[Cindi K]

It was really validating for his sister-in-law to tell me those things. But it was also hard. Knowing she doesn’t agree. Knowing she thinks this is a pattern for him. Knowing she thinks he didn’t do the right thing. I don’t know if it made me feel better or worse, honestly.

[Cindi K]

I started over and scrapped the whole thing, but I will listen if you still don’t think I should send it:

The letter

What does any of it mean? Falling in love. Falling out of it. Finding our strengths, and having our weaknesses outlined (in bold) in the process. What were we even doing?

Were we in love? Or were we in love with the idea of being in love? I still haven’t reconciled it. I don’t know if you have either.

What I do know is that I still have a sense of hope. That this isn’t the end. That we will, absolutely, find one another again.

Do I think it was necessary for us to fall away from each other to realize what’s important, where we went wrong, and how to do that better next time? Absolutely.

Do I think that means that it’s an unobtainable feat to try this again? Not necessarily.

We went too fast, Aaron. We both knew we did. We needed to slow down and take things at a more sustainable pace, but we were both afraid. To slow the pace – to lose one another if either of us said anything – to fall out of love. What we didn’t know then is that we’d lose by not doing so.

So what should we have done differently? We both should’ve made clearer boundaries for ourselves. We both should’ve been more honest about the fears and shame coming up as it happened. We both should’ve been more honest about how the hard moments truly made us feel so that we could heal those wounds along the way instead of just ripping them open and expecting them to heal themselves. We didn’t do that.

We tried and tried and tried to say how we were feeling in the moment, without examining our feelings against our thoughts to truly get to the root of what was going on inwardly. And while that feels good in the moment – it doesn’t teach boundaries, it doesn’t teach respect, and it doesn’t build trust.

Did I feel safer with you than anyone else had ever made me feel? Before you started to cut me off emotionally, yes – I absolutely did. But when things got awkward, when you started to pull away, I felt confused, abandoned and alone. Wondering how to get through this moment with you – without losing US.

I wasn’t prepared for it. After we’d been so present and attentive to each other’s needs – I didn’t know how to handle the version of you that didn’t share, didn’t reassure, didn’t check in, and didn’t open up. It was like dating a completely different version of you that I hadn’t met yet. Does that mean that I didn’t still love you that way? No. It just means I hadn’t met that side of you and learned how to trust, feel safe with, and provide space for it.

And in turn – you also hadn’t met the side of me that responded to that side of you. We’d never talked about it. We didn’t talk through it. We just – kept letting it happen and hoping it would go away, and then it festered, and built pressure, until ultimately it all ruptured in our faces.

I still feel like you were the best boyfriend I ever had. You made me feel safe, wanted, joyful, and excited about companionship in a way I’d never experienced.

Do I want that again? I don’t know. That would depend on a lot of things – our ability to do it consistently and sustainably in a way that serves both of our needs. It would mean dating without involving the children while we build trust again. It would mean rebuilding from the ground up, and being truly open and honest about both of our needs and our fears, as they come up, one step at a time – to see if those fears are insurmountable.

I loved you with all of my whole heart. But I didn’t need you. I loved the idea of the things we planned in the future together: hiking, kayaking, rafting, camping, concerts travel. I loved just laying in the couch with you and watching last man standing. I loved just connecting with you by looking into your eyes where you always showed me who you truly were, how you truly felt, and where we truly stood.

I’d be willing to try it again if you would. But it would take time. And it wouldn’t be easy, at first. But I do think it would be fun. To explore. To examine. To laugh together again. To explore boundaries together again. And to trust each other again.

Maybe we could. I guess that’s really up to both of us.

[Cindi K]

I basically wrote a mini book. It’s awful, and it’s too long. Can you help me with this?

The letter
I don’t even know if you’ll read this, and I’m not even sure if it matters, because I needed to write it anyway. I’ve been through all the hows and the whys of why things didn’t work out between us. I’ve blamed myself. I’ve blamed you. I’ve blamed God. And after all of the thoughts and the highs and the lows it really comes down to this – it was both of us.

We were both scared. We both dove in so deep so fast, and tried to crash down all of our un-healed traumas like a wrecking ball, just hoping that if we could keep it rolling that we could kill them like they’d killed us all those years. We both went into it thinking we were more healed than we actually were – to the detriment of both of us, because we didn’t dive into those traumas and how to help each other in the ways we probably should’ve. You got scared of your freedom being jeopardized. I got scared of a life without you, that my independence would drive you away (because that’s what has happened with all of my anxious partners in the past). I started to doubt myself. You started feeling like your foot lived in its mouth. I started feeling like my feelings were too much.. like I was too much. All because we weren’t taking the time to slow down and digest what was happening.

