To The Woman He Loved Before Me

I would like to start by saying, I am aware that I am the last person you probably want to hear from. I would also like you to know that you need not justify yourself to me. I am not the “he’s mine now” type. I am not going to sit here and tell you or myself that what you two shared was not true or real or rare. I know all too well that it was and it kills me every time I think about it.

To be completely honest, I know that you and I are more alike and have more in common than we may think. I express myself with words and for months, when it has come to you, I have not been able to find the right ones. Even with this shoddy attempt to get through to you, the perfect words escape me.

I want you to know that it was after I had fallen for him that I found out about you. I know it was long after you had loved him that you found out about me. Believe me, it was a surprise to us both. I was on a hillside hotel room when I first learned your name and saw your beautiful face. The glow of the screen bit through the dark and burned me like a million suns and words written held the power of thousands of ice storms, instantaneously freezing my recently melted heart.

There was no part of my body that did not feel the pulsing of my veins as the poison set in to this devastating discovery. I could not move. I could not breathe. I could not think straight. I could not look at him or my body the same. I imagined that you knew this feeling already, and sunk deeper into sadness.

I spent that night naked on a balcony, my only comfort being a blanket and an unbridled flow of tears. I have never been so broken. The pieces of my heart fell for different reasons. There were some for myself, some for him, and believe it or not, many for you. I will never have the “he chose me over her” mentality. I refuse to be the naive kind of woman who believes she is more worthy than those who came before her, and those who may come after. I am all too aware that if he is capable of doing it to you, what would stop him from doing it to me? Even worse, he could do it to me…with you.

Not that it is any consolation to you, but many of my heavy, hurting, heartbeats have been for you. I sent countless prayers, thoughts, and words you will never know into the wind of your country, just hoping they land somewhere near your aching heart and mind. Months have come and gone and I know only rivers and roads lay between us now, and I continue hoping these words will find you easier somehow and yet hoping his affection for you does not.

He does not talk much about you. I do not mean this as a way to rub it in, saying he never thinks of you. In fact, I believe it is quite the opposite. His unwillingness to talk about you speaks volumes to me. I would like to think it is because he knows it causes me pain to think about, but in reality, I suspect it is because it pains him to reflect on. More so than he will ever admit to me.

I know very little about you, your name and your familiar dark hair. Everything else is left to my imagination to fill in the gaps, and as my mind would have it, everything else you have is better than anything I have to offer him.

After falling in love with the same man, we both know there is no way to ever hate him. This only leads me to believe that your hatred and anger is naturally directed towards me. Again, we have more in common than you may realize. I am aware that you had nothing to do with his actions or the way he hurt me, I hope you can see it this way for how you have been hurt as well. That being said, I have an odd amount of guilt for being with him knowing you ache to be, but I believe you would do the same if put in my position. Selfishly, I would not trade the outcome for anything.

Yes, I feel vain writing all of this because after all, I am the one that gets to go home to him, wake up to him, continue making memories with him. I used to think the moments I shared with him were special, like I was the only one who saw certain sides of him, or got the pleasure of entering private corners and crevasses of his mind.

Now, many nights I lay awake and although I am next to him, I am anxious. I am sad. I am scared. I’m reaching for parts and pieces of him I now know he has long since given to you.

I wonder if when he holds the parts of me I give to him, he wishes they were yours.

I guess the whole point of this is to tell you that we were both hurt, and hurt in many of the same ways. If you are anything like me however, which I strangely sense that you are, you believe in the world’s natural flow of bringing people into your life and taking them away. I value and respect everything you were…I’m sorry…are to him. I will never discredit or disrespect everything he was and is to you.

I’m sorry that we are what we are to each other but at the end of the day, I have to live my life and find a way to be happy in it. I’m not sure what that means in my life right now but I know selfishly, that in my relationship, it means there is no place for you in it.

It hurts me knowing you still seem to be here. Whether in his heart, mind, or phone. You hold every place in my life that he allows you to.

So I guess that means, despite your broken heart, you win. And despite my being with him, you win. I want you to know that I am not angry with you. I understand your pain and I wish I could make it better, but I have no power to do that. You preach so heavily about having moved on, yet you still find any way of reminding him of you and the summer love experienced.

When it comes to my pain, I just wish you could see and understand it as well. I am broken from this and only you and he have the power to ease it. It seems that he is unwilling or unable to let you go completely and it is too much pain to bear to love a man I have to share. So please, woman to woman, make the choice and let us be.

I would like to end by saying, I am aware that I am the last person who should be asking you for favors, you do not owe me any, especially when it comes to him. At the same time however, I know that I need not justify myself to you.