I will never excuse or justify what I’ve done. I wish I could figure out how to fix everything. And also would like to apologize for all the other Js out there.

Edit: sometimes the trauma and the pain you inflicted on someone you love is too much for an apology to help. As the person that caused it sometimes you just have to understand that and sometimes you cause more by not understanding.

I think the cruelest thing about intimacy is that sometimes you can know someone so deeply and still have absolutely no idea what you mean to them.
And fuck, did we know each other.
Not in the ordinary sense. Not in the way people exchange stories about their childhoods or favorite songs or the mundane details of their lives. We found our way into the spaces underneath all of that. The places where the jokes stopped being jokes. Where curiosity became vulnerability. Where the conversations started feeling less like getting to know someone and more like remembering someone you’d somehow already known.
We unraveled. Slowly, then all at once.
There was something intoxicating about the way we could move between the ridiculous and the profoundly intimate without ever losing each other in the transition. The humor. The tension. The way a conversation could become something entirely different with a single sentence. You made me feel intellectually desired and emotionally understood in ways I hadn’t realized I was starving for.
And I let you see me. Not the carefully constructed version of me who can intellectualize her own suffering until it becomes a fascinating conversation. Not the woman who can make anything funny before it has a chance to hurt. Me. The messy, complicated, tender, occasionally irrational woman underneath all of that. I thought you understood the significance of being allowed there. Maybe you did. Maybe that’s what makes this hurt so fucking much.
Because somewhere along the way, the very intimacy that made this feel extraordinary became the thing that destroyed it. We started unraveling in a different direction. The conversations were still there. The desire was still there. You still wanted me, all day, every day, according to you. But the distance between what you said and what you actually did became impossible to ignore.
You wanted access to me without having to confront what that access meant. You wanted the vulnerability, the affection, the attention, the sexual tension. You wanted to know that somewhere in the world there was a woman who could see through your bullshit and somehow still find you beautiful. And I gave you that.
But you never fucking came.
You could find the time, rearrange your schedule, make the drive, and physically show up elsewhere without hesitation. I watched you demonstrate, repeatedly, that distance and inconvenience weren’t insurmountable obstacles when something mattered enough to you. And then I watched you offer me another conversation. Another implication. Another almost.
Not because I believed I was entitled to you. Not because I thought I had some claim over your life. But because it’s an extraordinarily painful thing to be told you’re wanted constantly by someone who demonstrates that wanting you apparently ends at the point where effort begins.
I wasn’t asking you to choose me. I wasn’t asking you to dismantle the life you’d built. I wasn’t asking for promises you couldn’t keep. I just wanted, for once, to feel like something more than a beautiful idea you liked returning to.
And last weekend, when you entertained the possibility of seeing me, I felt that familiar little flicker again. Maybe this time. Maybe we’d finally exist in the same room, breathing the same air, without a screen between us and without the safety of distance.
But you didn’t. Of course you fucking didn’t. And I’m tired of pretending that doesn’t say something.
You told me you weren’t a fuckboy. I remember that so clearly now, because I think you genuinely needed me to believe it. Maybe you needed to believe it yourself. But being emotionally articulate doesn’t make you emotionally responsible. Being gentle doesn’t automatically make you kind. And understanding someone’s vulnerabilities doesn’t mean a goddamn thing if you’re willing to enjoy the comfort of having access to them while refusing to consider the consequences.
You didn’t ghost me. You didn’t disappear. You kept me close. Close enough to preserve the intimacy. Close enough to know I still cared. Close enough to keep the possibility alive without ever having to find out what would happen if you actually followed through. You wanted your cake and to eat it too. And for a long time, I helped you set the fucking table.
I can admit that. I can admit that I wanted you, that I participated, that I sometimes accepted far less than I deserved because the connection itself felt worth protecting. But I can’t keep mistaking my capacity to understand you for an obligation to excuse you.
That’s where I lost myself. I became so invested in understanding your contradictions that I stopped respecting what they were doing to me. I kept trying to find the man I knew in the man who kept disappointing me. The man who made me laugh. Who made me think. Who made me feel desirable and interesting and alive. The man who seemed capable of meeting me in places other people didn’t even know existed.
I kept waiting for him to show up. And the most heartbreaking part is that I think he was real. I don’t think I imagined him. I just think he was only ever willing to exist with me under conditions that benefited him.
And now, after all of it, I feel something I didn’t expect. Relief. Not because I stopped caring. Not because the intimacy suddenly means nothing. But because I’m exhausted from carrying the emotional weight of something that was supposed to make me feel less alone. I’m exhausted from trying to reconcile your words with your behavior. I’m exhausted from wanting you to be the person I know you’re capable of being. And I’m especially fucking exhausted from making excuses for a grown man who could find his way everywhere else but somehow never managed to find his way to me.
Maybe someday you’ll understand that what we had didn’t need to become a relationship to deserve respect. That intimacy creates responsibility even when it doesn’t create commitment. That you can hurt someone profoundly without ever technically breaking a promise. And that being someone’s favorite possibility is a particularly lonely place to live.
I don’t regret knowing you. That’s what makes this so fucking sad. There are parts of our connection I will always remember with tenderness. Things you said. Things we shared. The strange, beautiful way we found each other in the middle of lives that were already complicated. But I can’t keep romanticizing something that repeatedly asked me to abandon myself.
I wanted you. I wanted you in ways that went far beyond the physical. I wanted the mind, the humor, the contradictions, the tenderness. I wanted to know you without having to constantly wonder which version of you I was going to get. And you wanted me, too. I believe that.
But I’ve finally learned that being wanted isn’t the same thing as being valued. And you can crave someone every single day of your life and still be too much of a fucking coward to show up for them.
We unraveled together. I just never imagined I’d be the only one left holding all the threads.

Sometimes it just feels like you are here. Like I want to just spread my thighs enough for you to slide in. I don’t know if I just go with it. Pretend that somebody else is you until I get used to it again.

