I Won’t Let You Manipulate Me Anymore

You are nothing but a joke, and I am always the sick punchline, the butt of your twisted manipulation for a quick ego boost. You say you didn’t mean to hurt me, for the hundredth time. I laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement.

You don’t accidentally destroy a person, especially not one you claim to “love.” A vicious cycle of mind-games, mental abuse, and manipulation day in and day out, when all I ever did was love you unconditionally, with the utmost of pure intentions and genuine heart. Is the joke starting to become clearer now?

What’s really funny is being dumped on your birthday after a four-year relationship. Tossed to the curb like garbage. No plea was enough for you. My love wasn’t enough for you. I wasn’t enough for you.

You claimed “irreconcilable differences,” but the truth is you dumped me on my birthday after months of lying and sneaking around, because you met someone else, and you wanted to be with her. You fed me a slew of abusive excuses: I should have been kinder, sweeter, more supportive, more this, more that. I had brought this onto myself. I am bitch, and you don’t love me anymore. This is all my fault. I have only myself to blame.

I begged for you to reconsider, to take a step back. I begged you not to throw away a four-year long relationship of blood, sweat, and tears on a whim — on a feeling that won’t last. I cried in the middle of a Barnes & Noble Starbucks like an idiot. I cried, and cried, and begged you to stay.

You wanted to be with her, and I was nothing more than your old, long-term girlfriend who you stayed with out of pity or convenience or something like that.

The funny thing is, you were failing out of college. You didn’t have a job. You didn’t have a car. You didn’t have a damn good thing going on in your life, and I never put you down.

No matter the circumstance, I always made you feel as if you were God’s greatest gift, and maybe that was the problem. I built you up so high, fed your false ego, that there was no room left for myself.

I am not perfect, but I have a solid head on my shoulders. I am intelligent, I am good, and I am beautiful. Yet you never made me feel like I was any of these things — only “lucky to have you.” Of course, you left, but before you went, you graced me with the promise, “Once I walk out of here, you will never see or hear from me again.” Funny, how I wish that was the one promise you would have kept.

After a long summer of silence, you crept back into my life. As the leaves on the trees began to change colors, you began to manipulate your way back, and I let you. This is where I take some accountability. I let you use my mind and my body as your ego boost for over two years.

You see, I have this theory about people like you. People like you have an undeserving sense of entitlement. You think you deserve things, when in reality, you never work for them. You never see a problem with your actions, so how can you take responsibility for the things you have done if you refuse to believe you have done them in the first place?

You see things one-sided, with rose-colored glasses and delusion, and because of this, you feel no sorrow or guilt. You don’t know how to maintain anything good in your life, because you are not genuine and all that you speak are excuse after excuse after excuse.

After the bubble bursts, and you fall from your delusional high of entitlement and worth, and reality hits you in your face — that is when you need me. When you wake up the morning after your twenty-second birthday, to the feeling of emptiness — that is when you need me.

When the prior night’s celebration lacked true love and joy. When you don’t receive that call from your brother. Or your best friend forgets to send that text. Or the girl that you want doesn’t even give a damn that it is your birthday at all — that is when you need me.

“My biggest regret is losing you.”

“I know you want us to go our separate ways”

“I’m not trying to start trouble”

“I miss you”

“Can we talk?”

Maybe the saddest thing about all of this is that I still gave you the benefit of the doubt. In my mind, this was what I had been waiting for, for two long years. You had finally realized your mistake. You were finally going to apologize. I was good enough for you, and you were going to tell me just how much you loved me and how you couldn’t be without me. Laugh. Because I know it sounds completely foolish. It was.

We met at a local bar. All you wanted was to make sure I hadn’t moved on — and that I won’t. You sweetly lied and wove a web of empty promises:

“I love you”

“You’ve set the standard too high”

“I believe in this”

“Baby-steps to figuring this out”

Sure enough, not even a week later, you had changed your mind. You took back all that you said, and told me not to be hurt if “one of us moves on.” You told me that “things could never be the same between us.” You told me that “this is too hard.” You told me that you hope “one day God wills us to be together.” Then you told me you “didn’t mean to hurt me.”

Only, you did. You played with my feelings like a toy to boost your own ego when you were down. It made you feel good to know that someone like you had control over someone like me.

Once I built you up with encouragement and pure love — once you got your fix — that is when you left again. That is, until next time. And with you, there is always a next time.

It’s a sick, cruel cycle of mental-abuse and manipulation that I will no longer let myself be a part of. I’m better than this, and we both know that.

I think the funniest part of all is that the joke is on you. You threw out unconditional, unwavering love for what? You continually used the girl who only wanted to give you the world for what? You keep searching for someone better but no one gives you the time, effort, or love, because no one is me.

The joke is on you for finally losing the one good thing in your life. I’m laughing now, because this will never be my loss. I know all that I am; I know how much I have to offer and all that I deserve. I am no longer the punchline of your running joke. I am no longer your ego boost, and I pray to God that no other girl falls victim to that role.

I am the girl with a lot of hard lessons learned, a dark past behind her, and a bright future ahead of her. And I can promise you, that the next time you’re feeling low, I won’t be there to lift you back up.