As I’m sure you know, I’ve received notice of your impending lawsuit. I can’t say I was surprised. I know there are only two things that propel you: money and revenge. It’s sad that my opinion of you is such that I would instinctively expect dishonesty and depravity from you in return for my ending our relationship.
We both know that your lawsuit is bogus and very little of the claims you make in it have any merit. They are all variations of the truth, re-worked to fit your needs. But when have you ever relied on truth to guide your conscience?
First, my plans. I don’t plan to attend the trial. I can’t attend, even if I were inclined, which I’m not. But, you already know that since you are the direct cause of my financial situation. We also both know this isn’t about the money. This is a predatory lawsuit. You know you have no legal right to that domain name. You know my daughter didn’t owe you a dime for that car. That’s why you didn’t come forward sooner. No one waits more than three years to repossess a car that is ten-years-old and depreciating daily. You needed time to “create” the wrong you claim was done to you. Someone doesn’t play by your rules, or worse, rejects you and you spend your long, boring days plotting your revenge with the help of a bottle of White Out and a copy machine.
The court will only see your masterfully manipulated account of events, but not the truth. They will see you, pumped full of Xanax, but not the true victim in all of this, which is me. They will only hear from me on paper because I am not able to attend to defend myself against your continued attacks. So be it. I will lose. Nothing new. I’ve always lost against you. Certainly not because you are better or more importantly, in the right. But because you carefully plot, weigh, and calculate your next move. For instance, when you unlawfully took my daughter’s car, you knew that even when the authorities were made aware that the paperwork you provided had been tampered with (in their words - manipulated), it was a civil suit requiring her to hire an attorney – at a fee much higher than the car’s value. She would have been suing you on principle. Do you seriously believe that cheating a young, single mother of three out of her car makes you a “winner”? It makes you a very small and dishonest man in the eyes of anyone who knows what you did. The police and the attorney I consulted know what you did. The attorney even went as far to call your attorney to make him aware of your forged paperwork. He wasn’t happy that you had lied to him. But what other people think has no bearing, does it? And you wonder why you have equally dishonest associations, but don’t have more friends? Give it some thought, the answer is clear.
Do you believe pitting my son against my daughter makes you a winner? What kind of a twisted person does that? Even if she HAD owed you money, you didn’t have to force her brother to do your dirty work when your own son does the exact same thing for a living. But in your sick mind, I’m sure you found pleasure in that, killing two birds with one stone. So you’ve caused irreparable damage between a sister and the only brother she will ever have. It takes a black heart and lack of conscience to do something like that and still be able to sleep at night.
Your actions remind me of someone else I know. She slept with many a trucker up and down the line, but when she finally married in her late thirties, she expected everyone to simply forget her past because she was ready to put it behind her. You’ve done the same thing. You move to Florida, cry victim, and expect everyone to feel sorry for you. They may, in the beginning, but it won’t last. You can’t help your nature or the way you treat people and after a while, after you’ve cheated enough of them, after word spreads, you’ll have the same reputation there as you have here. The Topix page you reference in your suit began many years ago, immediately after your house burned down. You know that since you are the one who brought it to my attention in 2010. You also know full well the entries weren’t made by me. As for the most recent, ask your business partner to shed some light on where they originated, keeping in mind he lies as often as you do. Your enemies are numerous and go way back. But I challenge you to find a single derogatory thing about me anywhere, that you aren’t responsible for creating.
By the way, did Erie ever pay that claim for your house? As little as 6-months ago, they hadn’t. I wonder why that is? The same as GoDaddy’s legal department and YOUR own arbitrator finding in my favor – you can’t fool everyone with your carefully constructed stories. They saw through you to the truth. Now, you have analyzed where you made your mistakes, fixed them, and attacked again. Keep in mind, you could fool your mother while she was here, but you can’t fool her now. Now, she KNOWS what you are.
Enough about your depravity, it’s been covered ad nauseum over the years. We both know that this lawsuit is just another attempt to wreak havoc on my life. Like the Twitter insults. The impersonated letter to my colleagues. Turning off my internet and evicting me. You see why your lawsuit doesn’t surprise me? It is totally in character for you.