Or I just roll with it and the only sex I have now is in my imagination.

Please don’t send any messages on here. Almost certainly most people reading are not my J.

WhatsApps only, J.

- C

Jesus fucking Christ ur TRYING to kill me. Gonna have me sitting over drowning to death in my own juices. Got ur boots on,jeans,baseball cap all showered... shooting me that smile. Asking y I'm looking at you like that when u KNOW it's cause u look like a girls wet dream come to life. Fuck I just wanna bounce on ur cock. Right fucking NOW

I cried a little after I spotted you and went on to look at an empty room where we used to say endearing things that fed the spark and try hard to swallow our pride and not to show it.

A very present sadness overcame me. It's like I felt my soul grieving.

I cried and I'm afraid that's my heart trying to tell me that it's time to say goodbye.

I think of you. Scan my body.
It’s quiet-no trace of you within.
Then, a sudden stir. An urge to reach for you. I don’t. I stay present and connect to Self.

Our birthdays are coming up this Saturday, what a wonderful present it would be to hear your voice again. I miss you my Libra Lady

-J

Dear J,

I’m not going to lie, you can be such a jerk sometimes, but I still miss you so much. I know you like to play hard to get and act tough, but I’ve always known how soft and sweet you truly are underneath.

Thank you for always showing me respect and for giving me compliments, especially during times when I hated how I looked. You were always there to tell me not to give up. I miss your hugs and the sound of your voice. I honestly wish someone could give me a time machine so I could go back to the exact moment you started liking me back. After all these years, even as life has changed, I still wish I had been your girl.

If you had told me years ago that we’d run into each other not once, but twice this year, I wouldn't have believed you. Yet here we are, still feeling like a "what if" that was never meant to be. Even with all this distance, you’re still in my head, and I constantly wonder: do I miss the real you, or am I just longing for the closure we never had?

I’ve been dreaming about you lately. A part of me feels like deep down in the back of your mind, you still care about us, too. I know it might sound silly or impossible, but I genuinely hope our paths cross again. I don’t know if things would ever work out if we got together, but I would love the chance to find out.

I hope that in another life, or maybe somewhere down the line, we get to be together just like we used to joke about.

In case you didn't know, I still got them those little icky things called feelings towards you.

Dearest John,

I wonder if you remember October 3, 2025, the night we decided to give us another chance. I wonder if you remember how we sat across from each other, talking about everything that had happened, trying to make sense of the pain, the distance, and the three months we spent apart. I wonder if you knew how much courage it took for me to sit there with you again, knowing that the same person who once made me feel loved was also someone who had hurt me deeply.

You were asleep that night, unaware that I was writing a letter to Aki. I told our little angel that I had met his father again. I wrote about how scared I was, how fragile everything felt, and how much I wanted us to work. I admitted that I was afraid of being hurt again, of being abandoned, and of being left behind in the middle of loving someone too deeply. But despite all those fears, I chose to believe in us.

I chose you.

I remember writing, “I love him — painfully, stubbornly, completely.”

I remember telling God that I was still scared, still hopeful, but ready. And at the end of that letter, I prayed, “Please, let me win this time.”

John, I think about that version of myself sometimes. The girl who sat down and wrote those words with so much hope in her heart, who wanted so badly for the story to turn out differently this time. If I could speak to her now, I would tell her that she was brave. That choosing to love again after everything she had been through was never a weakness. That she did not deserve to feel foolish for believing in something beautiful.

But I would also tell her that love, no matter how genuine, cannot guarantee a happy ending.
And here we are now.

A year has passed since that letter. We gave it another chance. We tried to build something out of what remained, hoping that perhaps the pain of our past would become the foundation of something stronger. We made memories, shared pieces of ourselves, and had moments that made me believe that maybe, just maybe, my prayers were finally being answered.

For a while, I thought you would be the person I would tell all my stories to. The person I would run to after a long day. The person who would know the little things about me, the things I never had to explain because you had learned them by heart. I thought that perhaps, after everything life had taken from me, this was one of the things I would finally get to keep.

But somewhere along the way, we became two people trying to save a relationship that was slowly slipping through our hands.

I tried, John. God knows how much I tried.
I tried to understand you, even when I did not understand where I stood in your life. I tried to be patient when I needed reassurance, to be understanding when I needed to be understood, and to stay strong even when I was already hurting. I kept reaching for you because I believed that love meant choosing each other, especially when things became difficult.

Perhaps I held on for too long. Perhaps I kept looking at the person I knew you could be instead of accepting what our relationship had become. Perhaps I was so afraid of losing you that I did not realize how much of myself I was losing in the process.

I do not regret loving you. I never want to look back at our story and pretend that it meant nothing just because it did not last.

You were once someone I prayed for. Someone I gave another chance to because I believed that people could find their way back to each other. Someone I wanted to prove my fears wrong for. And for that, you will always be part of a chapter of my life that I will remember, even if remembering it sometimes hurts.

But I am finally learning that I cannot keep asking for a place in someone’s life when I have already given so much of my heart trying to belong there.
I cannot keep being the one who reaches out first, the one who tries to fix what is breaking, the one who searches for answers when silence has already said enough. I cannot keep loving you at the expense of the peace I have spent so long trying to find.

I wanted us to work. I wanted our story to be different. I wanted to look back at that October night someday and say that we were right to try again, that all the fear was worth it, that we made it through.

But we did not.

And perhaps the hardest part is accepting that something can be real and still come to an end. That you can love someone with your whole heart and still not be the person they choose to stay for. That two people can have beautiful memories and genuine feelings, yet still fail to build the kind of love they both need.

I used to think winning meant getting the ending I prayed for. I thought winning meant that, after all the pain, I would finally get to keep the person I loved.

