I gave you my world, and you gave me hell.

For the last few days, all I’ve done is mope around and feel sorry for myself. I just can’t stop crying… My depression is at an all time low, and all I can think about is how miserable my life is.

I made a huge mistake. And I’m choking on this pill I’m trying to swallow as we speak.

I made the mistake of not only letting my ex back into my life, but trusting his words and putting my whole world back into his hands. He looked me in my eyes, confessed his love, and promised me he wouldn’t take this chance for granted. I gave him an ultimatum and told him that this time, I was all or nothing. If things didn’t work out this time around, I physically, mentally, and emotionally couldn’t handle him being apart of my life anymore. He was supposed to take care of my heart. Just days ago he asked me to move in with him next week. And due to the situation I was/am in, I was going to. I planned my entire fucking life around the word of a man, again. Only for him to take my heart that I gave to him on a platter, and empty a magazine of hollow points in it like it was nothing to him.

When we first got together, my whole world changed. I was happier than I had ever been before. He made me feel so beautiful, like I was the only woman in the world that mattered. He made me feel loved, important, smart, hopeful for our future, and most of all he made me feel safe. He was everything than no man has ever been to me. Falling for him wasn’t falling at all. It was like walking into a house, and suddenly knowing you’re home. I was so in love. He was the most important person in my life, and I ranked him above everyone else, including myself. That was my first mistake.

Half way into our relationship, he began to distance himself. Once his ex-wife got involved in our relationship, it was all down hill from there. She was constantly trying to break us up, make it seem like he was trying to work things out with her again, and she made it her life mission to make my life a living hell so I wouldn’t want to be with him. But I love too hard to believe any of that. I’m too loyal of a person to base my judgement of someone’s character on the action’s of someone who clearly couldn’t cut it as his partner. Until one day he told me he was leaving to work on his family. Our entire relationship he stressed his hatred and disgust for that woman. This was right after I lost my job too so I was BEYOND devastated. I couldn’t believe what had happened. But as he always did every time he tried to leave me, he’d come back wanting to be a part of my life again. He always told me that he’d only leave because he felt I deserved better than him, and he was sacrificing his own happiness so I could move on a find a man I deserve. It was pitiful. He broke my heart more than once over irreconcilable differences why we couldn’t be together. But I’m a fighter, and I just didn’t have it in me to give up on him yet. As much as I couldn’t force him to want to be with me, I couldn’t force my heart to stop wanting him. But that doesn’t make me weak or dramatic. It makes me a woman who knows what she wanted. A woman who wasn’t going to let something good be ruined by insecurities and fear. So I took him back, every time. He’d cry and cry and go on with endless reasons why he didn’t want to lose me, and how he’d try to be better. He’d say just enough to keep me there, dangling by a thread. But every time (and there were several times he left me), I was unraveling. 

He is a sociopath, and our relationship was so toxic. Loving a sociopath is like taking all the shortcuts in life. There’s immediate charm, intense connection, and an all or nothingness that is unlike any relationship you’ve ever been in. It made me aspire to love him harder than I’ve ever loved anyone before. But loving a sociopath is also a quick shortcut to a broken heart. They are expert chronic liars and say exactly what it takes to keep you from leaving. He sweet talked me until my ears bled. He would tell me everything I wanted to hear with zero actions to back it up. He somehow made me believe in his word without any desire to demand that he that he shows his love for me, or any sort of reciprocation of my love for him. But as detached as I tried to be, I was never as unattached as this man who lived his life completely separate from the basic spectrum of human emotions.