I should hate you. God knows you’ve given me enough reason. But somehow, I don’t. I feel sorry for you, but don’t hate you. As I was going through past emails looking for a particular one to include in my response, I came across one you sent me a while back. In it, you say that even if I cheated on you or stole from you, you love me too much to ever hurt me deliberately. I didn’t do either of those things to you, but hurt me is all you’ve done. Whether we were together or apart, it made no difference. The truth is, it was me who loved you too much to deliberately hurt you, although it would have been deserved. You always talked the part of love, but never followed through with actions. By your own admission, I saved your life. Without me, you wouldn’t be here. Yet every time I didn’t follow the program and come around to your way of thinking even when your way of thinking was hurting me, you turned on me. This whole thing boils down to control.
There are dozens of emails over more than a two-year period where I specifically ask (and sometimes beg) you to leave me alone, to move on. But you knew that I loved you and you knew that if you could just get me to pick up my phone, you could talk me back. After all, you’re proud of the fact that the only thing you sell better than cars is yourself. You used the love I had for you against me. You weren’t interested in what was best for me at all. Your interests were self-serving.
That is why your attack didn’t begin back in September, when I finally found the strength to walk away for good. You knew that if you could get me to talk to you, you’d be able to talk me back yet again. But I knew it, too. I had to block you and change my phone number, move, and keep my new address private. I didn’t want to be talked back. I had survived a toxic relationship for a number of years and I simply couldn’t take anymore. I deserved better than a man who lied to me, cheated on me, deliberately hurt me, and turned on me simply because I couldn’t take the emotional bashing any longer. I made the choice to leave and you don’t handle rejection well. My son and Emily used to tell me all the time, “He thinks you need time to cool down and then you’ll be back.” That would have followed the usual pattern, wouldn’t it? But I knew it wasn’t going to happen this time. I had finally had enough. The last hurt was the last hurt. And when you realized I wasn’t coming back, you went on the attack. I’ve seen you do it to other people, so I wasn’t shocked. But it did make me realize, you never loved me. Quite honestly, I don’t believe you are capable of healthy, unconditional love. There were always conditions. Here I sit, unable to hate or hurt you when you have given me more reason than anyone I’ve ever known. Believe it or not, hurting you never crosses my mind. As a matter of fact, until you began this assault on me, you weren’t crossing my mind at all anymore. But, I think you realized that and that is part of the reason why we’re where we’re at now. In your eyes, a bad place in my life is better than no place in my life.
This suit isn’t about the money since you know that because of you, I don’t have any. Not a penny. This is simply revenge. And that’s okay. There is nothing you can do to me that will hurt me anymore. As you’ve taught me, there are ways around the roadblocks in life. You go, have your attorney lay it on thick and paint you to be the victim, after all, he isn’t paid to believe you. But we both know the only victim in our relationship was me. It’s simply not my nature to go on the attack. Sweeping you into memory was much easier and self-satisfying in the end.
Since I won’t get a chance to talk to you during your trumped up trial, there are a few things I want to take the opportunity to say to you now. The main thing I want to say is… thank you.
1. Thank you for teaching me that less is more and I can be happy with less. When I first met you, I still believed that things like money, social standing, and success were crucial to happiness. The more you have, the happier you are. You taught me I was dead wrong. Who had more money, things, and success than you did at one time, and you were one of the most miserable people I knew. Twice a week with your shrink, states of depression so severe you’d lay in your bed a week or more at a time without showers, taking drug cocktails simply to function. You considered committing suicide and always credited me with talking you off the ledge. Through you, I have learned that it isn’t the things or the accumulation of money and power that bring happiness. I have less now than I’ve ever had in my life. But I am also happier than I’ve ever been in my adult life. You helped me to realize what is truly important, and for that, I thank you.
