You are first
Dear Janice
I want to let this letter form as a testament to how I feel about you, our situation, and our future. From the moment I laid eyes on you, time slowed down, my world shifted, my heart skipped a beat and I knew then and there that you were the one for me. You were the earth angel sent from above, radiating my eyes with magical light from behind and bursting my ears in angelic choral hymns. It was a pivotal feeling meeting who you knew would be the love in your life. 23 years later, that feeling hasn’t waned.
If you will allow me a moment, I would like to declare this so you will know, no matter how many times you try to convince yourself otherwise, that this is my true sentiment from my heart. You are to me, my best friend, my partner in everything, and the love of my life. You are the one I want to continue spending that life with and nothing has dissuaded the love I still hold for you. From me, it is as natural as the love I have for Quinito. It is romantic love, it is life partner love, it is best friend love, it is family love, it is human love. You are more to me than what you think I feel for you. You and Quinito are my prime family. You are my number one and I would like to repeat that over and over.
I am aware that the things I may say will bristle in you memories that contradict what I am saying. I acknowledge your memories, they are valid, I will not gaslight and I put them in the pot of our life together. I ask that for every negative memory you can remember that you also try to recall one of the positive ones. That you remember the moments in between that also constituted our daily life when I would tell you how much I love you, when I would hug you from behind and tell you how much I appreciated you, my I love you gifts, the tears we cried when we had to separate, the times we would look forward to chatting with each other after a long day, our weekend dates, our movie nights, the times I would try to surprise you and more often than not fail because you are too smart and observant, everytime I said “yes my darling” and so much more. The story of our life together when I look back has been one filled with a sum of more joy and friendship; love; laughter; going out together; talking about nothing and everything together; traveling together; walking hand-in-hand together and supporting each other than it is about the differences that brought us here. We have been together for all of our adult lives, through poor and rich, sickness and in health, better and now worse. The memories of what we really are is the anchor to why I feel so tragic about what is happening to us and have a hard time letting go. I feel we get along more naturally than not. I feel that the path we are headed toward is anti-universe and is against the natural and genuine order of how we are meant to be. RJ has not stood for Ramoncito Jose for a long time. It has stood for Ramoncito Janice.
I have failed you in many aspects and I have not lived up to the expectations of the standard how much my love for you should promise. Every night I think and I sink. I am unable to escape from the pain of having lost you, what I have done to perpetuate it and all the actions I should have done to prevent it. You are my number one and I should have always shown you that. You are my number one and I should have always made you feel that. Of all the things I have done in my life, there is nothing more I will regret than losing you. I regret that I didn’t defend you the day before our wedding, I regret that I made you feel betrayed when I didn’t bear the weight of the decision with you not to house my dad, I regret that I didn’t split holidays with you, I regret that I unconsciously made you feel my biological family was more important than you. I am to the depths of my soul very very very very very sorry for everything I have done in our time together that made you feel like you were second. I’m not going to try to defend myself, I just want you to know that you truly were never second in my heart. If I could go back in time to do it all over again I would do things very differently. I wish I could so I could prove that to you.
"Believe in the Jagged Path. We don't always do the right thing on the way to rightness
Alexa Young, CA
I don’t blame you that you don’t trust me. How could you trust me with everything that I have shown you in the past? There was a quote I read, “Believe in the jagged path. We don’t always do the right thing on the way to rightness.” I made key mistakes with you in my attempts to do what I thought was right that I wholeheartedly regret. My path was jagged but it has led me to rightness. Your rightness. The world is rife with stories of crises that knocked people off their feet that ignited the spark of their revolution. Bruce Wayne changed and became Batman after the murder of his parents, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple for his bad behavior but reformed and used the lessons he learned to return and make Apple the most profitable company in the world, my dad turned his life around when he hit rock bottom with drugs. Mine is this. I have seen the ghost of the future and have woken up. I have every reason NEVER to go back to my old ways and fail you again.
You may also ask yourself what’s different now than before? Well, everything really. I look inside myself and I see a completely different landscape. Every dark space is a regret that makes me want to do better. Every door I open is a happy memory with you I want to continue. Every chair I sit is a throne with you on it. Every statue is you. I wish I could have a magic key that lets you into my head and heart for you to see how true it is. Change does not come without an impetus for it and the thought of losing you, seeing how much pain you’ve endured coming out and transforming the way we were, it really triggered something deep inside that will last. You are worth transforming for and even without a guarantee it’ll make a difference in our outcome, I already have. An omelet is not made without breaking the shell of an egg. The shell does not break without enough force. The egg will remain an egg until that force is applied. My shell was built from birth over years before we were ever together and it took as long as to break through as it took to be made. I’m deeply sorry that it took this much time and effort. I’m serious about doing anything I can to ensure that the freedom from pain and anxiety that you’ve enjoyed from the thought of separating can also be had without us having to separate. I will be devoted to making sure you never feel what you’ve felt again.
