When women divorce their husbands or break up with their boyfriends, they can talk shit about them as much as they want. When a “normal widow” loses her spouse to something like cancer or a heart attack, you will hear them recalling their husband’s sainthood. Where does that leave me?

The widow who loved her husband. He was a great guy and great dad and the love of my life but oh, yeah…he also decided to jump out of this life when things got hard. Can I hate him? Can I blame him for the pain and wreckage left behind? Or am I supposed to pity him because clearly he was sick with an invisible terminal illness?

This is what I asked my therapist this week after a few solid weeks of solo parenting. Did Erik really think I could navigate the safety net of a family for our kids without grandparents or a father to help me out? I think I have given myself permission to hate him on days like this…

I hate you when I am laying on the cold hard floor of a hospital room because our daughter has appendicitis and an autoimmune disease from the stress of her father dying. She is too sick to have the surgery so we will have to suffer here for a few days before it is safe to operate. I will watch her moan in pain and call the nurse to come help her. But you will not be here to partner with me so I can go home and shower. I cannot go home because she is too sick to leave.

I hate you when our son is consumed with money PTSD about how he will finish college this year. He cannot graduate with his friends because he had to take time off to go through a mental health program to recover from his depression and trauma when you left us. Now he is piecing together a life for himself to finish what he started.

He needs a man, his father, to help him think through his path for success in life and there is no one here but me. He had a broken heart from a girl and the only person he could talk to about it was me and you know I cannot handle anyone or anything breaking his heart. You know I am not strong enough to tough love that boy who shares my same heart.

I hate you for all the broken hearts in this house. The words we cannot say. The days we cannot get out of bed. The days I want to stay in bed and cry for myself but I cannot take a leap out of our kid’s lives. I do not have that option to depart when things feel hard. I have to stay. I have to wake up. I have to go to work and take the trash out and smile at everyone. You left me here to smile at everyone when I am so lonely and ALONE.

I hate you when I moved our baby into her college apartment this week and she was the only kid there without a Dad. Did you think I could pack the car and unpack the car and decorate with command strips all by myself? It was 150 degrees in Milledgeville yesterday and I had to do the two-hour drive there and back by myself. No partner to take the wheel when my eyelids felt droopy or when the tears of going home without her filled my eyes.

No one to comfort me with ideas for our future as empty nesters. No one to reassure me that I can someday afford to retire and not work until I am 90 to pay for it.

You just assumed that I could help Sophie with her role as a maid of honor in a wedding and help Owen figure out if he wants to join the Peace Corps?  And help Anna decide what green dress she should get for her sorority rush?

You thought that Allison can handle this and I will just duck out? Well guess what? We do need you. We need you in all the big ways and small ways. I need you. I need help. I need a partner. I need someone else to love these kidults when I am too tired to do it. I cannot be their everything. I will never be enough to cover for your absence. Shame on you for making me feel like I should be able to spare them from the emptiness you left us.

That’s right, today I hate you. Today you are my “asshole ex husband” like everyone else gets to have when they have been harmed by a man who promised them forever and always.

You suck!

PS. I love you.