2. You pitted my son against his family by threatening him with his job, a job he only has because it served your plan. It takes a sadistic man to do what you did knowing what the result would be. But again, in your quest to destroy me for nothing more than your amusement, you did me a favor. We both know my son’s situation. There is no doubt in my mind he will end up back in jail, as there is no doubt in my mind that you will somehow have a hand in causing it. But because of what you did to my relationship with him, I will not have to see him in prison orange again. I will not have to see my only son shackled at the wrists, waist, and ankles being led into a courtroom with pleading and desperation in his eyes. I will not see the look of fear on his face when he is handed down his sentence and we both know the next one will be a long one. I will not be sitting in the courtroom to hear him beg me for help knowing there is nothing I can do to help my child. You’ve spared a mother one of her worst nightmares, and for that, I thank you.
3. You gave me a glimpse into my future. What you are doing to me right now reminded me of why I walked away from you to begin with. If we were kids and had a falling out on the playground, we’d smack each other a few times, one of us would fall, the other would cry, and by tomorrow, we’d be best friends again. But in your world, when you don’t get your own way, you become evil and vengeful. I walked away quietly. There were no threats, no nasty fights, no drama. I simply told you it was over. After the way you treated me for years and the unspeakable things you did to me, you got off easy. But here you are, still trying to insert yourself into my life by whatever means you can. All of the nasty Twitter posts, the letters to colleagues defaming me, the theft of my domain name, stealing my daughter’s car, this trumped up suit – typical Nick. And it is exactly why I was finally able to walk. Had I stayed with you I would have spent my life miserable and at your mercy. I’ve reached the light at the end of what was a very long tunnel. And for that light, I thank you.
4. Before you came along, I thought of trust like innocence. Assumed until proven otherwise. You showed me that my beliefs were desperately naïve and misguided. I now know that trust has to be earned. Had I known that before I met you, we never would have came to be as you showed me from early on that nothing you said or did could be trusted. It was a hard, but valuable lesson, and for that, I thank you.
5. You forced my hand into do something I had been considering, but putting off. Between your less-than-stellar reputation and the recent attacks you’ve made on me, I felt forced to change my legal and professional name. It is something I would have eventually done anyway, but considering the enormity of the task for someone with my social presence, I would have held off until later in the year when my domain name was set to expire. But, the separation of your tainted name and me was something my friends and family were very happy and eager to see, and one more positive step in burying a painful past. You gave my procrastination a kick in the pants, and for that, I thank you.
No matter what dishonest means you use to hurt me, there is one thing you haven’t considered. At the end of the day, when you exhaust all of your phony revenge avenues, I’m still me and you’re still you. I will still be happy and you can’t put a price on that. The happiness this act of revenge might bring to you will be fleeting. And you will still be a vengeful little man desperate to find meaning in your meaningless life. Still old, still lonely, and still emotionally barren.
There was a time when you could have had it all. Actually, you had it all, but all wasn’t enough for you. To quote your most-used expression, “If one’s good, two’s even better.” No amount of money, things, power, success, revenge will ever be enough for you because once you get what you think your heart desires, you are quickly bored with it and move on to the next quest. Everything you chase loses its charm once you catch it. Your lawsuit won’t change that. And it won’t change anything for me. You’ve already taken all of the meaningless things in my life. The one thing that means everything to me, you can no longer touch.
So again, Nick…. With or without your petty revenge on me, my life is in a much better place now than it was for most of the seven and a half years I spent with you, and I thank you for that. Your lawsuit shows me that your address may have changed, but you haven’t. I thank God every day for sparing me from another minute of the emotional abuse I suffered at your hands.
So do what you have to do. Wage your war on me with your arsenal of lies. I’ll receive their verdict in your favor by mail, and it won’t be a surprise. I’ll file it away, and then I’ll continue to move forward with my life while you continue to find your happiness causing someone else’s misery. Whatever will you do when you run out of people to destroy? I will take the expected verdict as my last correspondence with you, so please don’t mistake this email for an open door to communication. It isn’t.
I truly do feel sorry for you. What a sad, meaningless existence you must have when you derive your pleasure by inflicting pain on others. You’ll answer to a power much bigger than your own conscience one day. That’s a fact.
By the way, it turns out that “The Wonder of Me” is the ability to overcome adversity. It’s amazing how positive your life becomes when you take the necessary steps to remove the negative element.