We needed to slow down. We needed consistency – from each other. I know I did.

I didn’t mean to make you feel shame about yourself and the relationship when things got busy, and it was t even that you got busy – it was that you got so cold. You shut down. You cut me off completely from your emotional world, and in turn – our emotional world as a couple. I should’ve cut things off when it happened in the beginning, but I kept hoping that you’d pull through it and meet me on the other side. Man, was I wrong.

I didn’t realize that breaking down my own boundaries in the name of the relationship was going to break us apart. My morning routine is what grounds me, it’s what gives me life, meaning and calm every day – and I completely let it go most mornings when we were together. I should’ve told you this. I should’ve made a boundary for myself and said what I needed to be doing in order to give to myself and my mental health when I get up in the morning, but I was afraid that if I took away that time that we wouldn’t have enough time to communicate – so I gave it up – to the detriment of both the relationship and myself.

When we started investing so much time in the girls and less time in the relationship – it felt really confusing to me. I didn’t feel like we were making time to build and protect the relationship, and were pushing the family dynamic instead, which was even more confusing because you clearly got so spooked when I asked about the house. I felt like it was the wrong answer and just compounded the issues we were already trying to tackle.

And when I asked you about whether or not you were trying to tell me something about the house – I asked because I was scared, too. But I never got to tell you that. Because we never really talked about it.

I got scared that dating an extrovert would highlight my introvert qualities and make me not enough – forgetting that it was our differences, and not just our similarities, that drew us together. I piled on the fear and I let it grow, instead of turning inward and evaluating that about myself, I put it on you.

I asked for too much reassurance. I was so enraptured by being loved the way that we loved each other that I let the fear of losing it consume me – to the point of pushing us to that point anyway.

I know I can’t take full responsibility, and neither can you, because that wouldn’t be fair to either of us. But all I can change in this world is myself and what I bring to the table every day.

I wish you’d come to me with the fears that I could address. I wish I’d gotten a chance to evaluate and truly understand that I was just as scared and apprehensive as you were. I literally could’ve handled anything you’d brought to me if you’d just started it with – “it’s ok if this is hard to hear, and you need some time to process it – but I still need to say it.” – or something to that effect.

I wish we’d taken the time and had the patience to fight without fighting. Every time we did, I never felt like there was time to recover before it happened again, like we were sweeping it under the rug instead of really digging into why it happened in the first place, which doesn’t help things get better, it just makes them build and build until they rupture.

I was terrified when you met my kids and my parents, because I was afraid it was too soon, but the way that you fully embraced them made me wonder if I was just trying to convince myself that something that was perfectly fine wasn’t ok – because it was safe, and safe in a relationship was something that I hadn’t been accustomed to.

I know we both still have a lot of ways in which we need to heal, to feel heard, to feel supported. But I also think those are ways in which the amount of space we could have provided for each other could have been remarkable if we’d simply been patient with each other, slowed down when things felt like too much, and taken the time to truly understand how to see things from the other persons side.

Maybe it would’ve helped. Maybe it wouldn’t have. I really don’t know, because I don’t have a Time Machine.

I was so excited to go on all of the adventures we talked about together. I also decided I’m going whitewater kayaking this summer with or without you, because I’ve been waiting my whole life to do it, and it’s silly to wait for someone else to say it’s ok.

When I cleaned your house, I was just trying to show you that I can find ways to support you even when you don’t have the energy or time to be present, but I can see now how you really just needed time and space to process everything you had going on – and that would’ve been the most supportive gift I could’ve given you at the time.

I just didn’t know how, because no one had ever provided that kind of space for me without getting angry or instilling guilt for my needing that space to regain my sense of self and independence and strength.

I’ve been there. I’ve been in that place where I just needed to be allowed to be in the quiet spaces to just be – me, and for it to be ok. For it to be safe and held and trusted. And for it to be ok. I know what it feels like to just want yourself again, and hopefully the other person will still be there when you find your way back. And I’ve lost in the process, because there wasn’t enough space or time for me to get there. I wish, at the time, that you had had the strength to tell me that it was all you needed. It would’ve been hard to hear, but I still would’ve respected it was just a cycle you needed to go through, and not a sign of losing interest. I didn’t know you well enough yet to know the difference, and you hadn’t told me yet that these kinds of moments came up for you. Maybe if I’d known I might’ve been able to better prepare myself for what it would be like for you to pull away for a while, because you’d always been so present up until then.

I’m sorry I did that you. I’m sorry I couldn’t see it for what it was at the time. I’m sorry I couldn’t support you the way that you needed to be supported because I was scared of losing you, of losing us.

