Leaving you hurt me, too. No one ever thinks about how much it hurts to be the one who leaves. We get too bogged down being sympathetic for the one who gets left. We feel for the brokenhearted, but never for the one who did the heart breaking. They’re always the enemies, and never the victim. But it isn’t easy to initiate a breakup. It isn’t easy to leave something that you were so sure you wanted. It isn’t easy to leave someone you love. It isn’t easy to hurt the person you would never want to see hurt.

I don’t think you ever saw how hard it was for me. And in your defense, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t have either. Lying down next to the person you love – and knowing it’s the last time – is gut-wrenching. It makes your body feel like putty. Like you can’t move, because you know that when you move, you have to leave, and all you want to do is stay lying by their side a few seconds longer. All I wanted to do was ignore the differences, the problems, and stay by your side.

But finally, I picked myself up and left. And I’m sorry you can’t forgive me for that. The truth is, the different between me and the girl you’re with now is that she needs you in a way that I never did.

You needed someone to need you, to rely on you, to want to be with you or with no one at all. You wanted a love free of vulnerabilities and challenges. You wanted your girl to just be yours, and not want for anything else. You wanted someone you knew would never leave you.

And with me, you would have always had a teasing doubt in the back of your mind. Because I didn’t need you. I wanted you, you were my first choice, and yet still, that wasn’t enough to make you feel secure. That wasn’t enough to convince you that I was all in, even when I was.

But I guess that’s why I stopped being all in. Had you loved me because I didn’t need you, then maybe we could have worked, but you loved me in spite of the fact that I didn’t need you. And that would never have worked for me in the long run.

So I left. In a twisted way, I think my leaving validated you. It proved you right. You always felt vulnerable, because you knew I could leave you at any moment. But had you trusted me, I never would have left.

I look at you now, and I know you found what you were looking for. You’re happy, you’re in love, and you’re complete with a girl who needs you. A girl who puts you on a pedestal, and doesn’t just trust you completely, but might even trust you more than she trusts herself. A girl who needs you enough to never make you feel vulnerable, a girl so open that you never feel like she’s holding back. And I guess I’m happy for you, partially because I don’t have any other choice, but mostly because know I could have never been that girl for you. I would have never wanted to.