All of them

When will you admit that you were in the wrong?

Anonymous · day 21

How could you? Did you think of me when you left? It's so hard for me - it looks so easy for you. Please let me wake up and find this isn't real x

Anonymous

Man it's embarrassing - I have to accept I mis-judged you and I thought you were everything.

Anonymous

You cheated when you didn't need to. While I was loving you. You felt me getting closer and you opened an escape hatch. You're stupid, like, objectively stupid. You did it because you were on the brink of happiness - now you're back in your grubby, messy little loop. You're lost. I don't even miss you because you ruined who you were to me, which was hard to do considering how into you I was. I'd say I hope you find your happy, but honestly I think we both know you won't. Tragic.

Instead: It took me two years of having this in my notes app. I'm posting it because I happened to see Harry on a tube last week and he looked so happy. I want that.

Eliza

Why can’t you see that I’m slowly dying inside? That by sharing days out with our son and your new girlfriend, you are breaking my heart. I didn’t have a kid with you so that you could play happy families with them and another partner. Why doesn’t how I feel matter? Why won’t you let me say how I feel or listen to me? You’ve handled this all wrong, you should have told me before you spent days out as a three. I am nothing to you now, I’ve got that message loud and clear but I will not let you take my son from me. You wrote the rules yet you’re not following them!

Instead: Came here

Anonymous · day 190

truth or dare

Instead: closed the chat and tried to write a chapter of my fic

Anonymous

Was this all a game?what was the point in being married just so you can flit it all away like it doesn't matter. You are treating me just like your ex. It's all just a joke!!!!

Instead: Come here

Anonymous · day 6

I miss you so much and you don’t even care. It’s so painful.

Bora

Your words never matched your actions. When I look back on the past four years all I see is your ego, your selfishness, your parasitic ways and your cowardice. You cried about past partners betraying you yet that’s how you played me. Truly gross. Did your hard drive recover? What possessed you not to back things up on the cloud? Well, if one thing is a constant in your life it would be that you are careless with precious things. I hope the college town you never moved out of continues to shelter you. You are a 54 year old man-child.

Instead: Went for a walk then watched Ted Lasso

Anonymous · day 75

Its not getting easier. Its getting worse. This really is a dark night of the soul. I didnt want to get up. But theres a cafe downstairs and the sun is shining and something made me sit on the tiny balcony with a coffee and two people downstairs looked up and smiled. Its got to that point, that tiny pin point of light, simple human connection. I feel so alone. Im accepting this intense darkness of grief I dont have a choice . Marisa Peer did a hypnosis about let go of grudges. It just doesnt fit. I cant .. the grudges are encasing me. its not my will. The only will is that Im still here. I feel drained. I think you are a vampire. and my eldest son and his ridiculous estrangement has worn me down. Where does all my joy go ? is it the only thing that has fueled me being alive at all ? i realise I have generated all the good in my life and it has been met by other good people. but you are not a good person. and neither is my son. Ghosting and estrangement is cruelty. It is violence. This is my most desperate not send to you. More and more I feel I should go to your house and call you out, but the vampiric nature of your soul means you would take that as well, and suckle your vile soul on the attention. God help me through this and thanks to Harry.

Instead: staying alive

annie · day 10

and now you say you love me You took the space the time you chose your family your friends your football and you let me go 3 months on i sit alone on our holiday you tell me you’re not happy and don’t think you ever will be and now you say you still love me

Instead: sat with myself

Rebecca · day 120

this is the biggest no send. Id go back to day 1 to send this to the bastard... BUT loomk at me, look what I have done what i ddnt desreve... you know how everyone says dont put anything personal on fb? well thats pretending life doesnt happen. re the estrangement epidemic... Im glad my eldest is ok enough to cut me off, but lets remember who i was as a mum, busy keeping them safe from kids thier own age mugging them, from girlfriends putting thier dope stash into their hands when the police came round, going to the police station to get my innocent 15 year old when hed agreed with her to pretend it was his, then renting somewhere when thier dad, with a brain tumour became viiolent and tried to attack me, making us homeless when they were doing thier GCSE's and before (two kids to protect) making sure they got through school and avoiding the local sink school by giving them music so they got scholarships and didnt end up in prison like one of their best friends at 15 by doing county lines. No help from my own brother or My hisbands family who were busy trying to get out home off us. You couldnt make it up. Imagine what that felt like for me. AM I supposed be be uber polite? What am I supposed to be after that ? Well I got them far enough to decide I am unworthy and cut me off. maybe I should have done none of that. To be honest it is the quality of the soul that creates the person. No problem with my soul. Except deep lonliness. coupled now, that with a man I really trusted who told me I was a forever woman, discarding me out of the blue. after 4 years of on off, Am I supposed to turn into some sort of hulking great creature of retribution ? NO I was always loving, moral, caring, generous, I always fought for the people I love . I always will. Who will fight for me? be there for me? they say it has to be me. Sorry. I dont agree. I think we are human, we should be there for each other.

Instead: i didnt send it to the man i thought was a human , simply worthy of being there for me and me for him.. but hes callous. inadaquate. you cant make someone love you if they dont as the song says. except I think he did and I dint forgive him for his coardice. No one let me be a cowrad. I ahd to keep them safe. and what i didnt say was they nearly got put nto care ??? Am I the invisiblae owman or what

a`nnie · day 9

I wonder if you think I needed space because you were seeing someone new. The truth is so much more complicated than that. It was the lack of respect, communication, or boundaries. The public put-downs and non-apologies. The fact that I couldn't trust you not to triangulate me into another awkward and inappropriate situation with your new partner, as you had done with your ex, while denying everything. I was finally realising all you'd put me through, and it was a shock to the system. How low the bar had fallen, and for how long. I keep having to remind myself that knowing you did me some good, and helped me move forward in life. Because I don't want to regret a whole chapter of my life, getting involved with you.

Instead: Went to bed.

Anonymous

It feels so unfair that 2 people can connect so well like us and when we stand in front of each other we both freeze. I know we both have feelings for each other and I just wish we could over come this fear and take it to a simple relax nice conversation and get to really know each other.

