(no subject)
An open letter to “The One”, from “The Boy Who Broke Your Heart”…
Let me start of by stating the obvious, the two phrases I’m not supposed to be using -
“I’m sorry”
“I love you”
Both, regardless of what you believe, are true. I apologise unreservedly for everything I have done to you that has caused you harm. I’m only now beginning to realise the full extent and severity of the harm I have caused. In opposition to this, I guess, is the latter statement. I do love you. I think I loved you from the moment I first met you. Love is an odd emotion, and there are definitely things that I have done, and choices that I have made that would suggest that I don’t, but I still maintain that I am in love with you, and always have been. You are “The One”.
I’m not really sure where I’m going with this letter. You know I don’t do very well with the whole arguing/talking on the spot thing, so I guess this is me trying to make sense of everything I’ve done that has lead us to this point. I don’t expect anything to come of this, in fact I doubt that you’ll ever read it. Whilst I’m not sure what this is, I am very confident in what this isn’t. This is not:
- an attempt at an alleviation of guilt.
- an attempt at an excuse.
- an attempt to get you to convinced that you want me back in your life.
The three things I think that need addressing most are:
- the time where you felt you couldn’t put a foot wrong or I’d go off the rails again, which was also the time I kissed that boy. (We could actually rename this the ‘Martin treats Adam really unfairly part, but then again I guess we could name most of these sections like this).
- Luke
- STI testing
When we first started dating, I became increasingly aware of how different we were. You being two years older, you seemed more confident, had more experience and you were more intelligent than me. These things let to me idolising you, and to me feeling shit about myself. At times I felt like I was in competition with you. I felt like the tools I had for managing a relationship were rendered useless. I panicked. I was also used to living really close lives with boyfriends, having practically lived with the last guy I was with. You having your own life (a life I deemed “better” than my own) upset me, and made me jealous. It made me feel like you didn’t care about me, which of course, I know you did, I just wasn’t the be all and end all of your life. (I’d like to point out here that I’ve realised just how ridiculous most of these things are, and this is all written in past tense). I felt that I wasn’t good enough, and being needy, I started looking for attention. I looked for attention in the worst possible areas, i.e. through self harm, bringing up ex drama etc. Its no wonder you left me. I put enormous amounts of pressure on you.
When we got back together (i.e. in Mission), one thing you said to me really affected me. You said “When you rang me and told me what Craig had done to you, it really upset me. That’s when I realised I did love you, and wanted to get back together with you”. This certified in my mind that when bad things happened to me, you cared for me and looked after me. (I’d like to point out here, that NONE of this means its your fault. The fault here is how I interpreted what I got from you. This is not, “Adam did this, therefore I did this negative thing”. At no point did you do anything wrong. You were perfect. Which makes me feel about 100 times worse.) This, as you well know, after we broke up again, led to a downward spiral. I felt that it had got to the point where I’d gone beyond any possibility of having a normal relationship with you (including friendship), and that the only way to get what I needed from you was to harm myself and put myself in danger. I had a lot of other issues that were going on with me at the time, and when things did get bad, I often used them as a tool to get affection from you. I made myself ill.
So far it sounds a bit like I was “putting it on” (Although I’d like to point out that I never once ‘faked’ being upset), but when I took my overdose, I slipped into depression ‘proper.’ Things got messy. I juggled Uni with trying to get better and trying to make sense of us. It was a bad time for both of us. I put you under an immense amount of stress and strain at this time, and it was so unfair for me to do so whilst you were trying to finish your degree. You put me at a distance, which I am beginning to understand, and it was probably for the best. I got really worried/paranoid you were going to leave me for someone else that I said all those awful things to make you not ‘put a foot out of line’ (As you put it). I needed some control over such a scary and unknown situation that instead of talking to you about it or taking a step back I guilted you into not living your life the way you wanted to. This is one of my biggest regrets. I made you pussy-foot around me when what I really needed was a smack in the mouth and someone to tell me to get over myself and grow up.