The husband you need
Everything I am writing are truths I have been feeling for some time but have had no way of convincingly conveying it to you concretely without being believed. We kept digressing into the why’s and minute details of the past instead of focusing on what really matters. Are they sorry? Did that person learn? Will they repent? Will they improve? When somebody reforms and spends the rest of their life doing good and making up for the past mistakes, dwelling on the details of the past and that it happened shouldn’t matter anymore. We leave it there to form as the backstory and launching pad to get the person to where they need to be in the present in order to make the future better.
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I am sorry
2
I repent with all my heart
3
I have learned the lesson of a lifetime
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I have improved
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I have reformed
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I am the person you need me to be
I don’t know if you’ve noticed the extent to which I have been putting effort into reinventing myself, to turning over a new leaf. You think that that what you’ve seen so far is all I am and I’ll ever be. Like Dao Ming Si, whose stripes were set in the beginning and who played the role that everyone expected him to play, he was able to overcome and show Shan Cai he was different and could be different.
I do not like the RJ that failed to live up to your expectations.
I do not like the RJ that had the little and big habits that made you irritated.
I do not like the RJ who thought more about what’s right for everyone instead of what’s right for you.
I have killed the old RJ who didn’t put you and your thoughts first. I am a new RJ at the core who puts Janice first and who will make you feel as secure in our relationship as you deserve to be. I hope you have noticed how much more consistently responsible I’ve been. My YOU FIRST philosophy has embedded itself in our lives with food choice, lifestyle choice, respecting your boundaries, and respecting your choices. These changes in myself will not be temporary. It will not last until supplies run out. Whatever happens to us, the large and small changes I make to myself are permanent. I feel it in bones that they are.
I have been praying daily to God, Jesus and Mama Mary for advice and guidance. I have been praying very hard for our family and for you. The answers are whispers in my heart asking me to prove with action how much you mean to me. Prove with action how much I am sorry. Prove with action how much I’ve changed. So came this letter and this action that was implanted into my mind. In my acceptance of how things are happening, I did not purposely think of a plan to try to win you back. It came to me in prayer as a drop into consciousness followed with a deep push in my heart that felt like a washing of light and so I am taking it as divine will or the will of the universe that I will put into action. If you still have a trust in my feelings, then this is a feeling I have to follow.
My original vows to you were to “ love and honor, cherish and obey,
to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”
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My new vow will be to always put you first above EVERYONE.
Nothing happens without your agreement and its implications and inconvenience on you being considered. If there is any inconvenience then we do things your way. Even if there are disagreements with my biological family, you come first. I will never cross or mix boundaries between you and my biological family again. You will be cherished and made to feel valued and important every day. Not 50 weeks and 2 weeks. Every day of that 52 weeks. You will be free to live saddled without any expectations.
02
My new vow will be that I will plan outings and vacations yearly and enjoy life with you without obstacles.
I will go out every weekend with you happily and not be a homebody. I will no longer be complacent or lazy. I will plan regular outings and fancy outings that give you reasons to want to dress up and feel like your old self. Holidays will be time with you and Quinito.
03
Quality feelings of your validation, self-respect, security, physical and mental wellbeing will be my utmost priority.
More than words is what I have to do to make it real.
To show these are more than just words, I am creating this testament to you. I answer the call from the Universe to prove to you my worth and be an instrument of action to the thought implanted in my prayer. I am doing this as proof of my seriousness and a sign to you that I am backing up my words with real action. I know you no longer believe when I just say things. I hope this action could portend as a sign of how intensely committed I am to changing myself for the better, how important you are to me and how much I want our family to be healed. I should have listened to my gut last November when I said I wouldn’t go. You said it wouldn’t matter if I stayed but it did. I should have showed you that you were my number one then and ignored all the external factors pressing the opposite. I am listening to my gut now. And when put to the test I won’t fail you again.
It's about you
Please do not feel pressured as I am not forcing anything on you. The only thing I do know is that we have one life to live and I want to seize this moment and prove I want to live it with you as a renewed RJ. You are the most important person. You are number ONE. You, you, you. And I want you to believe I’m more than words, that I’m here for you, I’m renewed, I’m enlightened and you are first. I will go anywhere in the world for you, I will put forth much with no expectation of a return, I will drop everything and do the unforeseen if only it means you get to see that you are my family.
