*Originally posted on Medium.
I’ve been reading a lot of these letters on social media lately. A lot of them are just a big “Fuck you” to the ex, while some are more mature, saying, “Fuck you, but hope you’re doing well,” however I hope whenever someone reads this letter they do not get that feeling.
Yeah, okay so, you did ruin a large part of my life, my self-esteem, and just my overall trust in men, but I completely recognize I let you have that kind of control over me. You and I worked well until we got to know each other better, you hating me for things you didn’t realize about me and me constantly trying to tell myself I loved the parts about you that I so obviously did not. There was an urge to rush the relationship because you were going off to college sooner than later, which may have been the beginning of our terrible demise. At the time, I did not want to realize that we were the two people on this earth completely wrong for each other.
I wrote a lot of poetry about you and all the pain you caused me, so thank you for giving me a reason to rediscover my passion for writing and expressing myself in any form possible. I remember telling you that you had hurt me and you would reply with, “you’ve hurt me too,” but back then I never saw how I was hurting you or how I could possibly hurt you because you had caused me so much pain that I was almost blinded by it. You would call me terrible things whenever we fought, a lot of the time you made me feel like I was less than you. Sometimes you would say one thing, but do the opposite and both our actions never matched up with our words. Like I said, we both ruined the relationship.
You were very controlling towards me, which I did not realize until I had someone else trust me and let me be the independent person I naturally am. As mentioned earlier, I let you be controlling and sometimes manipulative towards me, so I am trying to show that I know not all of the blame is you for the failed relationship. I knew our “love” was only toxic for both of us, especially when I realized you would be so harsh to me and then the alleged honeymoon stage of an abusive relationship would occur, where I would receive gifts and your affection.
The thing about cycles is that they are never ending, so I should have never looked back all the times I did when you were open to becoming us again. The amount of times we tried to make things work between us was excessive and for almost no reason! We are both intelligent people, but something about the other made us incredibly foolish.
Very rarely I think back to you, but I am sorry for being very jealous about the other girls in your life and sometimes overreacting to the most minimal of situations. I am sorry that I tried winning you back as many times as you tried winning me back, too. I am sorry that I tried to get you to quit certain behaviors, however I hoped you always knew I saw only the good in you and could not stand seeing any bad. I am sorry that I would drive you crazy, but I think that’s just part of having feelings for someone.
This is my only real “fuck you” paragraph, so be prepared for some anger. You never could trust me, for some reason, even though I constantly showed my unwavering loyalty to you. The amount of male friends I had dramatically decreased to not even one while we were together, because your jealously was out of control and I was afraid to anger you. In fact, I only had maybe three friends when you and I were together because you somehow made me constantly choose between my friends/family and you. And by the way, fuck you for never caring about having a good relationship with any of my friends or family. I remember opening up to you about experiences and you being skeptical or invalidating my feelings, which has led me to become the person I am today. Recently, I had one of my friends tell me to stop hiding my true feelings, because they know what I’ve been through but never really how it made me feel. I stopped and thought about you, because you never wanted to hear my “moods” so I stopped addressing them. Whenever I get a call from an unknown number, sometimes I’m still afraid it’s you wanting to tear me down like you always would. You were manipulative, controlling, rude, and undeserving of me.
Thank you, though. Because of you, I realized my true worth and how I should be treated. Now, whenever a guy or any person really tries to control me, talk down to me, or what have you, I shut it down immediately. I’ve been comparing my new relationship to our old one and I can see how much I’ve matured because of you. Thank you.
I always see people rebounding, using drugs, or failing school when they go through rough periods, but I stayed sober, single, and smart for longer than I expected I would. They always say people are either a blessing or a lesson, but you will always be a blessed lesson in my mind. I wish I could honestly say there aren’t any bitter feelings towards you, but there always will be because we both let the relationship end so horribly.
Your first lust,
me