Instead: Had a cigarette with a glass of wine in my garden

Anonymous · day 15

I prefer more consistent communication and phone calls. You’ve said a a few times since spring you are coming down to visit, and even wrote 💯 most recently. You have not followed through. I would just like friendship with you. I don’t flirt and sext with people who are not serious about pursuing me.

Instead: Cleaned and carried on with my plans

Anonymous

my God this is hard. Im feeling nauseus again today. Basicly why didnt I see what you are ? how was I dragged in, why did I beleive if I supported and loved you you would support and love me. What exactly are you ? youve made no attempt to reach ut to me (though i have blocked you, but it wouldnt have been impossible. Its left me in a state of constant anxiety. yes I can do the practises, but I cant do them every moment of every day can I. So you are a liar. you said you were ready for a relationship, you made a promise to always reply in good time, youve been so selfish lately its all been about me hanging round with you while you do your thing and its even your lazy thing. then your anger shouting and discard and complete coldness. its unbleievable. I dont want to be truned into a cold thing. I want to be the loving creaturem but it looks like its dangerous. this has happend so many times since my husband died 17 years ago.

Instead: went to get eggs for lunch

annie · day 1

I don’t get it. I don’t understand why you need to believe I’m broken rather than see that it’s not real that all mothers are dangerous. You weren’t even her dad. How can anyone want to destroy someone? Just take a walk. Get a hobby. Throw ice at concrete. Literally anything but what you did. Who could ever be that obsessed with harming someone? It makes no sense. Extreme pathological ptsd fight response? Gotta be since that’s what suppression will do to you. Not worth it. Feel your own god damn feelings. Don’t take another’s life over them.

Instead: Got a snack and screamed into a pillow

Anonymous · day 384

If I had known you loved someone else I would not have shared my body with you. You robbed me of informed consent.

Instead: Talked to my therapist

Laurie · day 270

If I had know you had given your heart to someone else I would not have given you mine.

Instead: Cried in bed.

Laurie · day 270

I went out tonight for the first time. I listened to karaoke and I had three drinks. This really nice guy approached me and we talked about so many things. He wants to see me again tomorrow.....I'm home now. I didn't give him my number, all I can think about is how I wish it had been you. You and I talking about the last month we've spent apart, catching up. You asking me to dance. I was scared to drink alcohol, I knew it would bring all of this to the surface. I am so tired. And I don't know where to put all of this sorrow.....I hope you are happier without me because, if not, what was all of this for?

Instead: Stargazed. Wept. Went to bed.

LR · day 25

Us being apart doesn’t make any sense. We were so good together, we got each other. You even said that you’ve never felt so seen and authentic around anyone else before. It’s mental gymnastics to feel that way about each other only to hear you say that you cannot give what we had true commitment. You were willing to let me go. I had to walk away from your offer to stay in each others lives out of self-respect for me. Yet somehow, I’m still the one hurting. Everyday I still wish I would see your name on my screen or hear from you somehow. At the same time, I’m deciding each day to move on a little, even if it’s just a small inch further towards where I no longer feel tethered to you.

Instead: Cuddled with my dog

Anonymous · day 21

Dear S, You gave me what I was looking for. You were fresh, new, exciting and I was getting tired in my rapidly stalling marriage. We flirted, and I thought it was harmless. What I did was wrong. I knew it in my bones. I should have refrained. But you pushed, I caved. That's my part of the blame. Now, you infringed boundaries, demanded everything even when I told you I could not give you more. I lost sleep and my will to live. You loved bombed me and then threatened suicide when I could not spend more time with you. My husband watched me slip into panic attacks because of your "attention requirements". You broke me. Congratulations. Still, I hope you got help, and are happy, somehwere. Never contact me again. PS My husband forgave me. Bless his righteous heart.

Instead: Had husband block them everywhere. Went to see a movie. Got therapy, healed and moved on.

Anonymous

You should never have had us, kids. It was only a power move from your part: you wanted to be pregnant to stick it to the doctors that declared you infertile. I believe you were also trying to salvage an already failing relationship thru having kids and wanted to live through us. Instead you drove your husband to the brink, manipulated us through stories and your trauma after the divorce. You still resent us for deciding to renew a relationship with our dad and are trying to paint yourself the victim forever more. Of course Dad has his share of the blame. But he's moved on from you and your half-truthed BS. Why can't you do the same? Its been 25 years since your divorce! You never got your act together and WE. ARE. TIRED. of hearing you complain and fabulate and blame everyone else but yourself. Get some help, get a life. And stop trying to convince us our father is the root of all that is evil. For one, I will have no part in your trying to ruin anyone's else livelyhood because of your senseless convictions.

Instead: Ate a chocolate chip cookie. Washed clothes and made dumpling farce. Had a nap. Talked to my sibling about your latest theory and conspiracy.

MJ · day 2

its not easy doing this because everything I feel and felt for you is the good stuff of me. It is love that wants to flow. I remember when you were responding, and Im going to have to sit myself down and remember how you started rationing the good stuff. Also all the times before when you double dated or expected me to wait for you. It just left me feeling bereft. You would call it needy, but you could just as easily made sure I felt safe. I told you what I needed enough times. You made me feel worthless. And when Upset, you called me unhinged and also even told your son I was unhinged. Our mutual friend you have also been colluding with. She thinks little of me as well, because you upset me before and she didn't like me being upset. You went away with a mother woman to weekends in Europe when you were supposed to be going out with me. You didn't turn up to dates even then. My minding would make you angry. Maybe you aren't the nice person you pretended to be when you were love bombing me, or dressing up and pretending in front of my friends. Performing. I am worth more, so much more. As much as I was giving you, which you called commodifying when I mentioned all the lovely things I did and said to you. Thanks for this Harry ! it really helps, this is challenging. This big uncomfortable space inside of me.

