This Is How You Ruined Love For Her

She has always been the type to stand on her own two feet. She has never needed anyone to help her carry the load that weighed heavily on her back. She has always been the person who people depend on. She is resilient and tough. She knew that vulnerability wasn’t a weakness per say but she didn’t want to ever show anyone that side.

Then you came along.

You came along and you shook the neat, little, built-for-one world she had created for herself. You came along and made her think that maybe she didn’t need to be the tough girl she had been brought up to be. She started to believe that maybe she could share some of the load she carried. She felt herself starting to open up to you in ways she never imagined she could.

So why did you leave? Why did you walk away without even saying one reason that made sense?

She laid in her bed and let the tears fall down her cheeks. She wondered what she had done to make you treat her like she didn’t matter. She wondered if in all of those late nights and endless conversations were warning signs she had chosen to ignore. And there were. There were red flags that were so high and so red but she didn’t care. She didn’t care because she loved you.

She learned an important lesson though. She learned that even though she loved you more than anything, that it can’t replace the love you need to have for yourself. She learned that taking the risk and falling in love with broken people isn’t always going to end happily.

She remembers every little thing you said. She remembers questioning if you meant them. She remembers wondering if this could actually be genuine. Because it felt too true. It was too real. It was too much for her to comprehend that things were actually going right for once. She was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and when it did, it just reminded her why she was alone for so long.

Pain. She has never felt pain like this before. She has never felt a pain like you and she’s wondering if she’ll ever be able to let it go. She knows there’s nothing wrong with her but she can’t help but mourn the loss of something she thought she finally got right. While she can logically look and realize that there was always something off, emotionally she couldn’t not give you her heart.

She held her heart out to you multiple times trying to convince you that she was here. That she wasn’t going anywhere. While a part of you must have believed her, an even bigger part of you decided you couldn’t do this. If only you had known that all you had to be with her is honest and you would have saved her a world of hurt. When she told you all she craved was honesty did you just ignore that? Or did you just think she was lying?

She watched her phone for hours, waiting to hear from you. Waiting to know if you were going to call and apologize for being late. She was praying that you would at least send her some lame excuse so she could forgive you for hurting her. But you never did. You made her worry that something had happened to you but she knew that wasn’t the case.

She doesn’t know why you disappeared. She doesn’t know what you’re dealing with because in her attempts to be vulnerable with you, you were building a wall to keep her out. Maybe you were scared. Maybe you just didn’t love her in the same way. Whatever the reason, it’s always better to tell someone instead of leaving them hanging.

She’s tired of sleeping with your ghost. She talks to him.

She tells him all the things she wishes she could tell you. She thinks about how maybe if she had been a little stronger and had kept her cards closer to her chest that maybe this feeling of excruciating pain would have not happened.

Eventually though she’s going to be OK. She’s going to get back on her feet and remember all of the amazing things she has in her life. She has friends. She has a life. She has things that other people wish they had. She will remember that resilience she has deep down inside that makes her who she is.

You didn’t ruin love for her. Sure she’ll be even more cautious in the future but you haven’t taken the hope of love away from her. She deserves to be in love with someone who loves her just as much as she loves them. She deserves to know that there is someone out there who respects her enough to have those uncomfortable talks with her. She deserves to not settle for someone who’s half in and half out.

You didn’t ruin her, no not even close.

So late at night, when you miss her, don’t call. Don’t ask her to come back. Don’t tell her that you fucked up. She knows you did. She also knows that her self-respect is worth more than your words.

So cherish the memories of her. She won’t be coming back and she doesn’t wish you bad. She just wishes you had seen what you had when you had it.