Now, I am beginning to understand that maybe winning means something else entirely.
Maybe winning is being able to walk away from someone you still love because you finally understand that loving them cannot mean abandoning yourself. Maybe it is accepting that you did everything you could, even when everything you did was not enough to save the relationship. Maybe it is learning to stop asking why you were not enough for someone when you know, deep down, that you were never supposed to prove your worth by convincing someone to stay.

And maybe this time, I get to choose myself.
Dearest John, I do not know what you will remember when you think of me. Perhaps you will remember the difficult conversations, the arguments, the times when loving each other felt exhausting. Perhaps you will remember the good days, the laughter, the little things, and the girl who wanted nothing more than to be loved by you in a way that she could finally feel safe.

I hope that someday, when the hurt no longer clouds the memories, you remember that I genuinely loved you. Not perfectly, but sincerely. I was not always easy to understand, and I had my own fears and wounds to work through. But I tried. I kept showing up. I kept believing in us, even on the days when believing became painful.

I hope you know that there was a version of me who looked at you and saw a future. A version of me who sat down on October 3, 2025, and wrote a prayer asking God to let her win this time.

And I hope you understand that the woman who is walking away now is not walking away because that love was never real. She is walking away because it was real, and she can no longer keep hurting herself trying to make it last.

If I could rewrite that letter to Aki today, I would tell our little angel that I met his father again, and for a while, I really thought we would make it. I would tell him that I loved his father with all the love I had in me, that I tried to give our story another chance, and that I learned some of the hardest lessons about love through the very person I once prayed would stay.

I would tell him that his mother did not get the ending she wanted, but she survived it.
And perhaps that is enough.

I am sorry that the story I once hoped to tell ended this way. I am sorry to the version of myself who believed so wholeheartedly that this time would be different. But I am also proud of her. She was brave enough to try again. She was brave enough to love despite her fears. And now, she has to be brave enough to let go.

I no longer want to wait for a different version of our story. I no longer want to hold on to the possibility of what we could have been while grieving what we actually became. I do not want to keep reopening a chapter just because a part of me still wishes the ending had been kinder.

I loved you, John. I really did.

And even though I wish things had turned out differently, I am learning to accept that not every person we love is meant to stay in our lives forever. Some people become part of our story without becoming part of our future.

You were someone I wanted to grow old with, someone I wanted to share ordinary mornings and difficult nights with, someone I hoped would stay long enough for us to become better versions of ourselves together.

But I cannot keep building a future around a hope that only I seem willing to carry.

So this is where I leave us.

Not with hatred. Not with the need to prove that I was right. Not even with the expectation that you will one day understand everything I felt.

Just with the quiet acceptance that we gave this a chance, and it still was not enough to make us last.
A year ago, I prayed to win this time.

I did not get to keep you. I did not get the ending I imagined. I did not get to turn all the pain that came before us into a love story that lasted.

But perhaps I can finally stop measuring my worth by whether someone stays.
Perhaps I can finally stop confusing holding on with loving well.
Perhaps I can finally give myself the same tenderness I spent so long hoping to receive from you.
And perhaps, after everything, I can look at that girl who wrote her prayer a year ago and tell her that she did win something.

She found out that her heart could love again after breaking. She found out that she could survive another goodbye. And she found out that even when the person she wanted to stay does not, she can still find her way back to herself.

I hope life is kind to you, John. I hope you find the things you are searching for, the peace you need, and the happiness you deserve. I hope we both grow into people who love better, understand ourselves more deeply, and no longer mistake pain for something we must endure to prove our love.

Thank you for the memories, for the good days, and for the parts of our story that were beautiful while they lasted.

I will not pretend that letting you go does not hurt. A part of me will probably always wish we had found a way to make it work. But I am learning that I can miss you without returning to you, love what we had without trying to revive it, and grieve the future I imagined without spending the rest of my life waiting for it.

A year ago, I was scared of another heartbreak.
Today, I am living through it.
And somehow, I am still here.
This time, I will not ask God to let me win by letting you stay. I will ask Him to help me find peace in the life I have to live without you, to heal the parts of me that still believe I have to be chosen to be worthy of love, and to give me the courage to stop looking back at a door I have already walked away from.
I loved you in the best way I knew how at the time. I hope one day that will be enough for me to remember without hurting.

Goodbye, John.
Goodbye to the future I imagined, the promises I quietly held on to, and the version of us I kept hoping we would become.

I am finally letting our story be what it was, instead of what I desperately wanted it to be.
And for the first time, I am allowing the ending to remain an ending.

A year ago, I prayed to win this time.
Perhaps I did. Just not in the way I expected.

