I’m sorry and I’ll always love you
I’m sorry for breaking up with you. I’m sorry that I did it so suddenly, without giving you the explanation, honesty, or respect you deserved. I’m sorry I broke up with you. Twice.
I’ve had so much time to sit with what I did, and what I regret most isn’t simply that I left. It’s that I became someone who hurt you. Someone who was loved by you so deeply, and somehow became the person who caused you pain despite loving you so much too.
That is something I don’t think I’ll ever stop carrying with me.
You loved me so selflessly. You put your ego aside and tried to reach me, tried to understand me, and tried to get me to talk to you. And instead of meeting you with that same vulnerability, I shut down inside myself. I couldn’t face what I was feeling, I couldn’t explain it, and I made a decision that affected both of us without giving you the honesty you deserved.
I was avoidant. I ran from something I didn’t know how to face, and in doing so, I hurt the person I loved.
You didn’t deserve that.
You didn’t deserve to be blindsided by someone you loved.
You didn’t deserve to be left wondering why, or wondering what you had done wrong.
You didn’t deserve to have someone you loved so much suddenly decide to leave without giving you the chance to understand what was happening.
And the hardest thing for me to accept is that I know how much you loved me.
I know you would have listened. I know you would have tried to understand. You had already put your pride aside and reached for me. You were willing to have the conversation I was too afraid to have.
And I still left.
I hurt you even though I loved you.
That is the part I regret the most.
Because I never want to make what we had sound like I left because I didn’t love you. I did. I loved you then. I love you now. My inability to handle my own emotions did not mean my love for you wasn’t real. But loving you didn’t stop me from hurting you, and I understand now that love by itself isn’t enough. You have to know how to communicate it. You have to know how to stay. You have to know how to be honest when things become difficult.
I didn’t know how to do those things then.
And you were the one who paid for that.
I’m so sorry.
I know saying this now cannot undo what I did. I can’t give you back the trust I broke or take away the hurt I caused you. I can’t change the fact that I was the person who made you feel that kind of pain.
I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t expect you to come back. I don’t expect my realization now to mean anything to you.
I just wish I had understood it sooner.
It’s been two years since I left, and somehow I’m still here, carrying the love I had for you then and the love I still have for you now. I have no right to ask anything from you. I have no right to expect you to still love me after what I did.
But I miss you.
And I love you.
And I think I always will.
I wish I could go back and be brave enough to tell you what was actually happening inside of me instead of making the choice I made. I wish I had trusted you enough to let you see the parts of me that were scared and confused instead of making you pay for them.
You loved me so much, and I am the person who hurt you.
I think that will always be one of the things I regret most in my life.
Not simply that I lost you, but that I hurt someone who loved me so deeply when I loved him just as deeply.
I’m truly, deeply sorry.
You deserved honesty. You deserved communication. You deserved to be treated with tenderness by the person you loved.
And I’m sorry that person was me, and I didn’t know how to give that to you then.
-E