u/SherbetInevitable521

She says I need to move away from patterns. Try to walk away from the past. Stop fostering relationships that I know will end in heartbreak or disappointment because even a brief moment of acknowledgement feels like a high, and the pain of neglect or rejection is familiar. We weren't talking about you and I, but we can both guess where my brain wandered off to.

I know you can't say that I'm important to you. I know you're not corny like I am. I know I'm in no position to ask that of you. I know we agreed us talking is just sex, and very very casual checking in. It hasn't managed to be either of those things very successfully.

I don't want to never talk to you again, and that's my problem. I'm very sentimental over you. I'm attached. I care more than I reasonably should. You got into my heart and feasted until there was a space only you could fill. Even with the countless times we've hurt each other, and the countless ways we've dismissed and dehumanized each other, and even with the betrayals that eventually broke us... I still can't shake you.

Even when we keep pissing each other off, and I'm trying to be distant and ignore the urge, give you space... I've checked my phone hundreds of times today, hoping to see your name. If I walk away from you, it's not going to be my choice. I don't want it. I never want to go a significant amount of time without you at least in my phone, ever again. If I have to suffer because of that, fine.

Cw: mention of sex and sex toys

So, I've decided to focus on myself. I've had about 5 years of exclusively disappointing relationships and the ones that did the most for me, did so because my partner was good in bed.

So I got myself a couple brand new sex toys for myself. I've figured out what kind of spicy content I like. I'm not really into porn, but I figured out some things that'll do it for me.

I'm just so done. I'm ready to work on myself for a good long while before I let anybody in.

But there's no way anything has changed in two weeks. There's no way responding to you, talking to you, holding a conversation with you, would do anything but convince you that we're getting back together or going back to how things used to be.

So I'm sending it here, where I know you won't see it, because I miss you and I want to respond SO FUCKING BADLY but so many things have gone so wrong that I literally can't, because I don't want to be treated the way you've treated me. It isn't the life I want.

Those cigarettes will have to wait.

Your absence has left a void and I'm still trying to figure out how to fill it.

But not in a way that changes anything. I miss how encouraging you were during my exams, I miss how sweet you were to me, most of the time. I miss our jokes. I miss holding you. I miss how vulnerable you used to let yourself be with me.

I don't miss getting yelled at. I don't miss you getting mad at me if I took longer than 5 minutes to respond to a text. I don't miss how you'd take your bad days out on me, even if you didn't mean to. I don't miss the paranoia, or the guilt.

I'm not ready to be in love, and I wasn't ready when I was in love with you, either. It was supposed to be a surface level romance, but it spun out faster and harder than either of us could have controlled. We accidentally love bombed one another, but we meant every word. I really do believe that.

I hope you're taking care of yourself. Please take care of yourself.

I still check my phone.

I know you're not going to message me. I know you probably don't think about me at all. But I check anyway. It's muscle memory at this point. Or maybe it's hope. I can't tell the difference anymore.

I keep replaying the last time we talked. I keep wondering if there was a moment I could have said something different. Something that would have made you stay. But I think you were already gone long before that. I just didn't want to see it.

I wanted to be the exception. The one you couldn't forget. The one you'd come back to. But I'm just another name in your phone. Another person you used to know.

And I'm still here. Still waiting. Still hoping you'll feel something for me that you never did.

It feels really bad when we aren't. I don't want to talk to you but when you aren't texting me I'm sick with worry. I know you don't take care of yourself. I know you don't clean yourself up. I know you have self destructive habits that could kill you. I can't be responsible for you. I can't be the only reason you take care of yourself. I can't be the only thing keeping you from hurting yourself. You don't understand how much pressure that is. I can't do it. I can't do this.

More than anything, I think I wish you'd have told me when you stopped liking me.

Dear you,

I know I said I was going to stop looking and I've definitely slowed down. But I can't. I was cocky and we both know it. I have nothing. No threads, no pages, no idea who you are or what you're doing now. At least I had your off-hand comments about video games I know nothing about and snark on threads that have nothing to do with me or us or anything else. I know you don't post your feelings. You don't write that shit out and you don't let anybody see that it unless you're doing so very deliberately. Considering the last year of our relationship you'd think I was used to you shutting me out by now. But you left a tiny, meaningless hole for me to peer into. Never enough to know anything. Nothing we could talk about. But it was you in the tiniest whisper. A xerox of a xerox. A drip-feed of you that you knew I'd lap up and implode upon losing. I guess when you get used to crumbs you feel like you're starving when even that gets taken away.

I meant it when I said I don't want to carry you with me anymore, but I don't know how to loosen that grip. I don't know how to not have some hidden reservoir of complicated feelings for you. I'm trying, I swear to god I'm trying. I just haven't found anything that works yet.

I wish you had never pretended to care about me. I wish you'd never used me the way you did. You really messed me up, you know?

Oh well.

I'll be okay.

I have no choice.

Regards, Me

I am, unfortunately, in love with somebody. He's great. Sweet, funny, attractive, different enough to keep things interesting but similar enough to relate to. I genuinely think he not only loves me but /likes/ me, as a person. He gets along with my family. He's learned more about my body, my pleasure and my mannerisms than anybody has ever bothered to. He notices differences in my demeanor and before I do. He notices new freckles. He notices me.