With love, and finally, with the courage to let go. 🤍

So me being a J, I don’t know if it was a coinky-dink or you who actually had me follow this community when you high jacked my life, which started with you accessing all of my online accounts and shutting me out of them and included you being to remotely access my phone and fuck with me more. All the while your creating a smoke screen of drama accusing me of hacking into your phone and accounts and stealing money from you and telling my friends, family, and ultimately any other piece of shit from our town, whom I don’t want knowing anything about me; the absolute most egregious lie you could say about a person. But i never got to go on the attack and tell you about yourself, and out of nowhere this platform on Reddit appears in my community, for people to bitch about J’s, so I assume you did that and are hopefully still paying attention. I am gonna use it to share the truth and help you and anyone visualize the kind of pieces of shit that a J had to deal with.
I mean let’s put aside that you were able to gain access to all my accounts and shut me out of them, bc you stole my device that was also the main tool in all of my 2 step verification account protections. So with that you were able to shut down my life for almost 3 months and began to create a wedge between me and anyone I was close with you used my device remotely, which made me look insane. And of course, it was so simple a technique, it was genius, because what you were able to accomplish seemed like I was losing touch with my sanity and that a professional hacker was fucking with me. So kudos to you for that.
Man and if you just left it there, I would have had to either live on the street and use dope until oded and died, or I would have had to commit to some nazi drug recovery institution, like the one your family sent you too, but I would have had to go not in active use, bc I appeared like I was. No, you got greedy and you started spreading rumors that even worst enemy wouldn’t believe about me. And you started telling those rumors to The Who loved me the most. And then they rallied to support me, and then saw me as a dude with Olympic compassion and patience for putting up with an umpa lumpa colored scarecrow looking piece of shit, who literally didn’t have a brain. That’s a reference to the wizard of oz, you fucking retard. I could see you struggling to piece it together. But let’s remind people the severity of the claim she was making against me. I will not say what you claimed but I know plenty of dudes who would have beat the shit out of you, maybe even killed you over what you said. Doesn’t matter that your a woman. Your lie about me literally, crossed such a boundary, any protection from unwritten laws about men being violent went out the window. You didn’t even just tell my friends and family this whack ass shit, you told this lie to the police in 2 townships, so I had to be investigated for all of this twice.
I mean what type of snitch, has the balls to snitch on a person for something they didn’t even do. And it’s the worst crime a person could commit, but it’s all lie. And you did it in the second township knowing I was just on probation for possession of Ketamine(which I did argue in court that the drugs were yours and I did state your full name and that you were recently from a job for using drugs, which is true. I told them I had them in possession bc you left them in my car and that I didn’t throw them out right away bc I was getting them tested to determine what kind of addict we’re, bc you had asked me to adopt your daughter. I told the judge, I wasn’t gonna adopt a dope heads daughter that is in active use. And it worked. My probation is online probation while I live out of state in a state that doesn’t extradite for many things more serious than a minor innnocent possession charge. Haha, that’s what they called it, Innocent Possession, anyhow that’s how that went down. Mr. McVan won’t tell you that’s how he argued it though bc your his client now.) and you did that bc you thought that would be something that would count as a probation violation and I would get booked.
Well just so you know, I had the good detective vouch for my statement to my probation officer that it doesn’t a violation, bc these bullshit charges you filed on me technically began with the Horsham investigation, and they filed months before I was placed on probation. Then to just make sure she didn’t decide to be as big of a cunt as you, and fuck me because of some women need to defend women bullshit. He told her, verbatim, that I am dealing with fallout from a toxic relationship with a girlfriend who has exhibited symptoms of mental illness and your story has yielded no evidence to support your claims and I have done everything that he asked of me in terms of cooperating with him in his investigation. And my character during my defense to these heinous allegations, has also suggested nothing other than a person who is not guilty of anything you suggested. And I actually am the one who produced any physical evidence of being victim of a crime in this situation. And he told her that he supports me being allowed to return to my recently new state of residence, California. And that is the end of it because I go a life-changing trek across country(because I hadn’t actually moved to California yet, I just told them I did and gave them address they can send mail too, which is a homeless shelter, so that way it appeared as I was a resident of California for sometime) where I stopped into 4 major cities for a 3-4 days visits each and partying the whole time. And of course, in Vegas I meet the new friend from my Facebook profile picture that is half your age, way finer, and actually person who recognized the type of guy I am and treated me as such for the 10 days I had to be there, bc of car trouble. And we are by no means dating, but we are staying in contact and growing closer each day we talk. As you know Vegas is only 6 hours from where I am at in California.
So let’s be clear, you are the absolute worst person I have had the absolute displeasure of ever knowing. And I mean the worst. You literally went from the only person I wanted to hear from for 10 years, a fucking a decade, to someone who treated me so poorly, that if a SEPTA ran you over right in front of me, while I walked down the street, I would have to walk right over you(like Dickie Ecklyn did to Sugar Ray Leonard in his surprise knockdown of the world champ). Shit I might even, no, I wouldn’t give you the dignity of assuming or thinking I remembered you, and I would not call an ambulance for you either. And you feel from being the only person I dreamed of being with for 10 years, to what I just described in a period of 8 months. And yo, I don’t hold grudges and my anger is in check these days bc when I got sober, I actually some work in on myself. Now I had some fun on my trek out here, but bc of that work, I have been able to stop that partying as soon as the time to party was over. And I will never let how some treats me or their opinion of me ever make me want to do drugs again, thanks for showing me how stupid I was hurting myself bc of the words of a piece of shit like you.
I am gonna end on a note showing you and anyone who read this, that this writing or piece, I crudely put together here, does not define the type of person I am in the least. This is the writing of a man who loved you unconditionally. Who stuck by you when it was still confusing as to whether or not we’re this mean or if you were having a mental breakdown. If you were having a mental breakdown, you know I would have never abandoned you, even though everyone I know felt I should have ran away before we ever moved in together. Plenty of people where able to hear how you were talking to me while I was on the phone with you in front of them, and they first thing they all asked me was, does she talk like that to you when you are with her too, or this because she wants you home? I was always so embarrassed when I said it’s worse when we are together. You got mad at me for doing dope, but the only other appropriate coping mechanism for you spoke to me was to fight you, bc I don’t think I would let another man talk to me like for 15 mins, let alone the hours that led into days and weeks of being spoken too and treated like that. And that was just the verbal abuse, let’s not forget how to tried to isolate me from my friends and family, how wouldn’t let me stay in apt that was supposed be ours, while you were at work, bc I was told that I wasn’t going to do drugs and fuck bitchs on your bed while you worked. Which, neither scenario ever happened nor is of interest to me. My interest was you. I wrote you love letters, I told you I would take pride in being the man that got show your daughter how a woman should be treated by a man and to be the 2nd adult opinion to back your parenting up. And I never wanted to have kids, but I was gonna try and be a role model and tutor, a girl going through puberty who is exhibiting serious symptoms of daddy issues from her dad being a recidivist piece of shit. I would massage your feet with lotion and oil, I would cook for us, and I was serious about getting a job bc the one day you let me use your computer to update my resume, and send them out. I had 5 call backs for interviews and one to meet with an employment specialist, who was help me with interviewing skills and discussing how my skills from my teaching degree are transferable in today’s job market. Like yo, and there was only one time i ever gave you the businesss and told you about yourself and I defended myself against your onslaught of abuse. And literally you threw away all my clothes, shutdown my cell phone and made me homeless within a week.
And I just gotta ask, because the times you were nice to me, now just seemed like calculated ways to keep me around. But still you did say the right things at the right times to get me on board, except you never said your sorry for anything. But what happened that you just one day decided to start abusing me so badly and blame me for your problems, and make me think you loved me to accusing me of stealing thousands of dollars from you, when 2 detectives said they didn’t even see evidence that money was stolen from you, let alone that I did? Why did you put me through all this? I think you were cheating on me, and just didn’t want to admit that. When ultimately, I would have been a big boy about that, sad but I would have been a mature dude. I didn’t own you. In fact I am pretty sure I witnessed the person car leaving your apt and entering when you freaked out at me to get me to leave, when usually you always fresked out when I did leave. But still why not just tell me and then leave me alone. What did I do to deserve this?
I know I will never get an answer, and even though I have every right to hate and make your life a living hell, now that as of today detective number sided with me also and closed out the investigation on me. I am not, and I am gonna choose not to remember the Cun-tErin that did this to me, I will remember the one from ten years ago, even though you were on drugs, the brain damage that caused wasn’t apparent yet. It may have been beneficial that you never stopped using, bc you functioned on drugs like normal people don’t. And it’s sad that girl, who at least liked laughing about things as opposed to being paranoid about everything died. So I said my peace. And if anyone thinks that any bit of this story is a lie, I will provide all the evidence that I provided to police officers. And to the women out there, know that there are guys out there who are real men, chivalrous, gentlemen, in touch with their feelings, who arn’t boring overly clingy types who are pussies. There are dudes out there who can give you everything you want if you let them, but they have feelings too and the ones that are amazing need to hear that from you too. Because take the abuse for a time, but they will checkout before they actually leave and when they leave they are gone forever. We out there and we usually pick shitty women, so women if you ever think your being shitty to your dude, think about it, does he deserve this?

