When my friends ask why I can forgive him so easily, how I can just forget the pain I felt and things he put me through, how I can just move on so easily like it didn’t consume me for as long as it did?

The truth is I’d be impossible to forget the pain I felt or forget all of the tears I cried. It’d be impossible to say I don’t remember what it felt like staring at my phone wondering why he was playing this game again. The game where every move he made, it seemed like I was on some string because he knew exactly how I’d react.

He broke me. He broke me to a point where I hope I never see that version of myself again.

The version of myself where I’m on the bathroom floor crying so hard I almost threw up. The version of myself where friends are checking in on me they are so concerned about my well-being. The version of myself where someone’s absence made me feel less about myself and how I questioned how’d I’d make it through a day without him.

But hating him wouldn’t have made it easier.

The truth is it wasn’t just him I had to forgive. I had to forgive myself for letting someone impact me so much that he had such power and influence over me. I had to forgive myself for choosing someone who wasn’t reciprocating all I had to give. I had to forgive myself for choosing someone who hurt me.

So before I could even forgive him for the pain he caused me, I had to forgive myself too.

And as intense as those feelings were on one end of the spectrum that’s how great it was on the other end. Because it wasn’t just bad.

I forgave him because I still love him.

And people wonder how can you love someone who doesn’t treat you the way you deserve? How do you love someone who is only half good most the time? The other half of the time they aren’t kind. They don’t keep their word. They cancel. They let you down time and time again. But you still love them. You love them for their good moments. You love them for the person you know they are, even if they aren’t showing you that the whole time. The truth is the heart wants what it wants and you can either fight it or follow it. Love isn’t something we choose so don’t be so hard on yourself when your heart chooses the wrong person. Even with the “wrong” love we learn. The truth is I don’t think love and wrong could ever be in the same sentence if it’s genuine and true.

I forgave him because I know he’s human.

No one is perfect. We all mess up. We all hurt one another sometimes. Maybe we’re dealing with our own pain and we don’t know how to process. Maybe we take out anger on the people we know will forgive us. The truth is yes I saw the worst sides of him but when you can look at someone and see every part of them but still believe there is something good there and something worth taking a chance on, you hold onto those people. Because the worst sides of him didn’t even compare to him at his best. So I took the bad stuff all of it with a grain of salt.

I forgave him for my own peace of mind.

Hating someone I loved with all my heart would have hurt me more. I understand that hatred and anger are really masked pain. And the more you try and cover up that you are hurting, the harder it will be to heal. I wouldn’t have gained anything being angry at him. So I chose not to be. I chose to feel every bit of pain fully until I didn’t have to anymore.

I forgave him because I missed him.

It’s hard to look back at someone you have such an emotional and maybe even physical relationship with and not miss them. It’s hard to just forget someone who gave you so much to remember. The truth was, in the time we didn’t speak, I thought about him often. I missed the little things like the time spent together and the conversations throughout the day. I missed someone knowing me better than I knew myself. Someone helping me to learn and grow. It’d be impossible to not miss someone like that. It was in him I found a second self. You can’t just forget something that deep.

I forgave him because everyone deserves a second chance.

I don’t care if it was the 100th-second chance, I forgave him because I never stopped believing in him once. Maybe we needed time apart. Maybe we needed to learn by ourselves before we could ever come back into each other’s lives. But I believe in giving people chances until they prove you right. And the truth is, I never doubted him. Maybe I grew frustrated and annoyed sometimes but I always believed in him even in the moments he gave me reasons not to.

I forgave him because he forgave me too.

When relationships go wrong you can’t just put the blame on one person. Just as it takes two people to maintain a relationship, it takes two people to end one. And it wasn’t just me who needed to forgive him. I needed him to forgive me too. Maybe I put too much pressure on him. Maybe I relied on him too heavily. Maybe it was me pushing him away. I can’t dismiss the fact that I didn’t have anything to do with what might have been an ugly ending. But I forgave myself in hopes that maybe he’d meet me there too.

I forgave him for everything he did right.

I can come up with a list of everything he did wrong. But that doesn’t even compare to all the things he did right him my life. It’d be impossible to look at only half of that without taking into consideration everything good he brought into my life. Despite the headaches and the drama and fights, there still isn’t anyone who can make me laugh harder. Despite every wrong thing he ever said, there isn’t anyone who can look at me and read me based on just my facial expressions.

Despite the pain, I might have felt it doesn’t even compare to the joy I felt in his company and how much happiness he brought to my life. I loved him. I loved him with everything I had in me. And I can’t regret that. I can’t just push that away and pretend that didn’t happen. He opened my heart, the same heart that was afraid to feel anything for anyone and he taught me it was okay.

My friends might see every mistake he made but I chose to forgive him thinking about everything he did right.

If I told you I hated him I’d be lying.

And maybe it didn’t work out the way I would have liked it too. But I still look back at all of it as a whole as one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Because life is about the love we find along the way, in others and in ourselves. And even if the relationship didn’t turn out how you thought it would, if you can look back grateful for all of it there isn’t a grudge you should hold or pain you should feel because a lot of people don’t get to experience anything like that ever.