments. You always had to be assured that I loved you. You cannot regulate your emotions. One day you love me, one day you don't. One day you hate me. Why? Because you hate yourself some days. You are never satisfied and are bored easily. You are hypersexual one day, non sexual the next. You are prone to cheat since you feel you are entitled to it. You are prone to an overuse of alcohol and prescription drugs for your ailments. You are the damsel in distress who does not want to be saved deep down. Far more comfortable with the chaos than you are the calm. It's what you know. It's what makes you feel alive. Constantly battling the choppy waters, never swimming to shore. Low self esteem and self worth. A lack of identity. You mirror those around you to become what they want or expect you to be. Childlike in your emotions: refusing to talk about them, instead you act on them. Common sense, morals and ethics are just words to you. There is no real remorse. Everything you do or have done is justified. There is no blame for you to take. You hate yourself inside. You have unresolved issues with your parents. Acting them out in your adult relationships instead. This is why you have a Daddy complex. Each man in your life you deem special is your Daddy again in one way or another. It's what you called me. I am sure it is what you call others. You have deep shame inside of you. Depression. Dysmorphic disorder. It comes from this. Borderline with histrionic and narcissistic traits. The constant push/pull with me: pull me close when you need me, push me away when it gets too much. A fear of intimacy. A fear of commitment. No wonder you always said that we could never live together. If I found out how you really were, I would leave you one day. Abandon you. I could not see you like this. No one can. You keep it from everyone. You get your validation, sadly, from men. Flirting, attention, sex. It gives you temporary worth. You love, not like I do, but you love based on need. What or who you need at the time to feel whole. You need to be loved  more than you need to love. You use, manipulate and control to get what you want. Part of you wanted me to control aspects of your life. The other part resented me for it. I saw rage inside of you over small matters. Things that were in the past. Splitting. Everything is black or white with you. Good or evil. There is no middle ground. No grey area. Some days I will be all bad to you. Some days I will be good. Who knows? I know you need to blame me now. It's how you survive.

I understand who you are now.

As far as Vincent goes, of course you ran to him after we broke up. I have a strong feeling you ran to him when you felt neglected by me. If you felt like I did not love you or was going to end up leaving you one day. You feel you are entitled to happiness. To the sex and attention he gives you. To the material things he buys for you. Jimmy Choo shoes, purses, jewelry, even landscaping and sprinklers. Money left on your nightstand or handed to you when you are upset. It just makes me think of you as a whore. He is unobtainable to you. Safe. He will not leave his wife for good. He does not have to scare you by loving you so much. There is no big commitment from him. There can be none from you. It is a safe situation for your psyche. I feel bad for the next guy. Vincent will always be there in an inappropriate capacity. No wonder I was never allowed to come to a company Christmas party. No wonder I was left out and lied to about the Venetian Room dinners. I am sure there was no picture of us in your office. You can't go on disrupting your relationship with Vincent (or at least the possibility of one). Or when you need him. You actually let this man, a former lover, whose picture you kept in a heart frame, in your house when I was not there to "fix something." How stupid do you think I am? Now that I know the truth anyway. You lied to me about who he was for five years. You lied about so much. Even when I caught you at the end, you lied. And lied again. And again until finally admitting to it. You railed against your ex husband for cheating on you. But, you cheated on every man you have been with long term, including me I'm sure. You hated the woman he cheated with. But, you are the other woman in your boss' marriage. You used to criticize those who cheated, saying it was the worst thing you could do in a r/s. That the women your boss was with were sluts and whores. Well, looks like you are the biggest hypocrite I have ever known. Congratulations. And did you show remorse to me? No. You said you were sorry I got hurt. That was it. Justified everything else though. And now, I am the one to blame for all of this. I deserved this in your eyes. You will convince yourself, and others of this. It's how you'll sleep at night. It's how you survive.

I didn't deserve this. I loved you. I took care of you. I encouraged you. I thought you beautiful inside and out and told you all the time. It did not matter to me if you were 150 lbs. or 115 lbs. I made you the center of my art. Was I perfect? Far from it. I have control issues. I have codependent issues. But, I did not deserve this. No one does. I do not want you in my life. This is why I told you repeatedly that I wanted no contact. You have broken this a number of times in different ways. You have tried to make me jealous, angry. I told you I would never take you back. Ever. There is no trust anymore. I cannot look at you the same way again. You got flirty with me. Nope. Not even for one night. It's over. I loved you so much. I placed you on a pedestal and put your needs above my own all the time. A baby? Well, if you had one serious conversation with me about it, I would be all for it. I said this in the past. But you have changed your mind so many times. You started dropping hints and making jokes. I made jokes back. It's what we did all the time with everything. You wanted to do this since you got depressed again. It was not the best time for that decision. Not with all the pills and lack of therapy. You want to fill this void inside you. You constantly search for something to fill that void you have had since childhood. A marriage. A baby. A man to make you happy. It cannot ever happen until you are happy with yourself. You seek an identity. You don't know who you are but think that this new subsumed identity (you, me and baby) will make you happy. And you hate me for not giving this to you. You will come to hate me for many reasons. You told me once, early on, to run away from you. You told me on numerous occasions that you were nuts and unstable. That you could never be the gf that I deserved. I should have listened. You should have let me go those many times instead of begging me back. You did not want to be alone. Your needs. At the end of the day, that is what mattered most. It is what will matter most for the rest of your life.

This letter will never be sent. It will fall on deaf ears. You will not believe any of this. I know this to be true. A counselor, a psych professor, a colleague and myself all came to the same exact conclusion separately. Borderline issues. You say you want to get therapy but I do not believe that to be true. I think you only told me that so you can test the waters. See if I was receptive to taking you back one day. I am not. You will continue to be in denial for many years to come. Maybe the rest of your life. The important thing for me is to worry about myself and Emily. To become a better person and father from all of this. To find that happiness inside of me without relying on someone else to provide it or bring it out. One day I know I will forgive you. One day.

Al