To the woman who is dating my ex-husband,

You probably don’t know this, but you are the best thing that ever happened to me.

And if someday you get curious about me - the woman who was married to your boyfriend when you started dating him - my guess is that you will probably stumble across this blog along the way. And if you just read the rest of these ramblings, you probably won’t get the full picture of how thankful I am for you. So that is the first reason this letter exists.

The second reason this letter exists is because I have spent entirely too much time thinking about what I might say to you, if I ever had the opportunity. We both live in LA, a town that basically coined the phrase it’s a small world after all, so I’m not going to doubt the fact that it will happen at some point. I’m just guessing that if/when that does happen, it won’t be in an appropriate context to say everything I think I want to say. So here goes.  

I felt a lot of shame, for a long time, about my divorce, about how it happened, about the details. The details that involve you. I guess I just want you to know that I don’t feel ashamed anymore. We all make shitty decisions sometimes; I won’t hold that against you. To be completely honest, you were the catalyst that finally released me from what had become and extremely disappointing and damaging relationship. Who knows how many more years we would have tried to tough it out? And because you are you, and because you exist, and because my husband decided he would rather date you than try to figure things out with me, I get to live this incredible life. So when I say that you are the best thing that ever happened to me, I mean it. I’m not saying that with malice, or sarcasm, or bitterness. I could not be more sincere. (This is also why I did not write this letter 6 months ago.)

For the record, I do hope you get the better version of him. I hope you two are a better match. I hope he decides he wants to grow-up for you. I hope you fully love and appreciate his family. I hope you have similar political beliefs and the same ideas about money. I hope you enjoy watching sports and “being young” on weekends. I hope he decides you are too precious to risk driving drunk while you are in the car. I hope he found the person he can love more than he loves his job. I hope you help make him the better person I know he wants to be. I hope you both know that I’ve forgiven you, that I’m thankful for you, and that I’m oh-so-happy now.

I hope that if we ever do cross paths that we can both be honest and admit the pain that has been caused and maybe wish it had all happened differently, but appreciate where we are now. That’s the kind of life I want to live, and that’s the kind of life I wish for you.

I hope we can do those things.

- A