"letters to the ones we think we love" Inspired by Seren.

[half_ofa_heart]

Dear MM

As much as I love talking to you, just like seeing you, it never feels as good when it’s over. You have been my best friend for almost 2 years so habits are hard to break. Every little thing that happens in my life, makes me feel like I need to call you and tell you all about it. The problem with that is it always leaves me wanting more. I want to be able to kiss you when it’s something happy; I want to be able to hug you when it’s something sad; I want to be able to make love to you whenever I feel like it… but I cannot because you do this with another woman.

 

I told you we need to end this relationship and I’m trying to do just that. I have never considered myself to be an addict of any kind but alas, I must be. I don’t know how I am ever going to get over this, or over you! Can’t live with you and I can’t live without you.

 

I am realizing a lot about myself. I once considered myself to be a strong woman but I no longer feel that to be true. A strong woman would never have allowed herself to fall in love with a man she knew she could never have. She would never love a man who couldn’t give her what she needs and wants. She wouldn’t give this man her entire heart and soul knowing his was not available to give in return.

 

I grew up with a mother who was constantly beating me; telling me I would never amount to anything. That I would never marry because no man will want me. No matter what I did, it was never good enough for her. My aunts would tell me otherwise but we always seek approval from the ones who are supposed to love us the most.

 

I grew up with a father that was non-existent. Not because he was a bad man but because he was not well. Nevertheless, I grew up never hearing the words “I love you”, not just from my father but obviously from my mother, my brothers and my sister. I have not only longed to hear those words, but to feel loved.

 

I felt love for the first time in my life when I saw my son; then again when I held my daughter. But I have never felt love from anyone else. What I thought was love, I would later find out to be nothing more than that familiar feeling of trying to gain approval from those not able to give it. What I feel for you feels like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It feels like love; it feels like a bond like no other, but how can this same feeling I call love, leave me feeling so worthless and low?

 

I looked for validation from others only to realize the people I looked to for approval just added to my feelings of low self-esteem, self-worth and disappointment in myself. Then you come along and make me feel that I am not just worthy of love but beautiful, smart and someone that anyone would love to call their own… it was like a balm to the soul. The problem is if it is not sincere, the rejection intensifies the feelings of self-worth. Furthermore, the fact that you will never call me your own validates the feelings of insecurity

 

I’m not saying that you aren’t being sincere when you tell me you love me but you have to understand how hard it is to believe that someone loves you when they live their entire life with someone else. I want so much to believe that this is real but how can this be true if my heart is broken most of the time?? Is this Love? What is love?

 

Corinthians 13: 4-7

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

[SouthernLady]

I don't want to be your free hard on thrill anymore. I don't want to make you a priority ever again when I'm just an occasional option. I understand the reasons you can't change your situation, but for you to say you can't make up something to visit is an excuse. You can't even"get away"when I'm 5 minutes away. How about being considerate and scheduling some time....make it a priority just temporarily. I don't know what has kept this going on for 8.5 years now, but it's not love and it's not caring on your part. I suppose it's just the free 10 minute thrills. I don't want you to love me, but feeling special would be nice. I feel like the situation is one sided. You get your thrill with sexy pictures and I get nothing in return...you can't even send anything cause your afraid I'll do something with it. WHATEVER! If I wanted to do that, I would have by now.

 

I love you and that's why I respected your wish of me not to contact you for the last 4 months. But really why did you call? You've said that you have nothing to give me and not to waste time on you and I do believe that, but why do we both continue this like two fools?

 

Just to get through that period of time it is easier to pretend that you never cared and that you never think of me. But when I try to reconcile if any of this was "real" the thought that you never cared is most painful. I wish I could forget you, I wish I had never met you. I wish I had a heart of stone and could understand a man's brain when it comes to matters of the heart and the emotions of a woman.

Edited January 15, 2011 by SouthernLady

[SouthernLady]

HH,

 

I think your letter is beautiful and can relate in every way! My dad died when I was 7 and my mother is not affectionate or expressive in her love.

