(NOTE: I found this post in my drafts folder, it’s actually a couple of years old; apparently never published it. In it, I say I don’t care what she thinks, but then I wrote all these words, so I guess I did! Sometimes I’m full of shit, yo.)

In which my ex’s girlfriend posted a picture on Instagram of the deck on my old house, finally FINISHED, after all these years! It looks fantastic!

Dear my ex-husband’s girlfriend,

Thank you for your inexplicably bitchy comment on social media. You appear to misunderstand “snark.”

Having had no meaningful interaction with you (beyond clicking the occasional Like button, or sending you Christmas cards) for the past ten years, your apparent rage — coming, as it did, out of absolutely nowhere — rather upset me and hurt my feelings, as you and I were good friends the last time I saw you.

I’m guessing that you’re mad because I used a picture you took, in one of my many stupid blog posts about my stupid feels about my stupid marriage? This picture-stealing happened, according to my archives, seven years ago. (It took half an hour of paging through old posts to even find the post you were probably talking about.)

Apparently you tried to communicate your anger at the time by unfollowing me on social media, I think? I’m sorry to say that I didn’t even notice that you were “done” with me, because, seriously, who pays that much attention to their ex-husband’s girlfriend’s sporadically-maintained Instagram account?

Technically, I did not “steal” your image. You’d posted your images publicly, on Facebook, on the internet, where anybody on earth could see, use, download, or link to them. I’m sorry it made you mad that I used one, but I didn’t even think about it, really. I mean, nobody even reads my blog but Stanley and my parents anyway. Plus, it was a picture of my house.

Yes, my house. I borrowed down payment money from my family, I sat in a lawyer’s office and signed the mortgage, and I struggled to pay for the place for years.

Your boyfriend, my lawfully wedded husband at the time, was nearly in tears, all those years ago, when he asked me to sign the quit claim deed relinquishing my rights to the property. He told me he was afraid our creditors would take out liens. Since all of our debt was in my name (because he didn’t pay taxes, and had no credit), his logic was that if my name wasn’t on the property it would be safe from bill collectors.

In return for signing the quit claim deed, he gave me his word that he will buy me out as soon as he can, or if he ever sells. He assured me of this on several occasions.

Well, I’m not an idiot. I know he doesn’t keep his word, and I never expect to see a penny for either the property or all the bills I paid off. But morally, if not legally, I’m still, even now, part-owner of that farm* because your boyfriend never paid me back any of the money I put into it. (And I never bothered to sue him because, wow, I’m not a dick. Plus he didn’t have anything to sue for, anyway.)

No, I don’t want anything to do with the place, not in any way, so don’t have kittens; I’m just explaining why I might have felt I had the right to harmlessly blog about “your” house: because at the time, it was far more my house than yours. I was still paying off the goddamned bills!

Which is to say, fuck you for being offended about your publicly-posted, low-res image of my old house.

And if it wasn’t the picture that made you mad as much as the content of the post, well, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t said before, and in retrospect what was said was actually very gentle. You’d already known what I’d thought and felt about my marriage, because I told you to your face, over the course of a couple of years, one of which you and I spent living together. So, if you’re butthurt about the content of the post, well, that has absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with your own life choices—honestly, I have no idea why you decided to take up with a man you didn’t even like and frequently referred to as “an asshole,” but you did, and hey, I genuinely wish you the very best. (I literally predicted you two would end up together, after all, so it’s not like I have any hard feelings about your relationship.)

I’m stoked for you that your porch is done and you can finally enjoy it! I honestly hope the whole place is awesome, and I certainly don’t wish for you to be living in the rotting, condemnable shithole it was when I moved out.

And as for the porch itself: I looked it up, and he started the porch in 2006. It therefore took eleven years to complete, and, if I understood your posts correctly, you basically had to finish it yourself. I’d be mad, too, if I’d lived in a house with an under-construction porch for as many years as you have!

But I’d be mad at the person who kept not finishing the fucking porch, not the person who left town years ago and who likes you and who was merely commiserating with you on Instagram. Most porches and decks take a weekend or two at most, maybe a month if they’re elaborate: yours took eleven years. This is what is called a fact, not “snark.”

Anyway, I deleted my “calm your tits, the porch looks great & congrats” reply, and quit following your account because, while I’m clearly more than happy to type out a meandering blog post well after the fact, I really don’t think there’s any point in engaging with you directly as you’ve apparently been turned into a bit of an asshole by proximity to my ex. (I struggled with being an asshole, too, when I was with him, because he talks shit about everybody, and, in general, is a pretty miserable, negative influence to be around. Seems like he’s still fairly lazy, too.)

You and I used to be very good friends. I have never wronged you, ever, and if you believe that I have, it’s because you’ve allowed him to fill your head with bullshit over the years. In short, your anger towards me is bizarre, your lecture was completely out of line, and your apparently earnest threat to be “done” with me “again” is laughable.

Because, dear girl, I don’t give a fuck if you like me or not. It’s been a decade, so if anybody needs to “get over their shit,” I’m guessing it’s actually, well, you?

Anyway, have a nice day. Maybe go sit out, on your awesome porch!

Love,
m.

P.S. Oh, and I’ll take you off my Christmas card list, now that I know you dislike me.

—

* This is hyperbole in the service of making an emotional point, of course, because the last I knew, a friend had bought the contract for my ex when the prior owners decided to sue him. (If he hasn’t paid off that debt, which I would not be surprised to learn he hasn’t, well, not only do I not have a legal stake in the property, but neither does your boyfriend. Or you, for that matter.) (But, on consideration, you’re actually really responsible, so maybe you’re paying off that contract. You really should, if you want any equity in all that remodel work.)