u/akirabee

i guess it’s only fitting i write one last letter to you, for my own closure, seeing as you never thought it fitting to give me any properly. when i first met you, i never thought our relationship would turn into what it did. you had bigger dreams than a high school relationship, and i wasn’t very interested in anything serious anyway. but two years in when it slipped out that i loved you, and you said it back, that’s what sealed our fate i fear. you looked me in my eyes and said you wanted to marry me, knowing i’d long given up on that dream after seeing how men had treated my mom growing up. and i believed you. i should have also believed you when you started pulling away shortly after. or when you started talking to that girl that you swore was just a friend (then i later found out she was an ex). or when you broke up with me but wanted to remain “friends” because you just “wanna focus on your life rn” and because you believed someone could treat me better and all the other bs you said instead of just being honest. and i almost moved on until you came crawling back. you came back wanting kids, wanting that marriage you promised me, wanting the future we talked about. and i foolishly fell for it thinking it was a sign or that we were star crossed lovers or something. we get married, and nothing changed. you still refused to prioritize me over anyone else in your life, you continued to be emotionally unavailable, you started flipping the narrative to make it seem like you were the one that took me back. and that two year marriage ended up being a fever dream i can only thank God i woke tf up from. because why promise someone the world just to dangle it in front of their head like a carrot on a stick? and then every time i realized you were bs and tried to get on with my life, here you come crying about being soul mates. and then the relationship ended because you wanted to open our marriage.. even though i explicitly said i’d leave you if you did that lmao. then flipped the narrative again and now oh i’m the problem and you did everything you could to fix us and you sacrificed so much for me and matter a fact you married me because you only felt bad for me, right? (his literal words btw). even though i stayed and put up with bull shit i would beg other women to leave over. i stayed and saw the best in you even when you were looking right through me. i stayed and held onto hope that i could fix you, that i could be the one to make you finally be vulnerable and we could live happily ever after. i stayed and continued proving my worth to someone who never even deserved an ounce of my empathy. and unfortunately, i believed you as well when you said i was a problem. i put myself in therapy begging them to tell me what was wrong with me. it’s been over a year without you now though, and i finally have clarity. i finally started making my own closure instead of asking for it from someone who doesn’t even have the capacity for basic mutual respect. i finally started realizing that, i don’t need you. i never did. i was choosing you. and now, i’m choosing myself. in the beginning, these letters started off all sappy, all apologetic like, wanting you to remember the good times, hoping you’d have a change of heart and return wanting to do the work. and now, my letters are all just angry because i realized you were projecting your shame and inferiority complex onto me for years and playing with my emotions bc you don’t actually know wtf you want in life lmao. and i like the second version of me a lot better. too bad you’ll never get to meet her. so, thank you for the lesson: that i need to stop chasing love from boys, from people outside of me and look within because i had everything i needed all along. that i don’t need to prove my worth to someone, i am worthy and deserving of love and if someone wants to try and convince me that i’m not, well they can kick rocks with their shoes off. i do wish you well though, i can tell you need it. i don’t regret loving you, or exposing my heart. i only regret doing it for so long to someone who never had the intention of giving me anything in return. (this won’t be sent)

i feel as though i am at the ending stages of my grief. i still get frustrated and angry at everything he’s done and the ways he treated me that i never deserved. i get angry at the way he flipped the narrative at the end to make me look like the villain just so he could walk away looking like “the good guy” and like i was just “too much”. (but when i’d tell him he couldn’t handle me during the relationship he’d get defensive and act hurt lol). i still get angry at how after 6 years together on and off, a two year marriage (long story, i think he tried to trap me bc clearly he didn’t want a future with me..? anyway-), moving in together, talks of a future and children just for him to ultimately discard me with his tail tucked between his legs to scurry off and find someone else to pretend to “save” until they ultimately become the villain in his story too. but it’s been a year and one month now. and i no longer cry over him of grieve the future. i see him clearly for who he is. i have almost accepted that he will not come back. and most of the day my mind is free from him, until something reminds me and i go down a rabbit hole of all the convoluted bs he put me through like i’m gonna find some sort of hidden answer to why he did what he did or what any of that meant. so how did you finally “get over it”? like i know there is no fully getting over emotional abuse but… i just want to move on with my life and not care so bad atp. like i can guarantee he’s not sitting at home (or next to his new wife) being anywhere near as introspective as me or remorseful over the relationship. anytime i think about it, it just feels like im giving him more of the power he wants :/ so any advice?

it’s been over a year of no contact with my ex, he discarded me and moved on like i never existed. i carried so much shame and self blame for months and months, internalizing every belittling and disrespectful thing he’s said or done to me on his way out (and over the course of the relationship in general tbh) and felt terrible. i felt like i was the problem and like i had ruined everything. but after a year of intense therapy and healing i realized that i was carrying a lot of the shame he projected onto me. and just carrying a lot of shame projected onto me my whole life as well, which led me to take on his so easily. but i said all of this to say that something he said still sticks with me and idk, maybe someone has advice of how to get over it or something. but basically he said he stayed with me because he was trying to “save me”. which basically translated to me as “i stayed because i pitied you”, understandably. so i asked him what that even meant and he said something like he didn’t wanna see me end up in an “abusive” relationship or something instead. the way he described it made himself sound like he was doing something so noble or whatever but when i really sit with what he said, i just feel terrible. like the last few years were a lie. like everything he said was a lie. like everything i thought he felt was never reciprocated. it made me feel sick. and i felt so defective and unlovable. like i was basically told that no one else would put up with me in a way or like he thought i was incapable or something. and after therapy and healing and realizing the extent of what i went through, i take everything he said a lot less personal now. but it still stings. like a part of me still feels like it was true. i mean, was it? is that what people like him truly believe? or was he just flipping the narrative because truthfully i wanted to leave him first. he was acting so distant and i was growing so miserable in the relationship after feeling like i was begging him to just meet me half way, i snapped told him this wasn’t working. and then a few days later he agreed, and said that a long with a bunch of other disrespectful and cold things… so yeah. it made me doubt myself so bad, like “wait am i just overreacting??” but my friends and therapists assured me (repeatedly) that no, i wasn’t lol. so if you read this far, any support at all is appreciated.

it’s been a year of no contact with my ex and i’m at a point where i’m legitimately just tired of thinking about all of this mess. like i wish i could just eternal sunshine of the spotless mind all of the memories, the disrespect, the bs, the manipulation, the mind games. its so so frustrating because i genuinely just want my life back atp. things are already difficult enough, but to constantly have stupid thoughts of him running through my mind make me want to explode like actually. like i don’t even miss him, i don’t reminisce on the memories. they’re useless, and distracting and harmful if anything at this point. idc who was right or who was wrong, idc what he’s doing or who he’s with. but it’s like a part of me is still stuck on everything and i just wanna move on. i got through work today, but as soon as i got home a bunch of thoughts come flooding in and i get emotional and upset. like i can’t even just be tired after work :/. i hate it.