To The Girl Who Stole My Boyfriend, On The Eve Of Their Wedding

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I hope you’re happy. I don’t mean that in a catty mean girl way. I sincerely hope that living life with him by your side makes you happy. I hope he makes you smile every morning and that you make him laugh every single day. Laugh that, hard awkward laugh that almost sounds fake. I know I don’t know you well, but I do know this – You’re everything I’m not and you’re perfect for him.

When we broke up my mom brought up the idea that maybe he was never really himself with me. Which is an awful thing to believe. I couldn’t stomach the idea that I had just spent three years with a person that didn’t really exist.

She was right though.

He spent three years trying desperately to be the person he knew I wanted. The person that he just wasn’t. We supported each other through everything, we had fun, we played, we fought the healthy way. We had a good relationship. But it really just boiled down to the fact that we weren’t right for each other. A month or so before everything ended we were fighting and he broke down crying and said “I don’t know how to make you happy. And it’s the worst feeling in the world knowing that I can’t make my girlfriend happy.” It broke my heart but I felt the same way. I didn’t know how to make him happy anymore either and I don’t know how you carry a relationship on at that point.

On paper he and I were perfect. We had the same faith and values. We spent years of being best friends before we even considered dating. We went to church together; we volunteered together. He golfed with my dad and I went shopping with his mom. We were obnoxiously perfect…on paper.

He can tell himself whatever helps him sleep at night, but the reality of the whole thing was that he left me for you. He would never admit that, mostly because I don’t think he wants to admit it to himself. I’ve always known it though. What’s interesting is that we used to talk about the idea of meeting your soulmate while you were already committed to someone else. An idea that truly terrified me and an idea that he refused to acknowledge were possible. Because we both knew – it was only a matter of time.

I don’t actually blame you though. We were done well before he even met you. We just didn’t have the courage to end it. A month before you even met him I asked my best friend, “How do you know if you should break up with someone? And if they’re this amazing person, why would you ever break up with them?“

The first year and a half of our relationship was spent dealing with outside tragedies. So we spent that year mostly taking care of each other. I’ll never forget that and as much as I wanted to hate him, to this day he’s done more for me than any other person on this earth. That isn’t lost on me.
Once we were actually faced with our relationship though, things went south. We were best friends and great caregivers. We just weren’t great partners.

He loved me. Oh did he love me. People would say things like “that guy would walk through fire for you.” And I believe it. I certainly loved him with everything I had, too. But we weren’t right for each other. We wanted completely different things out of a partner and out of life. I need someone to push me and stand up to me when I’m being dumb. He needs constant reassurance and someone who won’t question his reasoning. I wanted to move to London, and he wanted to raise his family in the house he grew up in. We were absolutely best friends. But we weren’t partners.

To me, I want something even more than a best friend from a spouse. I have a lot of best friends but I want someone who truly understands me to my core. And while we loved each other immensely, we never understood each other.

Society says I should hate you. I don’t anymore though.

Believe me, I’ve spent my fair share of time hating you. My friends have certainly ripped you to shreds. Everything from the highlights you had in your hair when you first started dating to the Instagram name you made after he proposed. Oh God did I hate you at first. I didn’t like you as soon as he met you. You were too pushy, too available. You knew he had a girlfriend and yet you stopped at nothing to get close to him. I had an intuition something was happening. And a week after we broke up there was your smug face in his profile picture, confirming my suspicions.

I can’t hate you though. I just don’t have it in me anymore. With or without you we were eventually going to fail and honestly, you saved me from a huge mistake. I was so comfortable that even though I knew in my heart I didn’t want that life forever, I honestly had planned on marrying him.

So thank you for saving both of us from settling for a mediocre love.

The vindictive part of me felt a small victory after running into a mutual friend and they told me how different he’s become. He’s a person they don’t recognize and that they don’t particularly care for you. What they don’t understand though is that he is actually much more himself with you than he ever was with me.

Everyone seemed to rally behind me because while we dated we had this perfect couple facade. We were the couple you root for, the couple that seemed to have everything figured out. But just because you don’t fight in public and you’re not obnoxious on social media doesn’t mean you’re perfect for each other.

A friend of mine forwarded a caption of your wedding website to me. There in your story of how you met you described your connection as instantaneous and went on to say how you were immediately joined at the hip. Failing to mention that he had a girlfriend. But that’s okay, I was a short blip in your love story anyways.

So take care of his heart. As hurt as I was, I still think the world of him. He was everything I needed at a point in time. And he will be everything you need.

He deserves a great love, an easy love.
And I hope you’re that for him.