When you were being ‘distant’ I felt like you weren’t bothered about me anymore. When you mentioned what happened with Ritchie just in passing over lunch one day, it really upset me. (I know I’m completely out of line here, but I’m being honest). I felt like you’d lied to me, and I was convinced you were seeing someone else. (You’ve no idea how embarrassed and ashamed I am of doubting you in regards to all this). I decided that I was going to make more gay friends (Again, I suppose, in competition to you). This led to me kissing Darren. Being drunk is a lame reason, but it was a big factor here. I dismissed it as a drunken mistake, and didn’t see it as a big thing. (Mainly because I thought you were seeing people - I think the whole LadsLads/Gaydar thing played a big part here too. Seeing how popular you were, and you telling me about guys you were talking to from there, seeing you post blogs etc didn’t help my paranoia - but again, this wasn’t your fault, it was me misinterpreting what you were doing). I didn’t think about what I was doing, and I didn’t think about you, which is awful, but true. I treated you like dirt and expected you to treat me like a king. I’m a hypocrite to the letter.
I gradually got better, and I think things got better between us. I think you moving home did help. It gave us space that I think we couldn’t achieve in Leeds, and worked well in regards to timing - I needed space to finish getting better, and I’m sure you have plenty of good reasons why you were relived that I wasn’t so close anymore. The thing that really upset me at this time was that you’d always said ‘We’ll get back together when your better/in the summer”. I guess that was some of the whole pussy-footing around me. When I got better, I was like “Ok, I’m better, why doesn’t he want me?” Whenever we spoke, I always wanted to bring it up, but I was becoming more and more aware of how I was affecting you, so I didn’t mention it as much as I wanted. When we did finally get together, I felt like I’d coerced you into it. (Which I found out this weekend I had). I didn’t feel like I thought I’d feel. I didn’t feel calm, at peace, happy. I felt like I was again forcing you into something you didn’t want to do, making you make choices about your life you didn’t necessarily want to make, and that you were just doing them to make me feel OK. I was sick of feeling like you didn’t want to be with me. (Again, my fault).
The night in Bourbon with Luke wasn’t like a major planned out thing. It just happened. Again, drink was a big part of it. I don’t have any excuses, or even any reasons for why I did it. I was insecure, selfish and attention seeking. I felt horrible after. I was crying the whole next day. I did really want to tell you, but as I’ve said, I was persuaded against it. It made me realise that I’d been treating you badly/disrespecting you. I managed to put it behind me and put all my energy into having a good holiday together. If I could have one thing from you, it’d be that you look back on our holiday happily. It was an amazing experience, it made me realise just how special you are. It was on holiday that I realised that if you weren’t going to be the one I spent the rest of my life with, then I’d be spending the rest of my life alone.
The STI testing thing I have no excuse for. It was a disgusting thing to do to you. I am appalled with myself that I put your health in danger. There is nothing I can do to show you how much I regret this. You should never forgive me for this.
Everything negative that happened between us was my fault. You have done nothing but look after me and take care of me and I’ve made you feel really awful. I am so sorry for everything that I did you wrong. I pushed you away when all I wanted was us to be happy and be in love. When you said “I would have said yes to your stupid roof top proposal and your ridiculously named children” my world just collapsed. I don’t know if you really meant it, (I’ve always wondered how you saw our future) but it made me realise just how much I’d thrown away.
Today I made the decision that I’m not going to see anyone again. It was traumatising seeing what I’d done to you. I never thought that I was capable of doing so much harm to one person. I never imagined that I could do that to you of all people. I’m not safe to be around. I regret what I did to you so much. I don’t want (and I’m sure you’ll agree) anyone else to have to go through what you did. I don’t deserve happiness, after destroying yours for so long. You told me I couldn’t make it better between us, so this is my punishment. I can’t get over what I did to you, and this is going to be a reminder of it for the rest of my life.
I love you, and I miss you. I know there is no hope of us getting back together. But I hope one day you can stand to look at me again, and even share an Angel Cake. I am a better person just by having you in my life. I pray for the day you want me there.
