I finally cut ties with a lifelong acquaintance today. [View all]

[yardwork]

I have posted about him before. We met in preschool and grew up in the same small town. We were very close friends growing up, despite his issues with drugs and alcohol beginning at a young age (preteen). He identified as highly progressive, very far to the left. Nobody else was as liberal as him, according to him. The rest of us were posers.

I've been reluctant to cut him out of my life entirely because our families were very close. I now see that this was a mistake. It's never a good idea to tolerate ongoing abuse, and I did for too long.

Twenty years ago I limited our contact to email due to his abusive alcoholic behavior. (When he had my old landline, he would call me in the middle of the night, over and over, screaming abuse.) Ten years ago I set his emails to spam, as during his alcoholic episodes I could receive a dozen rage-filled emails in one night. Over the years, I sporadically read his emails and very rarely responded. Responses triggered a torrent of personal attacks on me and my family, mixed with conspiracy theories and bigotry.

Over the past five years ago the bigotry accelerated. Deeply misogynist, racist, homophobic. Describes female politicians, in particular, as "reptilian" and other extremely dehumanizing terms. Still claimed to be super-progressive, of course.

Since the election he's sent some emails about the election being stolen, although he pretends not to support Trump (despite sounding just like him). Today, after the events on Wednesday, his emails were the last straw. There is no room in my life - not even my spam folder - for this. Nope.

I sent him a brief email stating that I think he knows the facts but chooses to ignore them because his deeply held belief is that Trump should have been re-elected because the only votes that matter are those of white men and maybe white women. I told him not to contact me again. I'll never read an email from him again.

Looking back over the 50+ years I recognize now that he's been an abusive overbearing bully since we were kids. I'm sorry it took me so long to recognize it.