Instead: did some more productive work

annie · day 8

Hey, I have a crush on you. There I said it. Even if it doesn't make sense. I want to get to know you more. But the way we have been acting and communicating isn't working for me. I need and want more. If you are not open to explore this, then I cannot continue this with you. I'm going away this week so maybe it's good to think about it. When I get back next week, we can reevaluate.

Anonymous

I’ve never loved anyone else. I don’t want to.

Anonymous

Shagged your dad. Not even sorry.

Anonymous

You told your mum you were going to propose to me then you cheated. You’re so cruel. You deserve misery

Allie

sometimes, it's hard to believe that the time we had after our first 2 years were real. knowing the truth made me realise that the final 3 years we had were just lies. That everything you told me and promised me were just lies to keep me around until I broke.

Anonymous

I fell in love with an idea of you. I have to keep telling myself that’s all I miss. I wish I could just be in the same room as you.

Anonymous

You’re not real. Nothing you present to the way is true. It’s creepy and weird. Sex with you was like being attacked by a malcoordinated sloth. And you smell like yesterday’s Camembert. WHY THE HELL DO I MISS YOU?!

Instead: Wrote this I guess.

Lexi

I really just want to stop seeing you. Please don't reach out to me.

Anonymous

Today was surprisingly more challenging, mainly because the internal dialogue. By now we should have had at least 6 dates. before that there was the terrible thing you did. I keep imagining what must be going through your head and it goes from you miss me and regret all the way through to you are a cold blooded lizard narcissist and Ive been saved. Its difficult to have a relationship fail in ones 60s. maybe you were two timing me, using me, waiting for a better deal to come along. That's another conversation. Im being good, Im not trying to find out. Im doing this 30 days no contact. You know I did it before when you did this nasty stuff last time. you ghosted me for 2 months, I was pretty ill. then just as I got on my feet, just as I was well into the no contact pack, there you were agin. probably just seeing if you had the power to get me back. Actually ,even for a man you are very unkind. If you were dumping me you should have been civil and had the conversation, not terrorise me and then blame me for reacting. Also you had over a week to become human after the terrible things you did. and you didn't explain. you used silence.

Instead: glad I did something about this. Its grief and its anger and its desolation.

annie · day 7

I just drove past you… the second time today. Did you even notice?

Instead: Trying to focus on work.

Anonymous

Today was supposed to be day 1 of no contact. I failed. Again. I went my usual time instead of changing the time and there you were in the place where I first laid eyes on you. The usual warm embrace, kiss, chat about our week. You have no idea the effect you have on me and meanwhile I am just your weekly brief ego boost. You know how excruciatingly difficult my life is with the responsibility that I bear. I treasure the times we spent alone together. You made me feel safe, warm and wanted. For a brief time i was in another world and not walking in the ugly and painful shoes that I inhabit. I so long for us to be together again and I know that this cannot happen. You blew my life up emotionally whilst your charming and full life carries on happily. Iche liebe dich

Instead: Wiped away the snot and tears and got on with it as usual

Anonymous

Youll never really understand me. The way your actions hurt me. How the passive aggressiveness thst comes and goes seemingly randomly makes being close to you hard. And so I wont be close to you anymore. Something chsnged inside me after this last time. I dont care the way I did. And that hurts. Because I dont think youll notice. Youve never noticed the pain before, and you dont take it seriously when I try to explain how im feeling. So I wont anymore.

Instead: Went to bed

Anonymous · day 1

Cliche as it gets I know, but we'd basically stopped being married years before it actually ended, just two people sharing a house at that point. Knew you were seeing other women the whole time and honestly couldn't bring myself to care anymore, that's how far gone things already were. Never strayed myself, mostly cause I was too busy holding everything else together I think, until that one summer with the guy who did our pool, still at uni, we had nothing in common at all, nothing to talk about really, but god the sex was something else. First time in years I actually felt wanted. Don't regret it, not even a bit

Instead: Laughed about it with my sister

Anonymous

The feelings I had had and have for you, I allowed. Because I knew it was courageous to love, to open my heart to trust. And the way the breadcrumbs or the love bombing or the good times occurred were the reward, until recently you started being lazy in that respect and Ince you have behaved appallingly and discarded me 3 times before, I recognised the feeling in me, in the pit of my stomach. the thing is, if you are a cold lizard, who is performative, then what im doing is the only way, but if you know you made a mistake, then that is the temptation. Not to completely be no contact but to wonder if you will 'break' and get through and apologise. I don't think your ego will let you,, utter at some point, maybe you will be brave, maybe admit you miss me, but maybe just admit that youre bored, or want somewhere to stay in London or want back into my social circle, or just don't want to explain to everyone of your mates who said I was the best thing that has happened to you, why on earth you'd do that, break. Then there's the recently breaking sam caiman story, the professor of narcism who is the worst narcissist in the world. I watched it and thought yes, that makes sense. a sort of sense thank god I don't understand, the enjoyment of destroying a woman. Maybe you really get off on it. So, Im just saying... if you were the loving man I thought I was with, this wouldn't be happening and all I can presume is you are the cold lizard.

Instead: went to bed with a cup of tea.

annie · day 6

I hate missing you. I hate that we never found a way to communicate that we are both happy. I hate that everything is so difficult. I hate that i made mistakes. I hate that you made mistakes. I hate that we have traumas preventing us to fully love each other. I hate that we are not together. I hate that we are not good for eachother. I hate to sleep without you. I hate that i cant see you, talk to you, kiss you, hug you, feel you, smell you. I hate that this message will not get to you. I hate that you never trusted me. I hate that I never trusted you. But oh my god, i loved you so much, I loved you more than anyone else. I still love you so fucking much. And I hate me that I can' t let you go and be happy and let you happy🥺

Instead: Went for a walk, a shower and cried

Anonymous · day 20

I don't believe anyone could treat someone that badly and not know, on some level, how bad it was. And yet, I question myself every day. Were you manipulative, or genuinely unaware? Uncaring, or incapable? Could I have been different, given it time, or should I have run for the hills sooner? The worst thing about all this is how I feel both like a victim and perpetrator.

