Dear Ex

First of all, I want you to know that even though our relationship ended, I don’t regret being with you. We shared a lot of wonderful memories and there were moments where we really made each other happy.

And you can trust that I’m never going to forget that. It may have had a sour ending but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have some pretty sweet memories in between.

You actually allowed me to experience what it really means to be happy. I just want to thank you for the times that you made me laugh even when I didn’t want to smile. Thank you for always making me feel supported.

Thank you for maintaining your faith in me even when I didn’t have any faith in myself anymore. I really want to thank you for everything good that you gave me.

But I also want you to know that you broke my heart. I want you to know that you really destroyed me on the inside when you chose to just get up and leave. Even now, I still struggle with the pains of losing you.

I still find myself thinking about you and what I could have possibly done to keep you in my life. But despite all of the pain, I’m glad to say that I’m finally on the road to recovery.

I’m proud to say that I’m moving on and I know that I’m eventually going to heal and be okay. And it’s because I am moving on that I can say with confidence that I truly am grateful for what we had.

Thank you for walking out of my life and making me realize that you and I weren’t meant to be. Thank you for giving me the chance to just get out of the relationship that was wrong for me from the very start.

Yes, I may have once thought that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. But perhaps my love was blinding me to the many ways that you were wrong for me.

I so desperately wanted to spend the rest of my days with you that I completely ignored the indications that were warning me. And so I want to thank you for giving me a way out.

Thank you for forcing me out of the relationship. Thank you for showing me the path that I should have really been on – a path that didn’t involve you.

I want to thank you for allowing me to be free of the judgment and criticism of your friends and family. I was so desperately in love with you and I always wanted the people closest to your heart to like me.

I was practically selling myself to these people to the best of my abilities. But it just never felt like I was enough. Instead of giving me reassurance and confidence, I just felt even more anxiety and insecurity. I was always so afraid of the people in your life.

And I now realize that it was all because you never really fought for me yourself. You never really defended me. You never really did anything to defend me. And I want to thank you for allowing me to be free from that situation. I want to thank you for releasing the shackles that were holding me down.

I no longer have to bear with insecurities. I no longer have to bear with my anxieties. I no longer have to be fearful. The only people I ever really have to please are myself and those who are closest to me. These are the people who matter.

Thank you for strengthening my relationships with the people who really matter in life. It was because of the fact that you broke me that I had to rely on the other people I loved.

It was when I felt so down and broken as a result of you leaving where I really discovered who my real friends were. It was when I was at my worst where I learned who would really be there for me when times would get dark.

Thank you for teaching me to never take any of my relationships for granted; for never taking the people in my life for granted. I never would have been able to do that if you didn’t abandon me the way that you did.

But here’s the most important reason as to why I want to thank you. I want you to know that I’m most grateful for the fact that I now know how strong I am because you left me.

It was because of your abandonment that I learned that I’m perfectly capable of making it through this world on my own. Your leaving taught me my own strength. You taught me that pain is temporary and that a person’s resilience is always going to pull you through.