I’m so sorry.
I love you.
Martin xxx
Let me start of by stating the obvious, the two phrases I’m not supposed to be using -
“I’m sorry”
“I love you”
Both, regardless of what you believe, are true. I apologise unreservedly for everything I have done to you that has caused you harm. I’m only now beginning to realise the full extent and severity of the harm I have caused. In opposition to this, I guess, is the latter statement. I do love you. I think I loved you from the moment I first met you. Love is an odd emotion, and there are definitely things that I have done, and choices that I have made that would suggest that I don’t, but I still maintain that I am in love with you, and always have been. You are “The One”.
I’m not really sure where I’m going with this letter. You know I don’t do very well with the whole arguing/talking on the spot thing, so I guess this is me trying to make sense of everything I’ve done that has lead us to this point. I don’t expect anything to come of this, in fact I doubt that you’ll ever read it. Whilst I’m not sure what this is, I am very confident in what this isn’t. This is not:
- an attempt at an alleviation of guilt.
- an attempt at an excuse.
- an attempt to get you to convinced that you want me back in your life.
The three things I think that need addressing most are:
- the time where you felt you couldn’t put a foot wrong or I’d go off the rails again, which was also the time I kissed that boy. (We could actually rename this the ‘Martin treats Adam really unfairly part, but then again I guess we could name most of these sections like this).
- Luke
- STI testing
When we first started dating, I became increasingly aware of how different we were. You being two years older, you seemed more confident, had more experience and you were more intelligent than me. These things let to me idolising you, and to me feeling shit about myself. At times I felt like I was in competition with you. I felt like the tools I had for managing a relationship were rendered useless. I panicked. I was also used to living really close lives with boyfriends, having practically lived with the last guy I was with. You having your own life (a life I deemed “better” than my own) upset me, and made me jealous. It made me feel like you didn’t care about me, which of course, I know you did, I just wasn’t the be all and end all of your life. (I’d like to point out here that I’ve realised just how ridiculous most of these things are, and this is all written in past tense). I felt that I wasn’t good enough, and being needy, I started looking for attention. I looked for attention in the worst possible areas, i.e. through self harm, bringing up ex drama etc. Its no wonder you left me. I put enormous amounts of pressure on you.
When we got back together (i.e. in Mission), one thing you said to me really affected me. You said “When you rang me and told me what Craig had done to you, it really upset me. That’s when I realised I did love you, and wanted to get back together with you”. This certified in my mind that when bad things happened to me, you cared for me and looked after me. (I’d like to point out here, that NONE of this means its your fault. The fault here is how I interpreted what I got from you. This is not, “Adam did this, therefore I did this negative thing”. At no point did you do anything wrong. You were perfect. Which makes me feel about 100 times worse.) This, as you well know, after we broke up again, led to a downward spiral. I felt that it had got to the point where I’d gone beyond any possibility of having a normal relationship with you (including friendship), and that the only way to get what I needed from you was to harm myself and put myself in danger. I had a lot of other issues that were going on with me at the time, and when things did get bad, I often used them as a tool to get affection from you. I made myself ill.
So far it sounds a bit like I was “putting it on” (Although I’d like to point out that I never once ‘faked’ being upset), but when I took my overdose, I slipped into depression ‘proper.’ Things got messy. I juggled Uni with trying to get better and trying to make sense of us. It was a bad time for both of us. I put you under an immense amount of stress and strain at this time, and it was so unfair for me to do so whilst you were trying to finish your degree. You put me at a distance, which I am beginning to understand, and it was probably for the best. I got really worried/paranoid you were going to leave me for someone else that I said all those awful things to make you not ‘put a foot out of line’ (As you put it). I needed some control over such a scary and unknown situation that instead of talking to you about it or taking a step back I guilted you into not living your life the way you wanted to. This is one of my biggest regrets. I made you pussy-foot around me when what I really needed was a smack in the mouth and someone to tell me to get over myself and grow up.