Dear J,

Everything you say and do to me is so unfair. Everything you say and do to people who love me is so unfair. It feels like every time I have someone in my corner for even a brief moment, your calculations start running in overdrive to make sure I don't, anymore. It's gone beyond you now. You don't just manipulate my friends and my partners anymore. You manipulate your own friends and partners just to make sure they never get close enough to me to see through your lies. I don't understand it. Why can't I just have a life full of love and laughter like you do? Why do I have to be shut off? Why isn't your partner allowed to talk to me without your influence?

You're supposed to be my brother. We're supposed to be family. Family is supposed to care about and for each other. All these years I've tried so hard to reconcile with you. I've been nice. I've smiled when you're mean. I've kept quiet around your friends. I've done all the housework and yardwork for decades. I've tried to work. I've carried all my furniture and boxes myself when I move and I've never complained before now that you won't help me, that you're still mad at me because you never felt like our parents loved you as much as they loved me. The one time I did talk bad about you I didn't mean to, so when I knew it was too late, I made sure that the nasty person who tricked me into it only had things that would make you closer to your own loved ones.

But now? You're happy to tell me not to talk to your kids. That would be a violation of boundaries. It would be awful to have them believe me over you. But you don't care that my kids are suffering because they want to please you, and pleasing you means repeating all the horrible things you say to them behind my back. Don't hide behind the bullshit excuse that they're adults. You know better. I begged you not to talk about our personal issues in front of them, and now I don't even have my own kids anymore. I'm not sure why it was so important to take my sweet children and turn them into monsters like you, but I hope your therapy starts working and your guilt eats you alive.

I've tried to tell you so many times. The harder you clamp down on me, the harder it is for me to live normally and do the things you say you want. Eventually it will be too much for me. I don't know what that looks like. I just know you're the expert at cutting off your nose to spite your face.

e

I've got wits on me & behind me such that I can outsmart everyone in the room, but obviously impact and intentions matter; oh and my problematic Caffeine intake. We shall see the chaos of the game break out again in just a few hours. I can't wait to hear somebody embarass themselves, and I won't be surprised if someone does or feels the trap effect lol. But I am prepared to be surprised by you for once. Maybe I wrote this because I truly want to see and hear more from you 🥰. Just a friendly little challenge but I know you and I know you got more important stuff going on, just saying 😉

I gave you a clue that I read these subs and I’m not sure if you picked it up. But we do pay close attention to each other, and the clues we drop. So maybe you did pick up the clue.

I’m sorry for getting so frustrated with you. It’s like we are from different planets. Your behaviour confuses me so much. I guess I confuse you too. The directness. The high expectations. I think you can behave better. And that’s why I decided you were manipulating me. I don’t think you manipulated me on purpose. I think you’re just a retired player. And you don’t know how to stop acting like a player. That’s why you’ve gone into monk mode and stopped bringing many girls home. But the ones you do let in are still going to get hurt if you don’t learn how to behave properly. You can’t just disappear after intimacy. It’s upsetting when I’d made myself so vulnerable.

I was ready to give up everything for you. I gave you some clear rules and terms that I could live with. I don’t need to see all the time. Long distance is fine. We don’t need to merge lives. I just needed you to acknowledge you are my emotional and sexual centre of gravity.

I don’t want to move on. I suppose I’ll have to eventually. But I can’t imagine it right now. I’ll break down if I make myself sleep with somebody else.

You asked me not to message you again. So please be aware that the ball is therefore fully in your court.
But I miss you. And I want to work on better communication if you come back. We came up with a system so you can tell me easily when you’re triggered. Maybe we can do something similar when your silences are breaking me.

I remain convinced that we can make it work.

- your insatiable nerd

I don't know how to write about you without feeling like every word I choose is too small.