Instead: I don't feel safe enough to be vulnerable with him ever again. So I never intended to send this for real. But it's kicking around in my head.

Kate · day 90

I wonder what your doing and if you think of me and if your sorry or sad that things didn’t work out with me , I hope you realise what you lost .drink is your number 1 priority and that’s sad for you . I’ll move on and find what I deserve

Anonymous

Ive made it this far. Sometimes, I still don’t understand, I really thought we would have a future together. It was so easy for you to give up that it made me feel like I was that disposable.

Instead: Cried

Anonymous · day 150

Congrats on being a finalist in your job search! I am both happy for you and devastated for me. I was probably never going to get over you, so maybe this is for the best. But it hurts so bad!!! I had only just gotten used to you being in my life in only a professional capacity, but now to face you not being in my life at all. It's more than I can take.

Erin · day 61

I just want to see you again. Want you to cuddle me again. Just want to feel your heart beat while I lie on your chest. I don’t know how you could just end it all by text and tell me that you dont love me anymore when the week before you wanted to marry me. I am so confused and angry and sad but still I just want you.

Fi · day 20

D I spent a very long time trying to understand what happened between us and trying to reconcile the man I knew with some of the things I subsequently learned. I don’t think I ever completely will. But I’ve realised I don’t need to anymore. You know how I felt about you. You know what I wanted for us, what I was prepared to give to our relationship and the future I believed we were building. There is nothing I need to explain to you about that. I wish you had trusted me enough to tell me the whole truth about yourself while I still had the opportunity to decide what I wanted to do with it. I think I would have surprised you. Instead, I was left to discover things afterwards and to make sense of contradictions I didn’t even know existed while we were together. That’s something I will probably always find sad. I don’t hate you. I don’t need revenge and I don’t need an apology for what you did. The good memories between us belong to me and I intend to keep them. What happened afterwards doesn’t get to rewrite New York the laughter, the holidays or all the ordinary days when I was happy. But the good memories don’t require me to forget the things that weren’t good either. I know now that I couldn’t have fixed what happened between us by loving you more, trying harder or giving you more. Some things were simply never mine to fix. So I’m leaving them with the person they belong to. I hope someday you are able to be completely honest with yourself about what happened and why, but somehow I have just one wish please treat the next heart you get with a lot more care.

Instead: Made tea

S · day 90

I saw you driving past me and my heart did not skip a beat. I'm OK now, I'm letting you go

Anonymous · day 90

Je regrette de t'avoir rencontré. Je regrette de t'avoir ouvert mon coeur. Je regrette tout. J'aimerais pouvoir t'effacer.

Anonymous

Hi, hope you are really hurting, daily, and have realised by now what a giant prick you were to throw away what we had. Why the f*** would you take the advice of old friends who you've said you don't have much in common with anyway, and who never met me! You should've talked to me!! You normally love the sound of your own voice so much but instead you kept quiet and lied for months. I'd love to know if you deliberately planned the timing of the break up for after you'd wrung every last bit of help and support through your divorce crap, house move, new job and car issues. And the holiday so you didnt have to pay me back! I genuinely don't know how you managed to be so kind and caring at the same time as being a cruel asshole. It hurts! And I miss the good times and the boys. I don't miss your distance and thoughtlessness, the low effort, inconsistency, and the tears I cried over you. Or your unflushed toilet and disgusting feet. Sort them out! Please do me one more favour and move away from here. Piss off, leave and go far because I'm sick of feeling like crap thinking I might bump into you every time I go out, do a food shop, go to parkrun, walk past the fire station, see the truck or hear the f***ing siren. Every f***ING day!!!

Instead: Packed for a peaceful holiday with my mum

Ali · day 9

the further I get away from you, the more I realise you were unavailable and cruel. I was as day 5 says open to fully loving . your cruelty , if someone saw you being physical to a puppy or a dog, would see you kicking them, laughing when they whimpered and acting with glee and enjoyment like some rampant bloodsucking incubus. All behind a mask of manners, and so called immaculate dressing. everything looks perfect, I had to wait while you made yourself look like that and for your whole life to be that squared off. You even squared off the food on your plate. You still haven't got back. You are living on that blood fest aren't you.

Instead: getting on with my life, not drinking and measured. when I feel tired I lie down. Noticing the way people ignore each other in London. Noticing how I used to have happiness in my step, exuding love. Not just fr being in what I thought was a relationship, but because that is me. Now Im working out how to do it on my own... again.

annie · day 5

You were cruel. A person who blindsides someone is weak and cowardly. And then to blame it on me so I felt worse was horrible. Especially when reality was you were sleeping with a subordinate. How desperately sad. 17 years and gone without a word. She deserves you and you deserve her.

Instead: Mowed the lawn!

Anonymous

I found a receipt from our trip to the coast in my winter jacket. Eighteen dollars for two coffees and a pastry we split because we were trying to save money. We were so cold, but we couldn't stop laughing at how hard the wind was blowing. I remember thinking right then that I would go anywhere with you as long as you kept holding my hand. I wish I could go back to that morning and tell myself to memorize the sound of your laugh, because it wouldn't last forever.

Anonymous

I checked our old shared playlist today. I saw you added three new songs last night. I spent an hour analyzing the lyrics, trying to figure out if they were about me, or about how glad you are to be free, or if you just like the beat. I hate that you still have this much space in my head. I un-followed the playlist. I hope you noticed.

Anonymous

Why did you come into my life just to destroy me? Why did you pretend 1971 meant something to you? You know how much I love you and how much your lies would hurt me. Do you miss me at all? I just can't get over what you did to me. How many other people did you do this to? I can't hate you, I wish I could. I love you.

Instead: Cried. Spent time with my cats. Felt sorry for myself.

Martie · day 368

I still love you.. I still want our life and our family back. I don’t think I can never change this. How could you not even see that you broke something so big, how could it be only me living this when you were elsewhere, mentally and physically. How could you put us into compartments and still say you loved us and cared about us but never actually kept us safe from the greatest danger, yourself.