I want to give you a future of devotion, love, being valued, companionship, partnership, security, mutual respect, fun, enjoying life, going out regularly, discovery, FAMILY (you, me and Quinito) I promise I will provide that. Without interference from my biological family, without any crossing of boundaries, with YOU at the center of everything I do. I have already experienced what it’s like to be without you, to be on the opposite side of your wrath and much worse… your apathy and indifference, and I absolutely positively to the infinitieth power hate it. You can trust this to be true because being without you is a living gut-wrenching hell I don’t EVER EVER want to be in again. I got burned with fire when I touched a hot stove and have been averse to cooking ever since. Imagine actually living in hellfire and getting cooked to your core. If you can’t trust it just by me saying it, if you can’t trust that I love you so much I have changed and want to become a better version of myself, then trust that I am so naturally opposed to feeling this again that it will drive my desire to keep making my promises come true over and over again for life.
I recognize the journey you’ve had to travel to get to where you are now. You were broken and are feeling the empowerment of taking back control of directing your life back to happiness and self-fulfillment. Please realize I also don’t want to go back to the exact way things were in the past! My plea and actions are not meant to diminish the results of your journey. Rather I intend to honor it because I don’t expect you to revert back and be the same unhappy person you were. I see you as a Wonder Woman, an undenyingly beautiful, intelligent, strong willed, knows-what-she-wants, take no more BS Amazon Warrior who has grown from the please-everybody person she was before. I desire to complement your strength and fulfill the expectations you have about being treated without holding you back or controlling you. This will be an underlying tenet behind my Janice First philosophy. The only difference between our desires is that I would like to be able to continue being by your side supporting you doing things that make you happy and feeling secured. To have the privilege of continuing enjoying your companionship and earning your love will be the only reward I value for the lifetime of devotion and service I pledge.
I promise on everything I hold dear the cycle of the past will stop and a last chance won’t be a u-turn. I hope you can see that diverting course does not mean going backwards in your life and journey. It is moving forward with fundamental changes to our life together that will still meet what you envision for yourself. I see you, me and Quinito. Quinito continuing to grow up into the best possible version of himself, nestled inside his family of a mother and father dedicated to loving him and each other in the same manner we had known. I see your contentment and fulfillment, growing more secure inside the kind of family you've always wanted us to be. I see myself with you and Quinito completely happy and thankful because there is no place and no one I would rather be with. I've reflected on why you feel the way you do and why you feel our separation is the only recourse. I won’t force you to and cannot convince you to love me although I believe it can grow if the foundations are understood as well as they are now. But with this letter, there are a few misconceptions I don’t want you to carry with you:
- The mistrust in my ability to change for you
- the lack of depth and intensity of love I really have for you,
- how unimportant you always really were in my life,
- and your secondary placement in my heart and mind.
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I am not forcing change on you. Before we continue on this path, I just want you to know where I am at and who I am now. I have divorced from the old RJ so that you don't have to. You wouldn't be leaving the old me, but the new one. I hope I am able to prove to you that you CAN trust me. On my life you can. However, if you still feel that the scars of the past are too difficult to let go of , if you've hardened yourself to where there is no part of you left that wants to believe even with a new me and a reality of a brighter future built on a renewed foundation, I will continue to sadly accept your choice and will walk the last mile alongside you. You are on your journey to self-discovery and how I wish I could continue to be by your side growing with you. I have no expectation of an outcome from this. I will continue to be the best friend within boundaries I can be to you. That hasn’t changed and won’t change whatever the outcome of this is. Our remaining friendship is very important to me and I don’t want to lose that. In my heart I will know I did everything I could to convey how much you mean to me, how serious I will value and protect your trust, and that I have changed in an unequivocal way that goes beyond words. Our uncontentious separation will be the last I love you gift proving my words how you come first that I can give.
I will very much miss you. The big things and the little things that have enriched my life every day without you realizing. I will miss your laugh, the way it starts as as a strong “Ha! Ha!”, transforms into a squeak as you gasp for breath and tapers into a girlish giggle. I will most certainly miss the smells of your perfumes that trigger the different ages we have been together and the scent of your hair after you take a shower. I will miss your voice, the singsongy melody that killed a Mynah but carries my heart through the day, brightening it up in the morning like a morning lark’s tune and setting my mind at ease at night as a soothing lullaby. I will miss your sophistication, how you educate my mind about things like music, fashion, brands, commerce, culture, common life things you know that I would never have without you. I will miss your beauty and how you spend over an hour inside the bathroom with music filling the room emerging from it as a new deity daily. I will also recently miss your toes and the excitement around what color your feet are going to be. You are the only person in existence that can carry painted toenails with me. I will miss your quirks that make you uniquely you. I will miss everything about you sooo much. Our story had a very auspicious beginning. The tale from my point of view was a life I would do all over again with you (with a redo of everything I did wrong to make it right) and the ending I hope is something we can make to be at least bittersweet. Years from now if the pain of our ending has set itself in our wrinkles, I hope you can look back fondly on me and the time we had with each other.