When you lied to me about the community service, I think that’s where the trust and safety really started to break down, because until that point I thought we had shared all of the hard things we were currently going through – only to find out that you’d been dealing with a really really hard thing the whole relationship without my knowledge. It made me doubt us. It made me doubt a lot of things. It made me wonder if there were other things you were hiding from me that would come up later. It made me wonder if you only told me the night before you started because you were afraid someone would see you and I’d find out anyway. I didn’t want to feel all of those things, but I did, and then I struggled to feel safe again.

On Valentine’s Day, when you showed up at my house with a flower, I was so excited to see you, but when you said”this is all I could find in last minutes notice,” I was crushed. It made me feel like you only got the flowers because you felt like you had to, and I was already fine with you getting nothing when you said you weren’t into Valentine’s Day. It really hurt. A lot. And I didn’t tell you that either. The icing on the cake that day was when you left my house, on Valentine’s Day, to go install the microwave for your ex-wife. It felt like a massive slap in the face. Or like you were trying to make a clear point that Valentine’s Day truly wasn’t important to you, but by doing something that’s an acts of service love language for someone else, that felt extremely confusing, and it broke trust. I should’ve told you that too, but I also know your tendency to want to be everything for everyone and I didn’t want you to feel shame about it, either – so I was torn.

I realize that I could’ve gone inward more on the days that we couldn’t be together, that I could’ve supported MYSELF more, instead of focusing so much on us. Like the days that you had to work or kayak, or ski, and were too tired to spend time together. I definitely could’ve been more put together and less reactive, and man did you try to show me that – patiently. You really did. I see that now.

And in the beginning I did – and even your birthday weekend, I tried to show my support by encouraging you to kayak if you wanted to – even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to go. And maybe, because you kept putting it off, when things got rocky and you finally wanted to, it scared me, because I was afraid it was because of ME that you wanted to go in the weekends, even though that likely didn’t have anything to do with it. But around that same time, you stopped giving me the reassurance you had in times past, and that made it more difficult to feel that sense of safety, and brought up more fears and doubts that I tied to the other things you were doing or wanting to do.

When I stopped doing taekwondo, it was because I was wasting my money because I kept skipping class to go on dates and to have cards nights with you and your daughter – which I LOVED. I just couldn’t keep spending money I wasn’t using. I didn’t want to give it up, but I didn’t want to give up our time either, and it was a struggle to know where that line should be for myself. I didn’t want to disappoint you and your daughter by saying no, because oftentimes my taekwondo nights would’ve cut cards nights super short. I didn’t realize at the time that you both would’ve been happy for me and excited to see me go take care of myself and do the things that I loved for me too.

When you told me,”I don’t want to be responsible for your happiness,” I felt really confused, angry, and abandoned. Not because I wanted you to be responsible for it, but because I knew that I didn’t expect that from you. But I didn’t know how to articulate it at the time. I’ve never expected anyone to be responsible for my happiness, least of all you. I wanted to figure out how to tell you that that wasn’t a responsibility I’d put there, but was t sure how to tell you without attacking you – so I said nothing, because I didn’t know how. I never expected your every moment. I never expected you do provide my happiness. I just wanted to be in this together – even if we had to do it separately sometimes. It was never about timing – but intention, and purpose. You can spend time with me tonight? What is your intention to keep the connection alive despite that fact? That’s all I ever needed to know, and it was a reasonable expectation since we were building a relationship together. I wish I could’ve said that when it would’ve mattered.

When you said,”I don’t think I ever want to get married again,” I felt very alone. Not because I wanted to marry you, but because you said “again.” That meant I was being lumped in with all of your past experiences and relationships. It meant that we weren’t building something new and different together. It meant that you were making decisions and assumptions based on people that weren’t me – or us. It meant that your future was already planned out – and I wasn’t allowed to be part of the picture, in any way shape or form. As far as I could tell. Mostly because of the way you said it, and not that you said it. It was like you were talking through me – to another person in the other side of the room. With fear and intention to make sure it came across clearly and with as much force as possible.

I feel like losing each other was necessary to be able to see the big picture again and have a birds-eye view of everything that actually happened and what we could’ve done better.

I wish I’d been more supportive of your work and your kayaking, and realized that you really were doing everything you could to be the best you could at the time. I always admired your work ethic and your commitment to your passions, and I feel like in the end, I failed to show you that.

I wish I could say that trying again might fix all of this, but I don’t know if it would. We both love hard, we both go all in, and we both struggle to sustain it once we’re knee deep in the hole that we dug for ourselves. I know that we both have a lot of work to do in the form of consistency in love. There is still a part of me that would be willing to learn how to do that with you.

