MODERNSHAME

MODERNSHAME was created because misery loves company. it is a place for emails better left unsent, texts that should have stayed in the draft box, and other pieces of ourselves that we put out there too quickly because we can.

why share regretful correspondence? because we have all been there, and a collective cringe is so much better than a solitary one, alone behind your computer screen thinking unsend! take back! undo!

you can't take it back, but you can put it here.

SUBMISSIONS will be posted anonymously. this is a site for shedding dirt, not getting it. no names will ever be posted.

we want authentic, but not damning. we will XXXX-out any identifying details contained in your emails if you don't black them out yourself.

include a brief explanation of the email, your city and state, and consider yourself absolved.

modernshame@gmail.com
Mon May 19

i can’t keep pretending that ½ a relationship with you is better than none

The problem with this email is that almost none of it is true. Not only was I through with him because I was angry about his cheating and disenchanted with him as a lover, but the thought of being his girlfriend actually made my stomach hurt. My friends were begging me to leave him because they thought his emotional abuse would turn physical, and I already had started an affair with someone else. But I thought I wanted to remain friends, so after the big relationship-ending argument (when I told him I didn’t want to be sexually involved anymore), I tried to stroke his ego by sending him this, which was a lame idea. And then – this is the other really stupid part – I tried to ‘recall’ the email in Outlook, but of course that didn’t prevent him from reading it.  Later, he told people that what happened was that God helped him to end his friendship with me, the insanity of which has kept me from responding to his subsequent attempts to contact me.

seattle, washington

—- 

This is not what I want. I don’t want to act like this and I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t want to make you feel the way I am making you feel.

And I hate all the discussions that happen because I am trying to explain and justify how I feel, with the myriad details and reasons and logic. How I feel is just how I feel and I am not going to judge it or censor it anymore. Things can’t be any worse than they are right now so I have nothing to lose by telling you exactly how I feel.

I love you and I want to have a life with you and that is not possible and it just makes me crazy. I can’t keep pretending that ½ a relationship with you is better than none.  

I was letting it flow by telling myself that sleeping with you once in a while didn’t mean anything, and by not thinking about your other relationship, but when we talked about XXXX- I realized I can’t stand to not be committed and I wanted to talk about that but I was too afraid. So I just want it to be over so I can stop secretly wishing for love and commitment and happily ever after, and trying to make half a truth feel whole. Since I can’t sleep with you anymore and not be exclusive without feeling terrible, I  just want our sexual relationship to be over.

Please know that my craziness is my heart completely out of control and I am sorry for that.

I hope you will forgive me my problems and be my friend after we take some time apart and heal the hurts we’ve brought on each other.