When It’s Time To Let Him Go

It’s time to let him go because he cannot love you. He may want to. He sometimes may even try to. But he cannot. And you may never know why or stop asking yourself what it is about you as a human being that couldn’t change him into the kind of person who could love you. But all of that really doesn’t matter in the face of the fact that he doesn’t— and can’t— love you.

It’s time to let him go because it’s been too long. The day has come and gone to call time of death on this one. You have said no more one too many times and gone back to him one too many times. In this world, we may like to think that infinite forgiveness and infinite second chances are graceful and beautiful things to give to one another, but one day all those ‘I forgive yous’ and all those second chances inevitably start to eat us alive from the inside. We know in our hearts what’s right, but we believe, against all the odds, that this time could be different. Patterns are patterns, my sweet friend. They always repeat themselves.

It’s time to let him go because this is torturing you. I’ve watched you on many occasions try in vain to distract yourself or fall asleep or do something— anything— to forget the pain he’s caused you or that he’s not texting you like he said he would or that he, in general, makes you doubt everything you think you know about your relationship with him. That’s not love. Love means security. Love means not only not torturing someone, but also seeking to protect them from pain of all kinds.

It’s time to let him go because he’s holding you back. He’s preventing you from focusing on your work and your future and having fun and meeting new people. He keeps you in this stagnant and frustrating corner of his life and for every one step forward, there are always two steps back. I know he has become a pivotal element in your universe and letting him go may seem impossible, but certainly nothing is, especially when it comes to saving yourself.

It’s time to let him go because whatever this is, it is not love and it is not even care.

Of course love comes in many different forms. My love is different from the love he would give you if he could. But at the root of it all, love means you before me. It’s as simple as that. And regardless of whether it’s romantic love or parental love or friend love, it has the same central values. I know what it means to love you and miss you and take care of you and sacrifice for you, so I always recognize when other people in your life are capable of doing all these things.

I know that loving you simultaneously corresponds to so much joy and so much pain because loving you means fearing losing you. It’s the kind of fear though that’s strangely comforting— the kind that feels like human susceptibility— having something so wonderful is always a gift in spite of its impermanence. It’s one of the hardest things in the world— taking off that blindfold that covers your eyes from the inside, but for yourself, for your sanity, for your soul, it’s time to let him go.