No matter how hard I loved him, and how much I showed him, my love was never reciprocated. Not like it was in the beginning anyways. I loved this man wholeheartedly, and so unconditionally. I even loved all of his imperfections, and that is how I knew he was worth my fight. But all he did was sit himself in the stitches of my skin, superficial enough to burn and deep enough to bruise. Just days after re-committing our relationship, making my expectations clear, and planning our upcoming living situation, he texts me that I needed to leave him alone, I was coming in between his family, and he was with his wife and son. I thought it was his ex again playing games (as she’s done before), so I demanded to talk to him. Sure enough, he answered the phone. It was really him… My heart dropped and I couldn’t believe it. I was humiliated. I asked him if this was all real after all that he told me just the day before. He responded with “Yes, I need to work on my family now so leave it alone, stop calling, etc.” all while his so-called ex is bitching in the background. I paused, and it was the loudest moment of silence; and then he just hung up. There were more argumentative texts exchanged from my disbelief, but that was the gist of the situation. In the middle of this all he texts me “They got me tied up” implying that her family is holding him hostage and making him say these things. But the sad part is, he’s already used that excuse in the past in a similar situation, so I couldn’t bear to believe it. Regardless if it was true, he clearly had no hesitation to sacrifice our love for it.

I told him this time around it was all or nothing. He made a choice. He chose to break my heart. Just two days before my 30th birthday too… He’s made me feel so helpless and devastated. He rooted himself firmly under my skin, and no amount of scratching could exorcise the idea of him. He’s all that I have thought about every second of every day that has passed, and that’s why I can’t stop crying. I’m in the deepest depression that I’ve ever been in, and I so badly want to end it all. I’ve lost my career, my boyfriend, and I’m having the worst luck finding a job. My unemployment is about to run out this month and I will soon have no income. What is the point anymore? I’m a waste of life and I just want to give up. I cannot stop questioning my worth, along with a million unanswered questions I have of how our relationship went wrong, and what else he lied about.

I just feel so incredibly foolish and completely to blame. The hardest part of this all, is having to look myself in the mirror. He gave me all the signs of a liar and a cheater but I didn’t listen to them. At this point, I have to let go. But letting go means that I have to admit that I was wrong about him, and I judged his character so badly. That alone is going to be the steepest uphill battle for me. I’ve been through enough in life to know better and not be so naive. For the first time I truly understand the meaning behind the saying that love is blind. Now I have to acknowledge that everyone was right about him. But I can’t move forward with my life if I have one foot on the brakes. Letting go of the pain is so hard because it’s the only thing right now that’s attaching me to him, and I’m just not ready to let go.

It’s challenging, but I have to keep reminding myself that I’m smarter than this. I’m smart enough to acknowledge my feelings now, and understand what is going on. I just need to take the right steps towards loving myself; which is easier said than done, especially at this point in my life. He always told me that he was quick to break up with me because he knew that I deserved better, and he wanted to break it off before I realized it myself and broke his heart first. This reminds me just how weak he really is. Rejection is amplified in people like him, and I truly believe that’s why he is settling for her. He knows that she’s even crazier, and ever more insecure, so he’s settling for someone who he knows won’t leave him. He constantly lied to me and covered up his true life because he can’t accept who he really is. It makes me so sad, because up until now, I saw so much good in him. He was once the sweetest man I had ever known. He was talented, caring, loving, and sincere. He made it easy for me to uplift him, and encourage him to continue to be the man I thought he was. Before I met him, I lived a fairly rough life, which in turn made it so easy for me to cherish everything about him. I truly felt blessed to be his woman. Every time he would put himself down and make me pity him for not feeling good enough for me, I’d constantly remind him why I loved him, and how badly I wished he could see himself through my eyes.

As much as it hurts to say this, after our last phone call, I finally saw him the way that he sees himself…

I hate goodbyes.

“Just because I loved you, and just because you hurt me, I will not be ashamed to say that I loved you. Because I really did love you. I loved the loving person that you were. I do not love the cold person that you are now. I loved the considerate person that you were. I do not love the inconsiderate person that you are now. I loved the thoughtful person you were. I do not love the deaf-hearted person that you are now. You see, you asked me what I loved about you, and that is what I loved. If you asked me today what I love about you, I will tell you this. I love the memory of the person that you used to be. I love that you allowed me to feel the love that my heart can contain. I love the love that you showed me I can give. I love the happiness that you showed me I could have. I loved that you walked away. I loved that you did not stay. I would have suffered if you had stayed, because of the person that you are today.”