Instead: I wrote it here and I am going to sleep

Anonymous · day 400

I regret the way I ended our marriage, but I don't regret ending our marriage. We were stuck in a never ending cycle of you breaking my trust and me trying to forgive and forget. All I ever wanted was to feel completely loved and protected by you but you chose to jeopardize our future over and over again, and you genuinely thought you'd never see the consequences of it. You thought I'd never leave. In the end we were complete strangers. Forgetting each other completely as individuals and knowing each other only as our sons parents. I spent the last couple of years learning to live a life on my own, convincing myself I was so lucky that you allowed me to live so freely but I eventually realised it was simply that you no longer wanted to be part of anything I was passionate about. Somehow though, even though I left you, I'm the one left broken hearted. Struggling to adapt - whilst you tell me to put my big girl pants on and get on with life - I think that speaks volumes about how little you actually valued me and our marriage. The pain runs deep but I know one day it won't hurt anymore.

Instead: Added it to this website

Anonymous · day 115

21 days since your Text. You started drinking, partying, dating four days after ending our engagement in a text. I don't understand how someone who said they were in love with me and wanted to spend the rest of their life with me can be this cold and cruel. Literally the very day before you broke my world, you were holding me telling me you loved me! The last thing we said to one another the day you broke ME, was I love you......Was any of it real?

Instead: Took a very deep breath, reminded myself how unhappy I was, and went back to work.

LR · day 21

I know by the pain and how long it is taking me to get over this that I loved you. The way you ended our relationship was so unkind. When I think about you or accidentally get a glance of a photo of you, my stomach still lurches and I feel sad. I miss your face, your energy and everything about you.

Instead: Tried to focus on the cold unkind ending

Anonymous · day 187

Since it’s my birthday, I’m gifting myself a one time pass to say some things I’ve been wanting to say, but can’t. Because I’m not supposed to anymore, which is extremely difficult. When I asked, you said you were good. I hope that’s true. I hope cancelling our future together hasn’t been as painful for you as it has been for me. I miss you. I miss us. I miss your face. I miss seeing you smile and laugh. I miss our good mornings and goodnights. I miss you calling me kitten. I miss your poems and stories. And I just want you to know that I still love you. I will always love you. That string connecting us will always be red for me, no matter how much time passes. I accept that maybe we’re just not meant to be together in this life, as excruciating as that is to think about. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re it for me. You always will be. I’ll wait for you until the end of my days. I know you may not feel the same, and that’s ok. I want nothing but the best for you, even if that’s not with me. I can be just another Great Maybe. You’ll be my Great Almost. I’ll cherish every memory of you, of us, and hold them all close to my heart. Your playlist will always be in my rotation, and I’ll look forward to every new song. Every weekly raid night will always be the best night of my week. I really hope we can stay friends for a very, very long time. And if that day ever comes when you’re ready to meet at the beach house, just say the word. I will meet you there. Yours Eternally, in this life and the next, Amanda

Amanda · day 18

Happy anniversary. Or, I guess, happy what-should-have-been-our-four-year-anniversary. I told myself I wouldn’t look at the clock tonight. I told myself I would go to bed early, take a sleeping pill, and just let this day pass by like any other random Tuesday in August. But here I am, staring at the numbers on my phone change from 11:59 to 12:00, feeling the exact moment the calendar rolls over into a day that doesn't belong to us anymore.Around this time last year, we were in that tiny boutique hotel in Vermont. It was pouring rain, and the roof had a tiny leak right over the armchair, so we had to use a trash can to catch the water. We spent the whole night drinking cheap wine out of plastic cups and playing cards on the bed. You gave me that handwritten card—the one where you wrote out a list of forty tiny things you loved about me, including the way I make a mess when I eat popcorn and the face I make when I’m trying to parallel park. I still have that card. It’s in the bottom drawer of my desk, buried under a stack of old tax documents and utility bills, because I can’t bring myself to throw away a piece of paper where you loved me so clearly.I wonder if you remembered what today was. Did your calendar app give you a little notification this morning before you deleted it? Did you have a brief moment of hesitation when you woke up, a heavy feeling in your stomach before you remembered that we don't do this anymore? Or has your life become so busy, so full of new faces and new places, that today was just another date on the calendar?It is the silence that hurts the most. For three years, this day was a milestone. It was a reason to celebrate, to look back at how far we’d come, to make plans for the next year, and the year after that. Now, it’s just a regular day. The world keeps moving, cars keep driving down the street outside my window, and nobody knows that inside this apartment, a quiet little tragedy is taking place. I’m not going to text you. I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of knowing that I am still stuck in the past while you are out living in the future. But just for tonight, just for this one minute, I am going to sit here and pretend that we are still in that rainy hotel room, and that you still mean every word you wrote.

Anonymous

I went to the grocery store after work today. It’s the same one we always went to on Sunday afternoons when the parking lot was entirely chaotic and we had to hunt for a spot for fifteen minutes. I grabbed a cart, walked down the international aisle, and automatically reached for that specific brand of spicy noodles you always insisted on keeping in the pantry. My hand was literally on the package before my brain caught up with my body. I stood there in the middle of aisle four, completely frozen, holding a bag of noodles, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world.Everything in this town is a minefield. I can’t drive down the expressway without passing the exit for that diner where we had that awful fight about your coworker. I can’t go to the coffee shop down the street because the barista still asks me where you are and why you haven’t been by lately. I had to make up some stupid lie about you being busy with a project at work because I couldn’t bear the thought of explaining to a stranger that you don’t live here anymore.It feels like my memory is working against me, actively trying to keep me miserable. Why do I remember the exact melody of the song that was playing on the car radio when we drove back from the lake two summers ago, but I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday? Why does my brain insist on replaying the night we stayed up building that ridiculous flat-pack bookshelf, laughing until our stomachs hurt because we put the back panel on upside down?I want to delete you from my routine. I want to be able to walk through the world without checking every passing car to see if it’s your make and model. I want to go to sleep without checking your social media profile one last time, looking for clues in the captions of your photos to see if you’re as lonely as I am. You look fine in the pictures. You look like someone who is moving forward, someone who has already put the past in a neat little box and labeled it. Meanwhile, I am still standing in the grocery store aisle, holding a package of noodles, wondering how two people can go from sharing a life to acting like they never existed to each other.

