This wasn’t my first plan and it wasn't my favorite. 
It’s just the one that hasn’t failed yet. 
The one that really needs to work.

And I’m grateful to you and to anyone curious enough to understand why. Maybe we can be conflicted together.

Some Context
I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to turn my private pain into a downloadable book. For a long time, I thought this story would stay locked in my phone, my head, and the court file.

I tried other paths.

I offered off-ramps that could’ve kept us both whole.
I tried to end things kindly, and rebuild quietly.
But each time I reached for peace, it somehow emboldened her cruelty further.

Finally, after six months and realizing she found my efforts little more than amusing, I filed a lawsuit through an attorney who'd reviewed and agreed to take the case.

It's ongoing and mediation is coming soon. But I'm the only person who still seems to care. There are no strategy meetings or ideas coming from my counsel as to how we'll be using mediation to my benefit.

Only promises that it's pointless to care because she'll claim she's penniless and that will be that.  The end. 

 

I still need to believe there's more. For lots of reasons. Here's a few.

Some Reasons 
Money
This project does exist - in good part anyway - because of what I’ve lost in the 4 years I've been here with my ex - financially and otherwise. Here's a snapshot of how the money side of this came into play...

My ex had 20+ years of restaurant management experience and had always wanted to own a restaurant. I had money in savings to invest in a restaurant and I believed in this woman with my entire soul. 

We’d fled here from Connecticut as the pandemic started and after finding a great old building to rent downtown, we both made the commitment to open a  restaurant. 

It’s been a great success and I’m still as proud of it as anything I’ve done in my life.  She still runs the restaurant and it continues to thrive. But I no longer work there. 

When our relationship ended, my ex decided she no longer owed me the money. And she counted on what she’d counted on for four years.

 

She's focused her efforts on making the recovery of the money I'd invested in her restaurant so difficult that I’d give up and let her have it. . Exhaust me and distract my own attorney with her own idiocy. 

It wasn’t a dumb plan. Distress tolerance is an almost daily autistic struggle for me and it doesn’t take much to make me to bow out when it comes to conflict. No one understood that more completely than my ex.  

Record
This is a real-time record of the 4 years of my life that reversed all the others.

Lifeline
It's a lifeline and my current last-hope of regaining what I've lost. Using the only assets still in my possession - the truths of what happened in my life and the tangible proofs that justify each.

Apology to Myself
It’s an apology to myself for all the times I should have chosen me and I chose her instead.

Forgiving Myself
It’s a way of taking what was stolen and turning it into something I can live with - something that might even help others recognize patterns in their own relationships sooner than I did.

Side Notes
I’ve tried so many financial recovery strategies the last 19 months.  For a long time, I believed I could find my way back without needing the money I'd invested. I wanted nothing more than to just walk away and let her have what she so clearly believed she needed more than I did.  

But honestly, every other effort I've made to re-establish financial normalcy to my life has somehow enriched her further while inflicting more harm upon my own situation. And that's with my attorney advising me since October, 2024.

Not a Reason
Revenge
This PDF is not about revenge. My ex used, manipulated and exploited me and some well-chosen, very specific autistic vulnerabilities I'd confided in her.

 

That is dark and heavy and it can't be made right by revenge. And frankly, it’s not a force I’m willing to play with on that level - emotionally, spiritually, karmically. 

Last Thoughts
I'm not asking anyone to feel comfortable with this. I’m not entirely comfortable with it either. But I hope you’ll read with curiosity and grace.

I hope you'll feel free to wonder beyond what I'm sharing here and reach out to ask! I'll promise to tell you the truth or why I can't quite yet - for this legal reason or that.  Either way, we'll figure it out from there.

And thank you.

You chose to read this which means you cared about some part of it to some degree for some length of time and that's appreciated down in my soul.

This is a hard thing to do. It's even harder to realize this quite shaky idea is the last one standing. So thank you for the support you've shown. It means a lot - with all its thoughtful and sometimes hilarious caveats.

🖤 - Elle