An Open Letter To The Person He Loved After I Left

You now hold a part of me I never intended to let go of.

Do not get me wrong, I have no harmful intentions, I only hope to make you understand. I have accepted the consequences of both my actions and my inactions. I do not want to inflict pain on anyone, but I also do not want to keep fooling myself with the suppression of my unspoken regrets.

At times, I find myself rereading old conversations, browsing photos of him and me together, watching movies or listening to songs that remind me of him, retelling our stories to newfound friends, and so much more reminiscing, which sometimes causes my brain to explode. When I take trips to memory lane, what ifs become inescapable thoughts. These times are when I ask myself what it would be like if I never allowed myself to grow outside of my already “stable” relationship. What if I didn’t choose my career over love? What if I didn’t refuse his offer of a future together? What if I just stayed with him? These moments make me snap, make me ask the greatest question of them all: What if I never left?

Pain disperses all over my body when I see how his social media photos change from being with me to being beside you, when I see that you visit places that used to be our unplanned getaway spots, when people ask me what went wrong or how events transpired swiftly, when I read your posts about how lucky you are to find a man as gentle and as loving as him, when I witness how his friends become yours. Even worse, when you slowly charm his family to get their approval. It hurts to see how the world I once considered my sanctuary becomes somebody else’s haven.

Is the pain a result of me going away? Do you think you’d be there if I hadn’t left?

I know I can sometimes be selfish. You can go ahead and ask me how dare I say such things as if I was not the one who left. You can detest me, curse me as much as you want; you can call me a humbug, an impulsive no-good narcissist, but I still hope there’s room for you to understand how heavy this burden is for me to carry. I did not want to leave just for the sake of it. I wanted to build an identity. I wanted to know who I am and make sure I was not only living in the dark as his shadow. I wanted to fully grasp who I am outside of the relationship. It had been years of not knowing that other emotions existed—I only knew how it felt to love him, and that terrified me. What if I mistook comfort for stability? And what if you still existed even if I never left?

I needed to make sure that I wasn’t missing out on anything, so I decided to get away to learn and to explore beyond what I was made to believe. That’s why I chose to leave. There were no guarantees of that choice being pain-free. I knew I had a price to pay, but being prepared for the impact does not make anything less painful.

My intentions are clean. I accept that what he and I had is a thing of the past—he is all yours to cherish now. I still think about him, but I can assure you that missing him is as far as I’ll go, and loving him from afar is the closest the two of us will ever be.

I wish you both happiness.