Dear You,

I went through a breakup and the only way I knew how to say what I needed to say was through a letter. He never got it, but I wrote it so that the thoughts wouldn't be in my head any longer

 I feel like I have already said everything I could possibly say to you. But I don’t feel like you ever listened to it, not really. Being with you has made me the happiest person in the world. Even when there were times when we fought, it was never bad enough that I thought we wouldn’t work out. Because fighting is normal in a relationship. And I’m worried that you don’t think it is, and you’ll date a couple girls only to find out that you will fight with all of them. Unfortunately not everyone is like your parents. Your mom is probably the nicest person on this planet. She literally never gets mad at any of you. She works so hard and does so much for all of you and never complains. It’s mind blowing to think about our moms and how different they are. I grew up in a house where my parents basically loved each other one day and then hated each other the next. I told myself I would never do that, if I was with someone then I would be happy. I would choose who I wanted to be happy with. So yeah, we fought a lot at the beginning of our relationship, but the longer it went on, and the longer I realized that you were the person I wanted to be with, I told myself to smarten up, and that things we fought about were so stupid and minuscule. In some ways I kind of want you to date other girls just so that you will believe me, our relationship isn’t flawed; people just fight.

I also think that you got scared away when I told you I had depression. That wasn’t to try and make you feel guilty about leaving me or feel like you always had to do the right thing around me because that’s not why I did it. I told you because I wanted you to know everything about me. Just like I wanted to know everything about you. There was no reason for you to get so scared about it, because honestly, I hadn’t thought anything bad in years and years. Suicide hasn’t been something I’ve struggled with since I was 15. At that time in my life it felt like I had nothing to live for. I never even saw myself living past 18. It isn’t something that goes through my mind all the time, it’s barely there, literally almost never there. Even when I had my abortion I was never at that point. And when I knew I was getting bad again, I went on medication.. Basically I know how to handle depression. I hope that if we don’t get back together, and you do date someone with depression, don’t be as freaked out as you were with me. I promise you, you will know how to handle it, just don’t be so nervous about it. I’m sorry I told you that I wanted to die, the problem is, is that I haven’t felt like this since the last time I wanted to die. It’s the same pit feeling in my stomach that is telling me that I’m not going anywhere. But you always say I’m a strong girl, and that I’ve gone through a lot. So I guess if losing you is something I have to go through then I’ll figure it out. I won’t die, but it’s gonna feel like I want to. 

When we first started dating, I was so hesitant to get to know you better because I never thought it would work. I looked at myself, this girl that had always hated the guys that talked to her, or dated her and thought that I would just push you away too. You remember when I told you that no one stayed with me past 8 months, it’s because Eric told me that. He told me that I am too shy, too uncomfortable around other people and I don’t let people get to know me well enough. He wasn’t wrong, I hated dating from 17-20. I know it’s not a long time, but I had dudes want to date me. And I hated every one of them. None of them clicked with me. So even when you asked me out on a date I was going to say no. I thought about you, this super cute, super handsome sporty guy who was so charismatic and funny wanting to date me and I knew that we would never click, our personalities would never match. But I was so so wrong. Everything about you is my favourite part of you. I like that you make me feel special all the time, and you also can call me out when I’m being annoying or bitchy. I like that we’ve come together with our interests and we both seem to like the same things even though at the beginning that was far from the truth. I like that we even grew up together. You’ve been the biggest part of my adult life. And you’ve helped me through the loss of my friends, you helped me work through my insecurities around people especially your friends, and with myself.

Saying all of this, I need you to know that I am a more confident person because of you. And I was very happy always getting to be with you. In the last two and a half years you are the person I want to call or text when something happens, you’re the person I want to go out with and do things, and you’re the person I feel the most comfortable with. I could never imagine being with someone else who makes me this comfortable with myself. My favourite thing in the world to do is just be with you. So when I say that I’m happy with you, and you make me happy, I don’t mean you are the only thing that makes me happy. What I mean is that I am happy I get to share the things I love with you. I am so happy that I have someone in my life that wants to do the same things as me.

The problem I have with being your friend is that, for now, you will still want to hang out with me, and do all of these fun things with me, but what if you meet someone new? What if you want to start doing all of the things we do together with her? That is the part of all of this that I cannot handle. I am okay with you doing everything else your heart desires, but I don’t want to be replaced. That’s what is driving me crazy. I can’t handle the thought of you having another person over and getting to meet Jake, or spending all afternoon watching football, or bugging someone else with your farts in the morning. Being replaced by someone else who you deem better than me is going to be heart breaking. I want to be with you so bad, but I have a feeling you don’t. And I have a feeling that you know you don’t want to be with me in the long haul. When you were going to drive me home today and never see me again, it was pretty obvious that you would rather never have me be in your life, then spend one more day with me as your girlfriend. It sucks to think about, but that’s what I’m thinking about.

I also need you to know something: no one is going to be the exact same as you. I’m sorry but they won’t be. There is no girl that you’re going to meet that is going to work in sales and love cars and love golf and also love business and stocks and smoking weed and star wars and sports and hating to drive even with their love of cars. I’m sorry but you’re going to have to settle for some of those things, not all. And why be with someone who is the exact same as you anyway? How boring, I know I would hate it, probably because I talk too much and I’m way to needy. Just know that girls aren’t going to be the exact same as you. And it sounds s****y, but you may have to settle for your 90% dream girl. I’m not saying that’s me… but I hope it is.

I hope I could give you some clarity of how I was feeling. I needed to get it off my chest and write it down while I wasn’t cry and didn’t feel totally awful. That’s not to say I don’t feel like absolute s**t, but hopefully this helps. I feel like I put way to much pressure on you because I was so happy and you so were not. I thought those trips to Niagara Falls were fun, I thought camping was fun, and comic con and jays games. I thought all of that was good enough and what a relationship was supposed to be. I guess because I thought everything was so perfect, it made you step back and realize it wasn’t perfect for you. That’s one of the hardest parts, knowing that what would make me happiest doesn’t do it for you. I hope one day it does. If not, I hope you can find it with someone else. Because I love you so so so much and all I really want is for you to be happy and get everything in life that you deserve. So you do deserve happiness, and it might not be with me. I need to make this point very clear though; If you don’t see any future with me, and you’re just saying it to make me feel better, I need you to stop. Just tell me if this isn’t going to work. You can keep saying you don’t know, but you do. Somewhere deep down you know exactly what you want. Don’t be afraid to tell me because honestly it’s better I get all of it over with at once then wait around and then realize that it’s never going to happen. Just please, please PLEASE tell me if you don’t want to be with me anymore. Just trust your gut and tell me. I hope, if one day you do want to be with me again, you can just tell me when you don’t like something. It’s not your job to make sure everything is okay, and you don’t have to like everything I do. And you can call me out on it! Just please think about what I’ve said, my real hope is that we can work this out soon but that isn’t to say that it has to. You take your time with things and I hope at the end I am still in the picture. 

Reviews

[Mel Jayne]

Wow. This is a very powerful and intimate piece of writing. The writing is almost absolutely perfect and I think that other than maybe shorter paragraphs and missing commas (after the second please in the last paragraph) I have no criticisms. This is an interesting look into the reality of revealing a mental illness to a partner and I think that that is very overlooked for how important that it is.

[ruth]

This was deep. I've never had a bad breakup so this was interesting to feel through the reading. All of it was well said.