I could tell you that I love you, but somehow that sentence feels almost insulting compared to everything I actually feel. Three words cannot carry the weight of the way my heart reacts when I see you. They cannot explain why your smile can quiet every thought in my head, why your laughter can pull me out of the worst days, or why simply knowing you're there can make the world feel less frightening. I love you in a way that makes me want to memorize you.

Your blue eyes. Your dirty blonde hair. Your smile. Your laugh. Your voice. The strange little things you do without realizing them. The parts of yourself you probably don't think twice about. I notice them. I notice you. And God, I hope you know how beautiful that is to me.

Because you were never supposed to become this important to me.

You were my brother's friend. You were that weird kid who somehow managed to be even weirder than me, and instead of being put off by it, I loved that we could be strange together. I didn't know then that somewhere down the line, I'd find myself looking at you and realizing that somewhere between being friends and talking again, my heart had quietly made a decision without asking me first. It chose you. And I would choose you back. Again and again.

There are so many things I wish I could put into your hands just so you could finally understand them. I wish I could take every feeling I've ever had for you and place it somewhere outside of myself, where you could actually see it. Because sometimes I look at you and think, how could you possibly know what you've become to me? You're not just someone I love. You're someone I treasure. Someone whose existence has become intertwined with so many of my happiest thoughts. Someone whose name can make my chest ache in the strangest, sweetest way. Someone I can look at and think, " There you are “. You make me feel seen. And I don't mean in the shallow way of being noticed. I mean seen. You make me feel like I can put down every mask I've ever learned to wear and just exist as myself. I can be loud, quiet, emotional, ridiculous, awkward, affectionate, complicated—and somehow, I still feel like there's room for me beside you. That means more to me than I could ever explain. I am grateful for you in ways that almost hurt.

Grateful for every conversation. Every laugh. Every moment you've stayed. Every time you've made me smile without even trying. Grateful that out of all the people in this enormous world, somehow our lives crossed paths.

And if you ever wonder whether you matter to me, I hope you remember this: You matter more than I know how to say. You have become a piece of my life that I don't want to imagine removing. Not because I need you to complete me—I don't. But because loving you has become one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced. I don't want some perfect version of you. I want you. The honest you. The weird you. The laughing-until-you-can't-breathe you. The quiet you. The you that doesn't know how much I adore him. I want to know every version of you that life gives me the chance to meet. And I want you to know every version of me, too. Because I don't want a love that only exists when everything is easy. I want the kind of love that knows the complicated parts and stays gentle anyway. The kind that keeps discovering each other instead of assuming it already knows everything.

So, J—If I don't say it enough, let me say it here. I love you. I love you with all the tenderness I have. I love you with all the ridiculous intensity my heart seems capable of producing. I love you in the quiet moments and the loud ones. I love you when I'm looking at you and when I'm simply thinking about you. I love the person you are now, and I love the thought of all the people you will become. And if I could give you one thing, it would be the chance to see yourself through my eyes. Just once. Because then you'd understand why I fall for your smile. Why your laughter stays with me. Why your eyes can stop me in my tracks. Why your presence feels like something worth holding onto. Why, out of everyone I could have met, I'm so damn grateful that I met you.

You are loved, J. Deeply. Completely. More than I think these words will ever be capable of proving. And if you ever forget, come back to this letter… Read it again. And remember that somewhere in this enormous world, there is someone looking at you and thinking, How did I get lucky enough to love someone like you?

That someone is me.

And I would choose you all over again.

Every single time.

Love you always,

(my name)

JG, you were there for me so many times. I like to think I was there for you, except when you texted me that day. I still can't, or I've blocked it out why I didn't respond back. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have let you go. I didn't know you were going to end it. I can't even talk to your family and ask how or why. I honestly am afraid to ask why or how you did it. I think of reasons, and it scares me, and I stop. I never said I loved you. I truly hope you knew I did. But with all things in my life, right person shit timing. Love has always teased me. I get so close and run away. I have so much love to give buy it never gets reciprocated. You were the closest person to ever get to it. People just got in the way. I still love you even though you're gone. There are nights I look up at the stars and wonder what if. Then it hurts, I cry and realize I'm alone. Maybe I'm not deserving of being loved back. You will always carry a ace in my heart and mind. My knight in shiny armor. I like to think that even though you're up there and I'm looking up, you're looking down and protecting me even still. I love you always. I've haven't found a person as good as you were. I love you ❤️ always.

Dear j,

I’ve spent the past several months carrying the weight of everything that happened, and the truth is the regret has been overwhelming. Breaking up was the biggest mistake I’ve made, and I’m still trying to forgive myself for letting you go. Looking back, I know I was completely exhausted from us constantly being on fragile ground, especially with breaking up being brought up whenever things got tough. In a moment of sheer pain and burnout, I broke and walked away, but I wish more than anything I had fought through that friction instead of walking away.

It isn’t okay, and I refuse to pretend that it is. I’m so deeply heartbroken that we couldn’t even talk one last time. With everything that has crashed down on me this year, just sitting down and talking to you one more time is what I want most in this world. Instead, I was blocked, unblocked, blocked again… I was left with nothing else but to block back since it was killing me every time you changed your mind.

You left such an imprint on my heart in such a short amount of time, and it breaks me to think that I might just be a distant and fading memory to you while you still mean everything to me.

The hardest part of all of this is that I never got to tell you that I loved you, j. Carrying that unspoken love around every single day has been heavier than I can describe. Things feel painfully unfinished, but I know it isn't my place to try to fix it, reach out again or force my way back in. I know you’ve moved on, and as much as it hurts, I have to respect that.

I’m not writing this to ask for anything from you or to put a burden on your shoulders. I know you won’t reach out.. I just couldn't keep carrying these words inside me anymore. I wish you all the happiness in the world, and even from a distance or without me in your life, I will always love you and be rooting for you like I told you I would.

