Adapted from an online discussion.
Dear Carolyn: A few years ago, my first marriage ended on bitter terms. I was at fault: I was cheating and left when my girlfriend, now wife, got pregnant. I regret my actions and wish I’d been a stronger man. But at the time, my first wife and I were both miserable because of a late-term miscarriage, and I needed to feel something other than grief and sadness.
Recently, my sister told me my ex-wife published a novel. I was quite surprised, because she’s a technical writer and never expressed interest in fiction.
It’s a thinly veiled account of our last year together, and I’m very much the villain. I hate that she remembers only the bad times, and I wrote an email to the address in the back of the book expressing my apologies. She wrote back and said that those were only words and that they don’t change anything. Fairly rich coming from a writer, but I just have to live with being the villain of her story forever, correct? Or are there other steps I could and should take?
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— The Villain’s Remorse
The Villain’s Remorse: Like what?
It happened, and her writing about it doesn’t change that. You are living your own life now, with your new wife and child, it sounds like, and your ex’s book doesn’t change that, either.
The only change is that you thought you were through reckoning with your own actions, and having them appear in book form forced you to reckon with them again. That’s it.
If you meant well when you wrote the apology email, then that is what matters: your intent. How your message was received is out of your hands. Now, it is possible from your phrasing that your intent with the apology was to get yourself off the hook and/or make a case for the “good” times, in which case, she probably read through that, which could have led to her determining the apology wasn’t sincere. Any other motives than expressing remorse would do that.
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Whether you meant well or were seeking image rehabilitation, there are still no new actions — steps — for you to take at this point. It’s typical for regrets to come back at us, even after we thought we had dealt with them. So you deal with them again. That’s really it.
Re: Villain: The villain just wants the last word. He thought he had it when he cheated on and deserted his grieving wife, but then she wrote a book. The nerve.
— Anonymous
Anonymous: Especially if the “late-term miscarriage” was a stillbirth. Thanks.
Re: Villain: Am I the only one who wants to know the name of the book?
— Wondering
Wondering: No.
Re: Villain: I was also the “villain” in my marriage ending, so I say this respectfully, but her view of you is part of the consequences of your choices, and you have to learn to make peace with it and move forward. I regret the choices I made, and I, too, had my suffering and reasons, but that didn’t make it any more understandable to my ex-spouse or any less hurtful. My best advice toward achieving peace when you genuinely regret what you’ve done is to learn the lesson and not do that again to someone else.
— Also the “Villain”
Also the “Villain”: Amen, thanks.
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