Anonymous

I know you think I am cruel. I know you think I woke up one morning, looked at you sleeping next to me, and casually decided to tear our world apart because I was bored or selfish. I can see it in the way you looked at me while I was packing my bags—that look of pure, unadulterated betrayal, like you were looking at a stranger who had stolen the face of someone you loved.But I need you to know, even if I never have the courage to send this, that leaving you was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. It didn't happen overnight. It was a slow, agonizing realization that built up over months, a tiny whisper at the back of my mind that I tried desperately to drown out. I tried to love you harder. I tried to be the person you thought I was. I stayed up late at night while you were asleep, staring at the ceiling, pleading with myself to just be happy with what we had because you are a good person, and you loved me with everything you had.The truth is, we were dying a slow death, and you were just willing to let it happen because the routine was comfortable. We stopped talking about anything real a year ago. Do you remember when we used to stay up until dawn talking about our fears, our families, the things that kept us awake at night? Somewhere along the line, that turned into text messages about who was buying groceries, what time the plumber was coming, and what show we were going to put on in the background while we ate dinner in silence. We became roommates who shared a bed. We became an anchor holding each other down, pretending that safety was the same thing as happiness.I watched you compromise your own dreams just to keep our relationship stable, and it broke my heart. You stopped painting. You stopped talking about moving closer to the mountains. You settled into a life that was too small for you because you thought that was what being a partner meant. And I was doing the same thing. I looked down the line at five years from now, ten years from now, and I saw two people who resented each other for the lives they didn't get to live.I left because if I stayed, I would have ended up hating myself, and eventually, I would have ended up hating you too. I wanted to save the memory of what we used to be before we dragged it through the mud of a long, bitter resentment. You deserve someone who looks at you and knows, without a single shadow of a doubt, that you are their entire world. You deserve someone who can give you the future you want, not someone who has to force themselves to stay in the present. I am sorry I couldn't be that person. I am sorry I broke your heart to save my own, but staying would have broken us both.

Mo

I am sitting on the floor of the living room right now, right where the coffee table used to be. The landlord came by today to do the final walkthrough, and he gave me until tomorrow morning to hand over the keys. It is amazing how loud a room gets when you take the furniture out. Every time I shift my weight, the floorboards echo against the bare walls, and it feels like the house itself is mocking how empty this place has become.I found a box of those heavy-duty command strips in the hallway closet earlier. The ones we used to hang that massive framed print of the Oregon coast -the one that fell three times because we didn’t read the weight limit on the package. I started peeling the leftover adhesive off the drywall, and a tiny dime-sized piece of the paint came off with it. My first instinct was a flash of panic. I thought, We need to fix that before landlord sees it. Then it hit me, like a physical weight in my chest, that there is no "we" to fix it. It’s just my security deposit on the line now. It’s just my problem.I keep looking at the kitchen counter. I can still see the exact spot where you used to lean every morning while the coffee was brewing, scrolling through your phone with your hair still messy from sleep. You had this specific way of holding your mug with both hands, even in the middle of summer, because you said your fingers were always cold. For three years, that was how my day started. It was the background noise of my entire life. Now, the counter is wiped clean with bleach, and the only thing left in the kitchen is a bottle of dish soap we bought at the warehouse club that we never got around to finishing.I tried to pack your leftover things into a single box like everyone told me to do. My friends said to just get it out of sight, to drop it off at your new place or leave it with your brother. But I couldn’t do it. I opened the drawer by the nightstand and found three of your hair ties, a half-empty pack of those mints you like, and a book you started reading last summer but gave up on because you said the plot moved too slowly. I didn’t put them in a box. I just put them back in the drawer and closed it. Leaving them there feels like leaving a small part of the story behind, like the next people who move in here will find them and know that, for a little while, two people lived here who loved each other very much.I want to know if you feel this blankness too. Are you sitting in your new place, surrounded by cardboard boxes that smell like fresh packing tape, wondering where everything went wrong? Or did you already unpack? Did you put your clothes in the dresser and hang your pictures up on the first night, glad to finally have a space that doesn’t have my ghost attached to it? Everyone keeps telling me that moving out is a fresh start, a clean slate, a chance to rebuild. But right now, it just feels like eviction from the only life I wanted to live. I’m leaving the keys on the kitchen counter tomorrow at eight o’clock. I won’t look back when I lock the door. I can't.

Instead: I cried. Boy did I cry

Allegra

I saw that they are tearing down the old diner on 4th Street. The one with the terrible neon sign where we sat for three hours because neither of us wanted to go home and admit the weekend was over. My first instinct was to text you. I even unlocked my phone. Then I remembered I don't have that right anymore. It is strange how the city keeps changing, and you are not here to watch it with me.

Anonymous

I still have your blue sweatshirt. It has been sitting in the back of my closet for three months now. Sometimes I think about dropping it off on your porch, but I know that is just an excuse to see your car in the driveway. I don't want to smell like you anymore. I just don't know how to throw it away.

Anonymous

Please stop showing up in my dreams. I am doing so well during the day. I go to work, I see my friends, and I don't cry when your favourite song comes on the radio. But the second I close my eyes, we are back in your kitchen, and everything is fine. It feels like a betrayal every time I wake up.

Anonymous

I ran into your sister yesterday at the supermarket. She looked happy, but she got really quiet when she saw me. We stood by the fruit and veg making small talk for five minutes, both of us pretending everything was completely normal. She told me you got the promotion. Congratulations. I wanted to tell her to tell you I miss you, but I just told her to take care.

Anonymous

I checked our old shared playlist today. I saw you added three new songs last night. I spent an hour analysing the lyrics, trying to work out if they were about me, or about how glad you are to be free, or if you just like the beat. I hate that you still have this much space in my head. I unfollowed the playlist. I hope you noticed.

