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Dear Ex,
My emotions are so conflicting when I recall your former presence in my life.
I developed feelings for you so soon, so deeply that it feels unfair that I’ve been left with the short end of the stick.
From day dot, from before we met, I had already made so many accommodations for you. I assumed the best of you, gave you the benefit of the doubt, always looked at you in the most positive light that I could, even when it was not easy for me to do so.As time would have it, the reality of who you were began to show and the rosy glasses began to fall off, yet I chose to accept who you are even when I began to see that you weren’t the perfect woman who I imagined you to be. I chose commitment and acceptance over perfection. I gave of myself to you. I made sacrifices of my own for us. I stood up for you, I comforted you, helped you to value yourself and learn to stand again on your two feet. Time and time again I gave of myself, I cared, I put you first, so that you wouldn’t have to cry. So that you wouldn’t have to carry your burdens alone, feel burnt out, overwhelmed, anxious, and misunderstood, even if it came at the cost of my own sleep, even if it cost my own energy, my own time, and my finances. I went well out of my way when I had to, so that you had at least one person who you knew would always have your back when you suffered.
When your situation started to improve, we were able to laugh more. You started integrating yourself in my church community, met my friends, and we started to integrate our lives with each other. We made exercise and self-care priorities for our lives, and activities that we shared. I looked out for us, and at times, you would look out for me – usually when I least expected you to. You’d catch me off guard & I’d be moved at how sensitive you were to me in those moments when I didn’t even think I needed the attention that you gave. I was sure that you would be my one. Even though I knew you weren’t perfect, even though I knew the relationship would require me to give more than I had ever given. So, we made plans. I would propose to you, and your father had even given his blessings. We would go on a road trip, and I would propose to you with the ring we had resized for you – the one you never got to see in person because I always had you wear a silly sleeping mask so the ring would remain a surprise until the day! I’d have the photographer I arranged in secret take photos of the proposal. Then 6-months later we’d be married, as we had planned. Just how we had it locked in with our pastor and our families. But here we are today.
You’re probably at your own home with your puppy, while I am at mine. We are no longer having those after-work dinners where we’d catch up, laugh, and talk about our day – the highs and the lows – over some good food. We aren’t worrying about your puppies needs together anymore. We aren’t looking forward and planning a future together, texting each other throughout the day, planning dates for the weekends. We aren’t going to church together anymore and planning catchups with our families and friends. I don’t know what you’re doing with your time, but I can only imagine that – or maybe I’m too optimistic – that you miss some of these moments too, some of these routines, plans, and shared activities we once did. I feel like part of you would.
Yet I know that a part of you despises me, because you expressed your negative feelings towards me when you decided to breakup and to also not follow through with any couples counseling. You told me we had differences, differences we both knew, but were unequally committed towards resolving. You’ve labelled me again as someone I am not, wanting to be understood but yourself being unwilling to understand. Wanting to be right but prioritising your own sense of victory at the expense of a loss of a relationship that had every potential to be something more. Compromising your own values for the sake of putting on a strong front, blind to the hurt that you cause when you twist and skew objective truths to suit what is convenient for you, instead of acknowledging that both of us have areas that we need to work on and collaborating to see how we get past the immediate problems in front of us. Your true colours really showed in the end.
Now more than ever, I’ve begun to feel anger, resentment, regret, hurt, betrayed, and more than anything a deep sense of sadness and pity for you. Pity because your unwillingness to acknowledge and work on your character flaws will inevitably continue to negatively impact your future relationships until that unwillingness changes. Sad, because every opportunity is there for you to minimise that, but you’ll undoubtedly be left to your own vices unless you change. Pity, because you continue to lie to others through telling half-truths, eventually deceiving your own self by minimising your own flaws instead of owning up to them. I hardly recognise the person you’ve become. Your appearance is the same, but your behaviour completely opposite to the person I fell in love with. You’re definitely not the person who I once dated anymore. You’re definitely not the person I hoped to marry.
Just tell me though, what did you do with her?
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