Dear Ex,
I know it's been a while... so much has happened in my life since we last spoke. I'm sure the same can be said for you. Life has been good to me as I hope it has been to you. Living without unnecessary burdens has helped tremendously. Life is hard enough, why should it be made any harder? I could preface this letter with some sophisticated segue, but I'll just cut to the chase and say how good things have been since our split... that's actually an understatement and I'll be honest when I say it didn't happen without a lot of pain and recovery from the emotional trauma you inflicted. Yes I said it; that you inflicted. I came to 2 realizations over the past year. The first of which was... it was mostly your fault. That may be impossible for you to want to accept... but I assure you there is reason to that deduction. The 2nd and more important realization...I should have and would have handled it better with the experience I have now. I'll say, healing is a slow process. In many ways I feel as though I was sent to a bottomless pit, slowly clinging my way back to the surface little by little... day by day. It may seem irrelevant to you at this point, and, be that the case, good on you for putting everything that happened between us behind you in such a short time. I suppose it would be easier for you... you certainly got your way. I hate to make this sound angry, but I suppose theres no avoiding it. You could never fathom the magnitude of pain you inflicted by what you did... and I'm not even referring to the break up. Shocker? Perhaps, perhaps not. See, breaking up with you turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. It should have happened sooner... but love affects your better judgement... I suppose even more so the first time around... but it's betrayal that leaves the nasty imprint; that takes its toll... especially from someone you loved. You betrayed me from the start. I loved you... I did. It took me a while to convince myself that it was actual love. But I know now that my heart could not have broken the way it did had it not been for love. What really broke my heart more than anything was that, toward the end, I had truly begun to believe you loved me and not him. I truly began to believe it was all in my head and that there was nothing going on behind my back... that it was just my "paranoia," as you referred to it as... but sadly, you and I both know there was no paranoia... only reasonable suspicion and ignorance on my part. From the very beginning, he walks out of your life... you find and cling to me as a crutch... then he comes back, you play your games... with both me and him, teasing us both... tempting him with your texts... driving me jealous... it must have felt nice in the moment... until you grew tired of games and graduated to cheating. I was nothing but an ego-boost for you all along... someone to be with to make you feel loved... and I loved you without question, until he came back and you gave more of yourself to him than you did to me. I only had you by mere title... he always had your heart... If you had had the courage to fess up to this from the get go, to me, instead of dragging me through an obvious lie, leading me to have to try and catch you... moving on would have been so much easier.... but you dragged me along under the pretense we had a legitimate relationship, accepting date after date... gift after gift... dinner after dinner... all these wonderful things I did to show you how much you meant to me... and I was always in 2nd place. You only admitted to one instance of cheating, but only a fool would believe it started and stopped then... I can't be sure for exactly how long before our break up... but I know it was more than once. Sometimes I wonder if it was truly I that was your first. Even if I am mistaken... that's on you... it's what happens when you whore yourself out instead of having the honor and decency to end things before leaping to someone else. You'll never understand the pain of that until it happens to you. There is only one person in this world who saved me from total distrust of women... by the grace of her love... her total commitment, her loyalty... her friendship... her maturity... I have learned to put my pain into proper perspective... but even she can never completely erase the memory and pain of what you did. Our relationship had its flaws... we wanted different things... and we probably would have simply outgrown each other. Had it been for that, maybe we'd have actually been friends afterward... but your deception stuck a knife through my heart from behind and twisted it. For the first time in my life I truly felt stupid and used. You made me feel inadequate and less than I was. You made me feel I was undeserving. I know now how backwards that was. Yet, I can never hate someone I loved. If I didn't sincerely forgive you when I said I did, know that I do now... but with an understanding that the truly painful shit that happened between us was on you. If you'd been a loyal and honest partner... if you hadn't flirted with another man while calling yourself my girlfriend... if you had admitted your attraction to someone else and simply ended things instead of stringing me along (whether it was to ensure you were picking the safe choice, or because you liked the games and attention from 2 guys... Ill never know)... if not for your deception... we could have either had a healthy relationship, or we could have ended things honestly without the real hard feelings. Still, I should have handled things better myself... I should have acknowledged what I knew was happening and took action sooner. I'll never make that mistake again... but hey...Ob La Di, Ob La Da...life goes on...for the better. I'm also happy that you're happy... genuinely... I wouldn't have it any other way. I hope though, that you never forget the choices you made... I hope you never do it to anyone else... I hope no one does it to you. Cheating is probably one of the worst things you can do to a person... the pain lasts for a long time. All I can do is be thankful for all that I have now.. all I have accomplished in spite of that pain... and keep living... keep being happy... no matter what.
With regards and best wishes,
Ex