 

I wonder if more of us are trying to find that self worth. I also wonder why we would go about it in such a masochistic way. My first love at 17 was even unrequited. My boyfriend of almost 6 years who I broke up with in october was mean and full of blame toward everyone but himself. He wasn't a healthy choice either. Over the past three years I have determined that I will never be able to get the love and affection I missed as a child from any romantic partner. It sucks! It's not realistic or fair to the other person to even expect it.

[seren]

HH, you ask What is Love? I think that people who have been damaged by the actions of others first need to find that love for their selves. I also think that once we (general we) can accept that we cannot change what has happened to us, we learn to recognise that we have strength, we can endure, and the more we look to our selves for what we measure our worth by, the more we see that we measure up. That we are in fact, OK, that the people who use or abuse are in fact the lesser because they have to project their own self loathing, need for validation or insecurity onto another. Recognising that although we cannot have the power to go back and change what was, we do in fact, have the power to change what is and will be.

 

I tell my son that each day is like having a blank page, yes our lives have been shaped and changed by the previous chapters, but we are the writers of our own destiny and we can choose to rewrite the ending to benefit us. After all, we have to live with our selves, we have to like us and we have to be proud to be in our own skin. If we love our selves, then we will only settle for what is good for us, we look ourselves in the mirror and we ask am I the best person I can be? If we say not, then we ask, what do I need to do, to be that person? Little steps, but necessary ones to break the cycle and take control over our destiny.

 

I hope one day to see your name change to Whole Heart, not Half a One. I make no judgement on the A because I don't think that that is the 'problem' I think the problem is in the relationship you are having with you, anyone who can write so feelingly and eloquently deserves to feel good about themselves. I can tell you that after years of beating myself up, and finally feeling fixed and good about me, my H's affair brought me back to Square One and the old insecurites surfaced. It took a long time to realise that in fact he was the one who had broken, not me. We fixed us, the blank page after D Day was scary, and it is a chapter that has changed the book that is called our marriage for ever, but it has worked out more than great.

 

I hope you find peace and I hope you find that you can love yourself and realise that it is the first step to wanting the best for you too - after all, we all wish for the best for those that we love.

[pureinheart]

((((((((hugs HofaH, SL)))))))))))

[half_ofa_heart]

HH, you ask What is Love? I think that people who have been damaged by the actions of others first need to find that love for their selves. I also think that once we (general we) can accept that we cannot change what has happened to us, we learn to recognise that we have strength, we can endure, and the more we look to our selves for what we measure our worth by, the more we see that we measure up. That we are in fact, OK, that the people who use or abuse are in fact the lesser because they have to project their own self loathing, need for validation or insecurity onto another. Recognising that although we cannot have the power to go back and change what was, we do in fact, have the power to change what is and will be.

 

I tell my son that each day is like having a blank page, yes our lives have been shaped and changed by the previous chapters, but we are the writers of our own destiny and we can choose to rewrite the ending to benefit us. After all, we have to live with our selves, we have to like us and we have to be proud to be in our own skin. If we love our selves, then we will only settle for what is good for us, we look ourselves in the mirror and we ask am I the best person I can be? If we say not, then we ask, what do I need to do, to be that person? Little steps, but necessary ones to break the cycle and take control over our destiny.

 

I hope one day to see your name change to Whole Heart, not Half a One. I make no judgement on the A because I don't think that that is the 'problem' I think the problem is in the relationship you are having with you, anyone who can write so feelingly and eloquently deserves to feel good about themselves. I can tell you that after years of beating myself up, and finally feeling fixed and good about me, my H's affair brought me back to Square One and the old insecurites surfaced. It took a long time to realise that in fact he was the one who had broken, not me. We fixed us, the blank page after D Day was scary, and it is a chapter that has changed the book that is called our marriage for ever, but it has worked out more than great.

 

I hope you find peace and I hope you find that you can love yourself and realise that it is the first step to wanting the best for you too - after all, we all wish for the best for those that we love.

 

Thank you for your kind words. I hope you don't mind that I plagerized your paragraph as it struck a cord in me. I know I need to work on myself and it's not going to be an overnight process. I love this man and sometimes I cannot figure out why.

 

Being here, on LS, has opened my eyes to many things that I have otherwise been blind to so I hope in time, I will have my eyes wide open.

 

Thanks again Seren.