Anonymous

You told me I deserved better, but you were the one who decided I couldn't have you. That was the meanest thing you ever said to me. You made a choice for both of us and called it kindness.

Anonymous

I found a receipt from our trip to the coast in my winter jacket. Eighteen pounds for two coffees and a pastry we split because we were trying to save money. We were so cold, but we couldn't stop laughing at how hard the wind was blowing. I remember thinking right then that I would go anywhere with you as long as you kept holding my hand. I wish I could go back to that morning and tell myself to memorise the sound of your laugh, because it wouldn't last forever.

Anonymous

Sometimes I get so angry. I think about how much of myself I poured into us, how many pieces of my own life I chipped away just to make room for yours. And you walked away so easily, like you were just stepping off a train at your stop. Did it even hurt you? Do you ever sit in your room and feel the quiet the way I do?

Anonymous

I was going to say happy birthday. I had the text typed out. Hope you have a great day. Simple. No pressure. But then I realised you don't get the casual version of me. You chose the version where we don't speak at all. So I deleted it.

Anonymous

I am starting to forget the exact shade of your eyes. I used to know them perfectly. Now, when I try to picture your face, the edges are blurry. It panics me a little bit, but I suppose this is what healing is meant to look like. It just feels a lot like losing you all over again.

Anonymous

I see you everywhere in everything I do. I even imagine you reading this. That’s how much you affected me Ruined

Instead: Nothing

Meg

You said you needed space. Actual space, you said, time to think, time to work out what you wanted, and I gave it to you because I thought that meant you were taking this seriously, that whatever we needed to fix was worth slowing down for. A week later I got a notification on my phone from the dashcam app, still connected from months ago when we set it up together, and there you were, in your own car, kissing someone else like none of that conversation had happened at all. I didn't even go looking for it. It just showed up, this awful little proof landing in my hand on a completely normal evening, and I sat there staring at it for what felt like ages before I could even process what I was looking at. Space apparently meant something very different to you than it meant to me. Kept thinking it was the kissing that hurt most but it's not really that, is it. It's that you made "needing space" sound like something big, something you were struggling with, and it took you a week to prove that was never true.

Instead: Removed myself from every shared account and app that night, didn't confront you, just quietly closed every door

Gabby · day 8

You have the most beautiful eyes. And eyelashes which make a giraffe jealous. It's so incredibly disappointing that you have turned from someone who wants progress and betterment, into someone who is essentially a flat-earther type. Are you okay? I miss laughing with you.

Instead: Spun a world globe and looked at places far away from here

Grace · day 7

I never thought a dog would end up being the most complicated part of us splitting up, but here we are, doing handovers in a car park like we're trading something illegal instead of a spaniel who just wants both of us equally and has no idea any of this is happening. We used to talk about how much we loved Biscuit together, how lucky we got with her from the rescue, and now we talk about her through solicitors, which feels like such a strange, sad place to have ended up over a dog neither of us can even really afford the vet bills for on our own. What upsets me most, even now, is knowing she probably got confused going between two houses, two smells, two routines, especially in those first few months, and there was nothing I could do to protect her from that once we couldn't agree on anything else either. She used to sleep at the end of our bed every night and now she's had two different beds in two different houses for so long it's just normal to her now, though I still wonder sometimes if she remembers there was ever just the one home. I keep thinking back to when we first got her, wondering if we'd have thought harder about getting a dog together if we'd known this is how it might end, fighting over who gets her for Christmas, who gets her for her birthday, who books the vet appointments and who pays for them. I remember picking her up from the rescue centre like it was yesterday, how excited we both were, how we spent that whole first night arguing over what to call her, and I never once imagined a version of us that would end up needing an actual agreement drawn up just to work out whose weekend it was with our own dog. Feels like a lifetime ago now, that night, compared to where things ended up. She's settled into the routine now if I'm honest, dogs adapt better than people I think, no memory of the arguments over who forgot her vaccination record or who was meant to be paying the insurance that month. I just wish it hadn't taken solicitors and a court date to work out something as basic as sharing an animal we both still love completely, even all this time later. I still catch myself talking to her like she understands everything that happened, apologising to her almost, telling her none of it was her fault, which I know she can't really take in, but it still makes me feel a bit better saying it out loud even now.

Instead: Ordered Biscuit some new toys for when I next have her

Eleanor · day 557

It breaks me that you get to live your life with no consequences when you wrecked my nervous system by leaving and going silent. And it still pains me that I want to understand you, when you clearly don’t care or value me at all.

Instead: Left social media, read books and meditated.

Anonymous

I wish you love me in the way I love you. I wish you could just be more affectionate and kind. But I know you won’t and so I have to walk away before this destroys me completely. But I can’t shake the feeling of wishing things had been different. There was so much potential in the beginning, and it haunts me still.

Instead: Made coffee. Went for a run

Jennifer · day 1

You broke me. I didn't love you, I feared you. You hurt me physically, mentally, and emotionally so badly I developed an auto immune disease. You created so many triggers every relationship fell apart. I became the person that was so easy to fall in love with but noone could sustain through the fucked up fight or flight protective system my body created. I have never hated someone as much as I hate you,I despise you. People say you have changed since your illness. That DOES NOT wipe out all the vile things you done to me and others.

Instead: Took a few deep breaths, looked at my adult children who wouldn't exist otherwise and realised I'd go through hell again if it meant I could still have them. From this day you no longer exist for me.

