A Letter To The Ex Who Put Me Through Hell

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Our relationship wasn’t perfect. Neither were you or I. We were two lost ships floating in the night that found each other. We were both struggling to find our place in the world. I believed you could provide what I needed. You were attractive and charismatic and at first all you wanted was me. I was in an awful place. You found value in what I thought was worthless. You liked me and I couldn’t understand why.

A few months in I started to realize my mistakes. You drank a lot and you were insulting. If I wasn’t doing things your way you spent your time belittling me. It got old really quick. You picked on my anxiety condition and my weight. My imperfections bothered you. Or so I believed they did. We both made a lot of mistakes; perhaps one of them was spending time together in the first place.

It wasn’t the other women I couldn’t handle. It wasn’t even the being called names I couldn’t handle. It was all of the lying. You lied constantly about everything from money to women, drinking to where you’d been last night. I wasn’t the possessive or jealous type. You were who you were.

For almost two years I smiled and I dealt with your bullshit while crying behind locked doors. I smiled in your face every day as you called me fat and asked you for another insult. I even smiled when I dropped you off knowing you were going to hook up with some other girl. I smiled. I wasn’t going to let you see you bothered me. I don’t know why I hung around for so long, maybe it was because I saw value you in you that you obviously didn’t see you in yourself. Maybe it was because all of my friends were in relationships and I didn’t want to be alone, but there came a point where I no longer wanted you or cared what you did. I just wasn’t going to be the first one to run.

You never made me happy. You educated me to the fullest extent. You showed me what I didn’t want from my relationships. You showed me how to find my own value as you sent me on a road to self discovery after our departure. You were who you were and I wasn’t going to change that.

I should have spent my time drowning myself in a tub of ice cream. I should have spent my time watching The Notebook crying. I should have spent time crying into a tumbler of vodka while my girl friends relished me with compliments about how amazing I was. I should have. I didn’t.

You see, our parting ways was the best thing to ever happen to me. Not only did it lead me to a better class of people to spend my time with, but it also lead me down the path where I was finally able to say “I am enough.”

I want to thank you for all of your shameful behavior. Your insults. Your cheating. Your lies. I want to thank you for reminding me daily that I wasn’t of any value you to you really just a toy for when you were bored. If it wasn’t for those moments I wouldn’t have woken up the day after we said our goodbyes and felt free for the first time in years. I wouldn’t have woken up looked in the mirror and marveled at the way the sun caught my green eyes when I smiled and how happy I looked. Your behavior was never a reflection of how you felt about me, it was a reflection of how you felt about yourself the whole time. You used women to validate your existence. You felt unattractive. You felt like an outcast and more importantly you felt like no one would ever love you. I did. I’m not sorry I did. Everyone needs someone who loves them.

I don’t hate you and I don’t even wish I did. I am grateful for the fact that I can wake up in the morning and feel good about myself. I accepted my imperfections because people are beautiful and unique and the world would be a very boring place if we were all perfect. I thank you for letting me go so the person I’m supposed to be with can find me and share in my sense of adventure and my love of life. I want to thank you for the very bottom of my bandaged heart for healing me with your terrible words and your spiteful actions.

Most importantly though, I hope that one day you wake up and realize that you are enough. I hope you find love. I hope you find happiness and mostly I hope that you find yourself because if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have found myself. Thank you for helping me realize what a beautiful, kind, unique and interesting person I am. Thank you for throwing all of that away so others can see it too. Thank you for the memories.

Because of you I was able to find my love for life, my sense of adventure and the passion for all the things I loved that I lost while I was trying to keep you happy. If these aren’t reasons enough to thank someone than I really don’t know what is.