Statute of Limitations

When is it too late to finally write about all the shit that's kept you up at night for roughly a decade? Asking for a friend.

JKJKJK - I’m the friend. It’s me. I’m asking for myself. This is all about me. That was just a clever ruse to reel you in to…whatever this is…this SubStack…this Unwed Mother.

Unwed Mother. That’s what I’m going with, I guess. A name that’s both a nod to John Prine and an accurate, if not a bit harsh, description of myself. I am both single and the mother of two kids. I am also an absolute fucking nerd when it comes to anything related to history and/or genealogy, a total asshole when it comes to music - I know everything about everything I love and I don’t want to hear about anything that’s not included in that, and a people-pleaser to the point of self-sabotage. I couldn’t find a Prine song that encapsulated all of these traits, though, so I just went with the single mom part.

It’s both extensively complicated and fairly straightforward as to how I became this statistic. I’ll get into all of that in due time, of course, but for now, I’ll go ahead and spoil some of the story by letting you know that the unwed father in this situation cheated on me, like a lot, with the woman who lived across the street. She is roughly my mother’s age, and she was the one who “officially” ratted him out via a cruel, meant-to-hurt-me email. That email set into motion my rapid escape from what was an absolute hellish existence, and led me into the less hellish but still heavy-hearted existence that I’ve been wading through ever since.

I never responded to her email. I never confronted her about anything that transpired over the next year or so. I sat with the pain and the hurt for a very long time - in fact, they still sit with me now, eight odd years later, but at least now they are a little bit quieter.

I did do one cathartic act for myself back then, though. I wrote a letter about two months after the unwed father’s mistress’s initial correspondence, but I never sent it. I had no desire to engage in the immature games both she and he were playing, no desire to create more drama. I had babies to take care of, and thank god for that. If I’d sent that letter, I’d have been no better than either of them.

I did save it, though, and I’ve copied and pasted it below, because fuck it, who cares anymore?

Dearest S,

I’ve composed this letter to you about a thousand times in my head since I received your sweet email on April 20th. First and foremost, I need to thank you for “clearing things up” (super clever email subject, by the way!). Thank you for the consideration of my feelings, which clearly went into your poorly composed, typo-ridden, and grammatically incorrect message. For a 58-year-old woman, you’re awfully sloppy when it comes to writing. Spellcheck and attention to detail must have skipped your generation.

So, there are several things I need to get off my chest, as you can imagine. I’ll start with the basics and what is probably the most obvious. Right off the bat, I need to say that I think you’re disgusting. I think you’re pathetic. I think you have a lot of money and you’re probably good in bed – two things unwed father loves – but my hunch is that you lack a lot of rudimentary human qualities. You know, silly things like empathy, compassion, and kindness. I also think that you took a great deal of pride in the destruction of my family. I think that it never once bothered you that your actions would inevitably destroy the world of my beautiful V. Thankfully, my sweet baby, L, is too young to know what’s going on. You remember L, right? The one born on November 3rd, the date you specifically mentioned at the opening of your email? Implying that you and unwed father fucked in the hospital parking lot while I was in labor? That was a particularly heartless move on your part. Well played, you miserable fucking cunt, well played.

I won’t lie and write that I am not hurt by what the two of you have done to me and my children. I’m devastated, but probably not for the reasons you assume. I’m not devastated that you two were sleeping together – it didn’t take a rocket scientist to put those puzzle pieces together. What pisses me off is that, according to your timeline, you two pieces of shit have been fucking for two years, which means that it all began after the birth of our first daughter. This fact devastated me. I will be the first to admit that becoming a mother drastically changed who I am, but I like to think it changed me for the better. I’m sure the version unwed father gave you was that it changed me for the worse. I had less time for him, I was moody (as a hormonal new mother is inclined to be), and I most definitely wasn’t in the mood for sex all the time. The poor fella had no choice but to come running into your open arms and spread legs! I’m sure you gave him all the head and meaningless sex I was too tired to give. Thank you for your valiant efforts to make unwed father feel like a man when he should have been behaving like a father.

The other fact that makes me sick every time I think about it is that this relationship continued throughout the entirety of my second pregnancy. Those nights that unwed father would take off to ride that stupid fucking bike at 7 or 8 and not come back until 2 or 3 am, he was really fucking you. Those nights that unwed father would get drunk verbally tear me apart in front of our baby girl, call me names, hit me, and leave me in hysterics to care for our child alone while also heavily pregnant with our next, he was really fucking you. And you knew it. And you didn’t care. As a woman and a mother, you did not care that you were playing a key role in an act so vile.

I am very much aware that I am nothing but a joke to you, and that’s fine. My children, however, are not a joke. They are smart, they are sweet, they are beautiful little girls with big, beautiful hearts. They are kind and compassionate and good. At the ages of 2 years and 7 months, they are each already a better person than you will ever be. That is something that you can never take away from me. Enjoy unwed father. Fuck him every day and foot the bill for him and buy into all his bullshit sob stories until the end of time, I don’t care. I don’t care because I got the two best pieces of him. You get the mess that’s left over.

You’re a horrible person. Go fuck yourself.

xoxoxo Nikki

Nothing good would have come from sending that letter to her at the time, and I guess it’s too late now, but it came in handy to have these words to read during those moments when the rage felt all-consuming.

Anyway, I’m going to keep at this. Or at least try to. I’ll do my best, or whatever exhausted version of my best I can summon, when I can. Whatever. No one’s going to read this. It will be a collection of letters that I never send, but it will be cathartic nonetheless.