Sometimes we love people who aren’t right for us—maybe circumstance or emotions running wild, maybe chance or deception, maybe loneliness healed in the arms of another, maybe something that felt real but drifted over time.

I fell for someone just like that. Someone whose arms I got wrapped in, whose words wound their way around my heart. For a minute, I lost myself. For a minute, I was convinced everything was perfect.

But then it all came crashing down.

He wasn’t who he said he was, or pretended to be. He wasn’t the honest, loyal, loving person I admired. He wasn’t filled with heart and honesty as I had so easily believed.

And so it ended. A whirlwind. A mess. A bunch of mixed feelings and guilt and frustration at him, and myself. I couldn’t help but feel foolish for falling for his words, for trusting someone I didn’t even really know. But that’s love, isn’t it? Trust. Believing in the goodness of someone else’s heart. Jumping in. Being vulnerable.

When I walked away, he said something to me, words I’ll never forget.

“No one will ever love you the way I do.”

Those words bit at my heart. They made my cheeks flush, my head bow down in embarrassment and guilt over ending things. I took them as truth, for whatever reason—maybe because I felt broken and weak, maybe because I was caught up in the emotion of love and loss, maybe because it was just another sugar-coated line, so easily slipping from his lips that I couldn’t help believe it. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right – no one would ever love me like he did.

But he was wrong. Oh so wrong.

See, some people like to say things out of bitterness and anger. Some people think that if they can break you, it will somehow heal them. That if they spew their anger, lash out, push their pain onto someone else, it will magically fill the hole in their heart.

But it won’t. It’ll only make that hole bigger.

When he said those words to me, I believed them at first. I was convinced he loved me, despite all the crap he put me through, despite the lies, despite the distrust that grew wild like weeds between us. Love does that to us sometimes, doesn’t it?

But after I separated and found my own strength and self-love once again, I realized he was wrong.

Because someone that truly loves you won’t have to spew angry words when things don’t work out as planned. They won’t be so quick to say you aren’t worthy of love; they will be that love, rather than force you to look for it elsewhere.

He was wrong. So wrong to say that I wouldn’t ever find a love as big as his when his love was nothing in comparison to the love I deserve.

And now I know. Now I realize that I am worthy of love. We all are. And anyone that says we aren’t, or that we won’t find it if we’re not with them? That’s not true. That’s toxic, unhealthy, and verbally damaging to our sense of selves.

If someone has said something like that to you, promising you unhappiness unless it’s in their arms—walk away, leave, say goodbye, move on to someone who will give you their whole heart without lies, deceit, or spiteful words.

Let them go, for they don’t deserve you. Never deserved you.

In my story, time has passed and my heart has healed. But if I were to see that man again, I would say this:

“You’re right. No one will love me the way you do; they’ll love me better.”

Because they will.

Someone will love me without conditions, without lies. Someone will love me even when our relationship starts to fail, even when we face hard times and want to lose faith in one another. Someone will love me and all my imperfections, and show me his, without hiding behind a mask.

That man was absolutely right when he said no one would love me the way he did. Because his love will never compare to the true, beautiful, honest love I deserve.