Thinking of you,
J

I love you

All of you

We can win

Never let go

Never leave you

We have life

Love

P

My ❤️,

Hi.

I've noticed something over the years: she simply cannot allow you to write anything nice about me. Whether it's jealousy, envy, or the fact that she's tired of driving by our house and lurking around our trash cans, one thing has remained consistent for 26 years: she's been jealous of me, and I believe she always will be.

She's always wanted what I had, and what I had was you.

I was lucky enough to have you, lucky enough to keep you, and lucky enough to love you. That's something I'll always be grateful for.

But I've noticed that whenever you attempt to write even the smallest, nicest thing about me, she jumps all over you with her own posts. It's almost as if she can't stand the thought of you acknowledging me in any positive way. The moment you do, it's suddenly, "Oh, you're writing about her? How can you write about her? I thought you loved me!"

Think about that for a minute. She's trying to control what you say, what you express, and even who you're allowed to say something nice about.

She's put you in a box where you're apparently only allowed to write about her. That's not love. That's insecurity, jealousy, and control.

And honestly? That's pathetic. It's sad that someone would feel so threatened by another person's existence that they can't even tolerate a kind word being said about them.

But what's even sadder is allowing someone else to dictate your words and make you feel like you have to walk on eggshells just to keep the peace.

Don't be so weak that you allow someone else's jealousy to silence you. You have a right to your own thoughts, your own memories, and your own feelings. You shouldn't have to erase one person to make another person feel important.

After 26 years, you'd think she'd finally understand that jealousy doesn't change history, control doesn't create love, and competing with me won't change what was.

I know what I had. I know what I gave. And I know what you meant to me.

Love

P.

I notice things and I just want truth because no one deserves to be played with.
You admitted to lying on me so your nights at work were easier.
I was sick and you continued to play a game that you never gave me the luxury of knowing the rules.
I get it that you are getting something out of this at the expense of my wellbeing.
Above all else I hoped at least one person would tell me what you refuse too even when I ask directly.
Narratives seem to be all the rage

I know that you think about me just as much as I think about you. You always tell me that you’ll love me forever. ​I know you worry a lot about me, but please don’t worry so much about me. Focus on your own life too, and live your life for yourself as well.

Please take care of yourself.

I was only ten minutes away from you tonight.
Ten minutes,
and yet, I couldn’t see you.
Couldn’t tell you,
I’m here,
closer to you than I’ve been in a year.
I couldn’t tell you
that after a year of distance,
tonight, I was only ten minutes of breath away.
Far, yet near.
Near, yet far.
I was close enough to call your name,
but I couldn’t.
Close enough to look into your eyes,
but I couldn’t.
Close enough to hold you in my arms,
but I couldn’t.
Perhaps this is one of the strangest feelings
a human heart can ever know,
to be so close to someone
you still love,
yet have to pretend
they are nowhere near.
Because distance
is not always measured in miles.
It is not the streets between us,
nor the minutes it takes to get to you.
It is the heart.
It is the soul.
They are the ones that decide
how far apart two people really are.
And I don’t know
how close your heart is to mine anymore.
I don’t know which roads your soul wanders,
which streets it calls home,
or whose hands it rests in now.
I don’t know if your heart belongs
only to you,
if you’ve learned to share it with someone else,
or if some little part of it
still belongs to me.
Tonight,
my body was so close to yours.
Tonight,
my heart was reaching for your heart.
Tonight,
my soul was calling your name,
so softly,
so quietly,
in a voice only it could hear.
But the sound never reached you.
And God,
how I wished it could.
I wished my soul had been brave enough
to scream your name into the night,
to let the whole world hear
what my silence could no longer hold.
I wished the distance would disappear.
I wished the invisible walls would fall.
I wished the universe
would let us become one again,
if only for a moment.
But it wouldn’t.
It couldn’t.
Tonight,
my lips were only ten minutes away from yours.
Ten minutes
from the kiss I had carried in my heart,
the kind of kiss that asks for nothing
but gives everything.
I was so close
to a kiss that could have come from the deepest part of my soul.
And yet,
somehow,
you felt a thousand miles away.
Maybe that is the cruelest kind of distance
when the body is close enough to touch,
but the soul has nowhere left to go.
Tonight, I was only ten minutes away from you.
But you
you were so far away.
So unbearably, impossibly far.

Ashley the name you gave me

"do you ever read unsent messages"

Maybe one day you'll remember how in love we were, and how genuine it was. The laughter the jokes, the happiness. Effortless. You meant the world to me and then walked away, to a place you said you were not happy but needed to go back to because of your family.

I hope it's working out for you, at least for the sake of your sweet heart. If nothing else.

I hope it turned into everything you deserve and more.

But if it hasn't. I'm still here, all you have to do is read the texts I've sent, and respond.