I'm grateful for him. He's really all I've ever wanted in a partner. But he came along at a point where I just genuinely don't want to be in love anymore. I was down when we first met. I was so excited about him as a person. All his energy was reciprocated. But now, I see holes in the veil. Inconsistencies. Behaviors bordering on emotional abuse. Again. After all the work I've put in to heal and forgive myself for staying in situations like this. I no longer want to hang on, talk it through, learn how to be a healthy couple. I don't want to establish boundaries to get trampled on. I don't want to excuse things I would normally find disgusting simply because I have a soft spot for this person.

But I do. I have a soft spot. I'm going to keep being pulled back into this relationship until we can't stand one another. I'm so tired of all this. I hate the cycle. I hate walking through it over and over and over again. I hate that I can see what I'm doing, and I can't stop myself.

Being in love is like watching yourself lose your mind. It's like sitting in a housefire and making yourself a cup of tea. I don't want to be in love anymore.

I've sent you more than a grand already. You haven't even payed back a third of that. It's hard not to think I'm just a piggy bank to you. I have so many things I have to take care of. I need to fix the truck that I haul you all over the place in. I need to pay for the electricity bill that allows me to text and call you all day every day. I need to get coffee so I can show up for my job that barely manages to pay for all this. All while going to school to get a better job so I can keep spoiling you.

I'm not trying to be a debt collector, we both have trauma with that, but I'm feeling pretty taken advantage of, here!

I don't think I believe in love anymore.

I'm tired of feeling uncertain. Tired of second-guessing myself. Tired of wondering whether my reactions are valid or whether I'm somehow the problem every time something bothers me. Relationships have started to feel like a constant negotiation with reality.

I've been cheated on enough to change the way I see people. I know that. I know my own weaknesses. My memory isn't perfect, and I have a tendency to disconnect from things when I'm overwhelmed. That makes it easy for me to doubt myself, even when I shouldn't. I don't like conflict, and if a fight goes on long enough, I'll usually just let it go rather than keep pushing.

Before anyone says it, I'm already working on these things. I'm in therapy. I'm trying.

The truth? I can get most of what I need elsewhere. I'm a good friend and have good friends in return. I can find support, loyalty, and companionship in my community. I can take care of myself. I can speak on my experiences without having to defend them every time I speak. Strangely enough, that's only difficult when I'm in a relationship.

At some point I started asking myself what exactly I'm getting back for everything I put in. The time. The energy. The effort. The patience. The money. What am I investing in that I can't already provide for myself or receive from said community?

I used to think of myself as a romantic. Now I'm not even sure healthy love exists the way people talk about it. Maybe it does. Maybe I'm just no longer willing to chase the idea of it.

So, I think we should end this.

You deserve to be with someone who genuinely believes in the future of this relationship. Someone who's fully invested in it. I'm not that person anymore.

You're a good person. You deserve good things. But I don't believe in the version of our future that we've been trying to build. We've already been through too much, and I don't have it in me to keep forcing myself through something that isn't making me happy.

Loving someone isn't enough reason to stay unhappy. That's the conclusion I've come to. Unfortunately, you're the person I was with when I finally understood that.

I know this is going to hurt, and I'm sorry for that. But I believe ending this is the right thing to do.

I've been keeping up with the "Disclosure" news as well as I can. It's the only news that gives me some semblance of hope, these days. I feel like we would have talked about it all at length. We'd be chewing on theories together and drawing diagrams and writing stories like we used to.

I'm going back to school. I want to study to be a community servant of a specific creed. You'd have been proud. You'd have offered to help me study, I think.

Mom's not doing so good. She's drinking pretty heavily, and I'm basically watching her waste away. She's had years to get her shit together and hasn't had any semblance of an up-swing. She says she'll quit and turns right back to it. She's gotten brain damage. It's all pretty scary. I wish I could talk to you about that, too. You two never got along, despite your trying. I wonder if you'd feel somewhat vindicated by her behavior.

I started gardening. I know that's not something that particularly appeals to you; and you wouldn't appreciate what got me started on it, I think, but it's one of the healthiest coping mechanisms I've had in a while. I have about 7 different plants now and they're all doing pretty well. I really wish I could show you my garden.

Anyways, I miss you. I wish you weren't dead, but I hope it's nice over there at least.

Hey. It's been a long time since we've last spoken in earnest, and I won't pretend that isn't entirely my fault. I know I'll never get to talk to you for real. I've accepted that. But my heart hurts not sharing this news with you, because you always encouraged me to see my education through. I figured writing a letter here would be the best way to deal with that.

So, I'm going back to school. Some things happened in my life, and I realized what I want to do with it. I'm going to be going to college in another state that specializes in what I'm planning. I'm going to build a life I can be proud of. I'm going to be the person I needed when you knew me.
I wish I could tell you all this. I wish I hadn't hurt you so badly that this news couldn't be delivered to you. I like to think there's another timeline where we still know each other. A universe where this news would bring you pride and relief. I guess that's the ____ I'm writing to. I'm not going to include many details for the sake of anonymity, but I'm really excited. Nothing has ever felt so correct. It feels like the answer I've looked for my whole life, without even realizing I was looking. This new direction makes so much sense.

I'm more mentally capable than I ever gave myself credit for. I have to readjust the way I see myself, now. I have to expect more. It's exhilarating and terrifying.

I'm moving forward knowing that I have the tools and the mind to succeed and that feels closer to loving myself than I've ever been. Long story short: you were right the whole time. I shouldn't have doubted you and myself. I'm sorry I pushed so hard. Thanks for pushing back for as long as you did. I think it made a difference in the end. I don't think I'd want to share this with you so badly if it didn't.

I hope you're doing alright. Hopefully by this time next year I'll be even closer to the person you thought I could be.