When you were being ‘distant’ I felt like you weren’t bothered about me anymore. When you mentioned what happened with Ritchie just in passing over lunch one day, it really upset me. (I know I’m completely out of line here, but I’m being honest). I felt like you’d lied to me, and I was convinced you were seeing someone else. (You’ve no idea how embarrassed and ashamed I am of doubting you in regards to all this). I decided that I was going to make more gay friends (Again, I suppose, in competition to you). This led to me kissing Darren. Being drunk is a lame reason, but it was a big factor here. I dismissed it as a drunken mistake, and didn’t see it as a big thing. (Mainly because I thought you were seeing people - I think the whole LadsLads/Gaydar thing played a big part here too. Seeing how popular you were, and you telling me about guys you were talking to from there, seeing you post blogs etc didn’t help my paranoia - but again, this wasn’t your fault, it was me misinterpreting what you were doing). I didn’t think about what I was doing, and I didn’t think about you, which is awful, but true. I treated you like dirt and expected you to treat me like a king. I’m a hypocrite to the letter.
I gradually got better, and I think things got better between us. I think you moving home did help. It gave us space that I think we couldn’t achieve in Leeds, and worked well in regards to timing - I needed space to finish getting better, and I’m sure you have plenty of good reasons why you were relived that I wasn’t so close anymore. The thing that really upset me at this time was that you’d always said ‘We’ll get back together when your better/in the summer”. I guess that was some of the whole pussy-footing around me. When I got better, I was like “Ok, I’m better, why doesn’t he want me?” Whenever we spoke, I always wanted to bring it up, but I was becoming more and more aware of how I was affecting you, so I didn’t mention it as much as I wanted. When we did finally get together, I felt like I’d coerced you into it. (Which I found out this weekend I had). I didn’t feel like I thought I’d feel. I didn’t feel calm, at peace, happy. I felt like I was again forcing you into something you didn’t want to do, making you make choices about your life you didn’t necessarily want to make, and that you were just doing them to make me feel OK. I was sick of feeling like you didn’t want to be with me. (Again, my fault).
The night in Bourbon with Luke wasn’t like a major planned out thing. It just happened. Again, drink was a big part of it. I don’t have any excuses, or even any reasons for why I did it. I was insecure, selfish and attention seeking. I felt horrible after. I was crying the whole next day. I did really want to tell you, but as I’ve said, I was persuaded against it. It made me realise that I’d been treating you badly/disrespecting you. I managed to put it behind me and put all my energy into having a good holiday together. If I could have one thing from you, it’d be that you look back on our holiday happily. It was an amazing experience, it made me realise just how special you are. It was on holiday that I realised that if you weren’t going to be the one I spent the rest of my life with, then I’d be spending the rest of my life alone.
The STI testing thing I have no excuse for. It was a disgusting thing to do to you. I am appalled with myself that I put your health in danger. There is nothing I can do to show you how much I regret this. You should never forgive me for this.
Everything negative that happened between us was my fault. You have done nothing but look after me and take care of me and I’ve made you feel really awful. I am so sorry for everything that I did you wrong. I pushed you away when all I wanted was us to be happy and be in love. When you said “I would have said yes to your stupid roof top proposal and your ridiculously named children” my world just collapsed. I don’t know if you really meant it, (I’ve always wondered how you saw our future) but it made me realise just how much I’d thrown away.
Today I made the decision that I’m not going to see anyone again. It was traumatising seeing what I’d done to you. I never thought that I was capable of doing so much harm to one person. I never imagined that I could do that to you of all people. I’m not safe to be around. I regret what I did to you so much. I don’t want (and I’m sure you’ll agree) anyone else to have to go through what you did. I don’t deserve happiness, after destroying yours for so long. You told me I couldn’t make it better between us, so this is my punishment. I can’t get over what I did to you, and this is going to be a reminder of it for the rest of my life.
I love you, and I miss you. I know there is no hope of us getting back together. But I hope one day you can stand to look at me again, and even share an Angel Cake. I am a better person just by having you in my life. I pray for the day you want me there.
I’m so sorry.
I love you.
Martin xxx