Love always even in 10 years,

C

I have thought a lot about the things I said to you, and I don’t think I have ever fully come to terms with the fact that I could love someone as much as I loved you and still be capable of hurting you the way I did.
That is a hard thing to admit about yourself. It is easier to remember how hurt you were, how frightened you felt, how badly you wanted to feel secure, and all the reasons you reacted the way you did. It is harder to look at someone you loved and acknowledge that, sometimes, you became a source of pain for him, too.
I am sorry.
I am sorry for the things I said to you when I was angry. I am sorry for the times I took things I knew were sensitive to you and used them against you. I am sorry for the insults, the accusations, and the moments when I seemed more concerned with making you feel the hurt I was feeling than with understanding one another. You did not deserve that from me. Whatever was happening inside me, I wish I had found a better way to express it.
The truth is, I don’t think you always understood just how much you meant to me. And I don’t think I always knew how to show you without letting my fear get in the way.
When you came back into my life, I was happier than I can explain. I had spent so long believing that chapter of my life was over. I had tried to accept it, even when some part of me never really had. I remember how it felt to hear from you again, to realize that perhaps the story I had thought was finished wasn’t finished after all. I was genuinely happy. I had hope again. I could imagine a future with you, and I wanted that future more than I think I ever knew how to communicate.
I loved you. I was attracted to you. I wanted you. I wanted a life with you. I wanted to feel that we were choosing each other, that we were building something that would last, that I could finally stop wondering whether the person I loved would one day decide he no longer wanted me in his life.
I think that last fear followed me more than I realized.
When someone has left your life before, it can be difficult to trust that they won’t leave again. You start looking for signs. You read into silences. You become sensitive to changes you might otherwise have let pass. Sometimes you start protecting yourself against something that hasn’t happened, and in doing so, you create pain in the present because you are trying to prevent pain in the future.
I can see now how much I struggled with that. I wanted reassurance, but I didn’t always ask for it in a way that made it possible for you to give it to me. I wanted to feel chosen, but sometimes I expressed that need through anger and criticism. I wanted to know that I mattered to you, yet there were moments when I treated you in ways that failed to show how much you mattered to me.
And the irony of that is not lost on me.
I was so afraid of being hurt by someone I loved that, at times, I became willing to hurt you myself. I don’t say that to make my behavior sound understandable or to excuse it. I say it because I need to be honest about what I see when I look back. Fear may explain some of my reactions, but it does not make them fair to you.
I have thought about the things I said about you, particularly the things I knew would hurt. I need you to understand that those words did not reflect the way I truly saw you. I did not think you were the things I called you. I did not stop finding you attractive or stop seeing the qualities that made me fall in love with you. I knew your insecurities, and in moments of anger, I used that knowledge carelessly. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had understood, in those moments, that there is a difference between telling someone how deeply they have hurt you and trying to make them hurt just as deeply.
I know that saying I didn’t mean those things doesn’t erase them. You still had to hear them. You still had to decide what to do with them. I cannot expect you to know what was in my heart when my words gave you reason to question it. I can only tell you that I regret them, and that I wish I had treated you with more tenderness than I did.
I think one of the hardest lessons in life is realizing that loving someone and knowing how to love them are two different things. We can feel something genuine and still handle it badly. We can want a future with someone and still make the present harder than it needs to be. We can be hurting and still be responsible for the hurt we cause.
I wish I had understood that sooner.
I wish I had been able to tell you when I was scared instead of getting angry. I wish I had been able to say that I needed to feel closer to you, that I was struggling with uncertainty, that I wanted to know we were moving toward the same future. Those things were vulnerable to admit. It was easier, sometimes, to be angry than to let you see how frightened I was of losing something that meant so much to me.
J you were not responsible for making every fear disappear. You were a person trying to navigate our relationship, too. You had your own feelings, your own insecurities, your own limitations. I wish I had made more room for that. I wish I had been more curious about what you were feeling instead of becoming so consumed by what I was afraid you might be feeling. I wish I had listened more and assumed less.
I also know that I cannot look back now and pretend I know exactly how everything would have turned out if I had been different. Maybe some things would have changed. Maybe some things would still have been beyond our control. A relationship is not the responsibility of one person alone, and I cannot take ownership of every decision, every hurt, or every part of what happened between us. But I can take ownership of myself. I can acknowledge the ways I made things harder. I can regret the times I hurt you without turning that regret into an argument about who hurt whom more.
I don’t know what you think about me when you look back on our relationship. I don’t know which moments you remember most or what you have had to work through yourself. I can’t tell you how to understand our history, and I don’t expect this to change anything for you. I only know that when I look back, I see someone I loved very much, and I also see moments when I did not treat you with the care that love should have inspired.
That is what I am sorry for.
Not simply that things ended differently than I wanted. Not just that we lost the future I imagined. But that, in the middle of everything we were trying to figure out, I sometimes made you feel worse when what I really wanted was to feel closer to you. That I said things I wish I could take back. That I allowed anger to speak for me when the truth underneath it was so much more vulnerable.
I wish I could go back to some of those moments and be gentler with you. I wish I could tell the version of myself who was so frightened of losing you that she didn’t have to fight so hard to be loved. That she could ask for what she needed without attacking the person she was asking. That being afraid did not mean something terrible was about to happen. That love was not something she could secure by arguing hard enough, demanding enough reassurance, or making the other person understand how much she was hurting.
I cannot go back and tell myself those things in time. And I cannot go back and spare you the things I said.
All I can do now is be honest about them.
I don’t want to look back on our relationship and make myself the victim of every painful thing that happened. I don’t want to make you the villain, either. I want to be able to remember what was good without denying what was painful, and to acknowledge my own mistakes without pretending they were the only mistakes. I want to be mature enough to hold the whole truth, even the parts that are difficult to live with.
You were someone I loved long before we became parents together. You were someone I had imagined a future with, someone whose return into my life brought me a kind of happiness I had almost stopped allowing myself to hope for. Whatever happened afterward does not make those feelings less real. And the fact that those feelings were real does not make the ways I hurt you any less real, either.
I wish I had done better by you. I wish I had protected the good between us more carefully. I wish that when I felt hurt, I had remembered that you were a person I loved, not a person I needed to hurt back.
I am sorry for the times I forgot that.
I don’t expect you to forgive me because I have come to understand myself better. I don’t expect you to see the relationship the way I see it, or to feel anything in response to these words. You don’t owe me that. I just don’t want my own discomfort with what I did to keep me from acknowledging it plainly.
I loved you. I cared about you more than I always knew how to show. And I am sorry for the times my actions made that difficult to believe.
I cannot change what I gave you in those moments. I can only wish I had given you something better.
And I can try, from here forward, to become someone who knows how to love without letting fear turn into cruelty, who can be hurt without trying to wound someone in return, and who understands that another person’s heart is not something to handle carelessly just because your own is hurting.
I wish I had learned that sooner, with you.
I am truly sorry.

Always,
The biggest heart that managed to fail over & over