But I will say this – no one has ever made me feel as safe as you did. No one has ever provided so much space for my needs. No one has ever tried so hard to give me a voice in the relationship. No one has ever made me feel so much joy in love and companionship. No one has ever let me see inside of them the way that you did. No one has ever committed themselves to me, my interests, and what makes me tick like you did.

I made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes I didn’t even know I’d make. Mistakes I know I will and want to learn from. I hope you learned some from me too – no matter what happens.

You definitely raised the bar for me, and showed me how I should be treated by someone who truly cares. And no matter what I will not ever let that bar go back down. I hope I raised it for you, too.

Thank you for that.

[Cindi K]

I talked to his sister in law today, because she came over to do my hair. She said he basically told her we weren’t together anymore and not to get involved, and she told him he could t dictate who she’s friends with. She said he has a lot of healing to do, and that this is definitely a pattern for him.

I’m still hurt. I still miss him, and I still wish there was a way to re-open communication. I’d love to know what he’s thinking, even if we were only friends and nothing else.

[Cindi K]

This was really helpful, and I started doing it as soon as you suggested it. Like those conversations can still happen, even if it’s just for me. Thank you. I cry every time I record them. But I’m sure it’ll get easier..

[Cindi K]

I miss him so much 🙁

[Cindi K]

He finally left the key today. I cried pretty hard. He left it in a bag on my car window.

I also had a nice heartfelt conversation with his mother and told her that I love and respect her but that it hurts too much to stay in touch. She was really sweet about it, and said she was sorry, and that she’d hoped things would work out.

[Cindi K]

I’m also going to stop replying to his mother’s messages. Stop checking his Facebook, and all of his friends Facebook. If he wants to come to me, he will, when the time is right, and we’re both ready for the conversation.

[Cindi K]

I moved my whole livingroom around today, and my kitchen. It felt pretty good.

I also realized I let go my whole morning routine because he used to text me to talk to me every morning, and that was my foundation. Planning (and have been slowly moving into) getting into that again.

I feel like it’s not over, and I’m finally comfortable saying that. Either way I’m going to be ok because I have the tools to be okay, I just need to use them.

I went to my girlfriend’s house that also just went through a horrible breakup recently and we both just cried and cried. It was really healing and helpful to release a lot of that pain.

I also started doing some somatic yoga, and it also made me cry. It feels good sometimes now. It doesn’t last all day, but I’m getting glimpses again.

[Cindi K]

I did some meditation last night. I prayed. I cried. I asked help to let go of the pain, and felt the first release I’ve really felt the last few weeks. I know it’s not over, but it felt like a step forward.

I also wanted to say that these conversations have been my lifeline the last couple weeks, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you and your support.

[Cindi K]

Every time I go to do meditation I get angry. I have done tapping a few times. Cried every time, so I know it’s helping. I’m seeing a therapist again. I’m talking to friends, but starting to feel isolated, because I’m not telling them what they want to hear. My mom has been incredibly helpful, though. She prays with me and encourages me to do the same. I do feel better right now than I did earlier. I’ve journaled several times, but feel like it just brings out the pain and confusion I’m feeling. His mom keeps talking to me on my stories on Facebook – giving me hope, but I don’t know if it’s just because she doesn’t want to let go, because she realizes what he gave up, or because she’s actually talked to him about it.

Like I said. I’m gonna drive myself nuts.

I’ll try meditation again tonight. I used to do it every day, and enjoyed it very much.

[Cindi K]

Today is harder for some reason. I’ve tried to find ways to distract myself but it’s getting harder. I keep going he’ll either leave the key or communicate in some way. I’m gonna drive myself nuts.

[Cindi K]

I’m almost too sober to even describe how I’m feeling at this point. But at least I’m not on the floor crying anymore. It feels like a step in the right direction.

I took my girls to the trampoline park Wednesday, and last night I went back to taekwondo, which I had given up for him, because he was taking up so much of my time (something he accused me of doing to him, which was really confusing in the end). It felt good to get back to it.

I keep checking the porch for the key, and then judging myself for it, but then I realized – one day. I won’t look anymore, because it won’t matter anymore. And that’s the day that I’ll finally know that I’ve let it go completely.

[Cindi K]

Got home and the key wasn’t here. I searched my porch for it for ten minutes. Felt confused for a little bit, and decided to let it go. I gave him a choice. Maybe he was too busy and inconsiderate to leave when he said he would, maybe he decided to keep it, maybe he’ll send it next week.

I finally decided it’s okay no matter what he does.

[Cindi K]

I’m dreading going home and seeing that key on my porch. Knowing I’ll never see him again. Knowing he wants nothing to do with me, or to revisit this later. I know it’s for the best, but for some reason that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

But I’m also glad I had the strength to say goodbye in my own way, with my own voice.

[Author]

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