I don’t hate you but I’ll never like you. A couple years later from that first night I went home with you which led to many more and eventually a relationship, you still creep into my mind. I remember how happy you made me in that first month and I thought “wow could this be it?” Now I realize how naïve I was.
The nights we spent laughing together turned into nights of shouting at each other with it usually ending in tears. I remember all the times I thought, this was not the kind of relationship I want and yet I still stayed with you praying for that honeymoon phase to come back. The fighting went on almost every night and slowly my self esteem got worse until you made me feel like I had none at all. I remember at one point you made me feel so bad if I didn’t want to have sex for one night that I stopped saying no altogether to you and just shoved my feelings down. This was around the same point you told me I “couldn’t say no to you” which gave me an apprehensive feeling. Who was this guy I fell in love with and what is he turning into?
Your ex girlfriend made advances towards you and after I asked you to put an end to it, you told me you wanted to keep her around just in case. When you were drunk one night you told me you’d sleep with her again if given the chance. You can imagine the anxiety I started to develop, the paranoia that every time your phone went off it was her. This anxiety got so bad I stopped eating, I was sick all the time and I lost too much weight, you told me to just shove food down and I’d feel better.
Soon things went from bad to worse. That night when we were drinking we got into another fight and I hit you, not hard but enough to get my anger and frustration to leave my body. You retaliated, hard. I was bruised on my arm and had to cover it up, telling everyone I ran into a door. You started slapping your hand over my mouth because you didn’t want to listen to me anymore, you started pinning me down and yelling in my face until I shut up and listened to you. I started to get scared just to be alone with you which no one should feel about someone they love. On top of the physical altercations, you never let me down in calling me every name in the book from c*nt to slut, to telling me how much you hate me and wanted to hurt me. My most memorable one was when you told me I make you want to kill yourself.
That’s when I started thinking maybe it’s me. Maybe there is something so wrong with me that I destroy everything in my life and make them into this person. I blamed myself for your mistakes. My life had gotten to the point where I was coming home crying every night and it was taking a toll on me. The day we broke up you made me feel like I was a horrible person and I believed you. You dragged me down so far and you made sure I stayed there. I remember I could barely eat and would curl up on my floor with a knife in my hand dragging it across my skin because that’s what I thought I deserved. I started not looking both ways before crossing the street, or looking down from my 10th floor balcony wondering if it would hurt. I was in the worst place I have ever been. Not because we broke up but because of the mark you left on me. If someone tells you the same thing enough, you believe them and that’s what I did with you. As the months without you passed I started getting better and was able to build myself up despite you and I believe I have come back better. Although the scars you left are still there and dating is still not an option for me as I am terrified to get myself into the same thing I did with you.
Although I do want to thank you. You showed me everything I don’t want or deserve in a relationship and I’m wiser from it. I feel stronger going through that and because of you, I worked on myself and gave myself the love you never could. I just hope your next girlfriend finds out faster than I did that it’s you who needs to work on yourself and I hope you have learned something from me too.