Anonymous · day 11374

Mark, When you contacted me in last year (emphasis on your unsolicited contact of me) and told me of your health issues, I decided that, wherever our correspondence took us, I would be kind to you. I would resist calling out your hubris, false memories and anything else that might irk me. I decided this because I felt sorry for you and what you were about to endure as treatment. And so, we ‘conversed’ for weeks and weeks. Always I hoped that I was in some small way making life more bearable – particularly in those sleepless hours of your nights. I hoped that I was open, accepting and comforting. I sought to be entertaining and encouraging. You asked for my forgiveness for your behaviours as a 22, 23, 24-year-old man back in the late 70s. And I tried to give that to you by admitting to my own naive complicity and lack of boundaries. You spoke a great deal about your parents – knowing, I hope, that I loved them (especially your Mum) very much. When you expressed sadness at their parenting ‘failures’ I offered you an explanation that this was not about you – you were so very loved, certainly by her: it was about their own upbringing, education and circumstances. And in March or April, I asked you if you had considered Dignitas. “Assisted Dying” we call it here, where it is legal and as you might expect, very, very well managed/controlled. I had no idea what the legal standing of assisted dying was in UK – I’ve been away a long time and had no idea that, for once, Australian Legislation was more progressive than the UK. I meant no offence. I was not, for a moment, inviting a discussion with me about what your personal choices might be if your treatment failed. I was not implying that your treatment would not be successful, or that I was someone you should include in your decision-making process. Your responses to me (from memory, since I will not re-read our correspondence) were disproportionate to the offence, despite my many apologies. Clearly you did not accept any of my apologies. Perhaps I should have written them in Latin? And to top it all, a final ghastly act of spitefulness (perhaps?), you told me that what I had thought was a post romance kind of friendship straddling 29 years, was meaningless to you. Let me thank you for that clarification. You gave me a lightbulb moment. Never were truer words spoken by you. Because, of course, from the day we met, it all meant nothing to you. Your interest did not last as long as our 2 year 'live-in'. You didn’t care less that I was pregnant during my Final Exams at University. It meant nothing to you that it took ME 6 months to pay my Students Union back the loan which paid for the termination. You lived in MY flat, rent free for years - until you decided to go to University in London. You were controlling, abusive - both physically and mentally, you were financially exploitative. I was nothing but a convenience to you. But still, you pursued me when I moved to London and then mere months later you broke your promise to marry me. I’ve no doubt, based on your earlier dating behaviour, you double dated N and I then (1981), just as you did later in 1986-87 – when you lived in Leicester with N and had an affair with me in London and Nottingham. And let’s not forget, it was YOU again who pursued me and started that affair. So, all of this and the years of ongoing contact after was meaningless to you. But to me – something very damaging that has taken me decades to come to terms with. For the record – a couple of things that I never challenged you on during our chats – but now I feel free to comment honestly on. Again, I remind you that I am paraphrasing what I remember because I will not re-read those hours of exchanges. You need to get over the poor parenting you think you received. Plenty of people had far worse childhoods than did you, and experienced real neglect. And that thing that you wrote for your Mum’s funeral – so poor, so disrespectful. How could you disparage her ability to love her children in that manner - apparently just to respect your toxic sister’s feelings. If you wouldn’t have said that to her face you should not have said it in her eulogy. Shame on you. Don’t ever make an apology in another language. Not even Latin. It is the equivalent to “I’m sorry if you took offence….” apologies. Meaningless, and the truth is - the damage that you inflicted upon me took years and years to work through and to find healing. You wrote about wishing you had protected me from David! What a disingenuous thing to say. You didn’t distrust David for any reason other than you thought I fancied him when we first started dating! The only person I have ever needed protecting from is you. Finally, you dared to call me a liar! Over the silliest of exchanges (my contact in the Adult Literacy project and what I may or may not have said to them regarding you, and my motivation for that mention). So just to remind you we both know you are one of the Greatest Liars ever conceived. Where shall I start? How about your damaged pancreas from a parachute jump when you were with 1 Para (antibiotics were in fact for your acne), double dating myself and S, living with N in Leicester at the weekend and seeing me (and surely others) in London during the week. You perfected Gaslighting before it was ever named. Best of all – your Wedding Vows….ha! Do not EVER, EVER contact me again. You are a bad experience I wish never to be reminded of again and contact with a terrible human, such as you, adds no value to my life.

Instead: Focused on regaining my emotional equilibrium, being thankful that you'd again revealed your true self and getting back to my lovely life. It has taken 18 months hard work to recover from your spite but I am fine, and grateful for closure.

Gail · day 372

Creo que ahora te puedo comunicar porque estaba confundida. Te puedo perdonar, porque te veo y porque no siento enojo. Incluso a pesar de que estas buscando escusas por tu comportamiento. Veo muy claro que eres un ego frágil en el cuerpo de un hombre. Después de mucho tiempo me sentía segura con un hombre porque el primer día me trataste con empatía y cariño. Y en contraste el abuso y la falta de respeto que evolucionó solo por elevar tu ego me desilusionó instantemente. Como resultado de esto cuando me imagino hablar contigo o mantener una amistad, ya no podría tener confianza en tí ni te podría respetar. Esto significaba que tenía que rechazar una conección genuina, intelectual y espiritual contigo. Y me ha costado. Pero ya lo tengo claro, que una persona abusiva no puede tener accesso a mi vida. Estoy agradecida al universo por haber tenido la experiencia y entenderme mejor por ella. Tu fuíste solo el mensajero que no tiene importancia, ni nombre, ni recuerdos en mi futuro.

Instead: I went to a body work session to get released the old trauma that bastard activated in me.

Charlie · day 32

I just went out and I pulled ! like 3 people! one came home with me. Im not starting anything while Im smarting.. AND your best female friend, when I told her you'd dumped me she actually cried!. she said I was the best thing that had happened to you since you were 23?? apparently all your friends thought so. Honestly it was such a comfort as she and I held each other, because of what you have essentially done to yourself, as well as us

Instead: went home with a new bloke, but said lets get to know each other

annie · day 3

I'm addicted to your touch and I really don't want to be.

Anonymous

You were not who I thought you were, and it’s so hard to wrap my head around that. So hard to believe that you’re a liar and a cheat. I wonder if anything about our relationship was real. The whole phone episode, and pretending to be someone else are next level. I hate you for that. You lost the best thing that ever happened to you.

Anonymous

You know that trip to Morocco we had booked? Yeah, I'm still going. Turns out I don't need you to see the world.

Carmen

I wish you would let me into your heart completely. I've labeled you an avoidant, and I am healing from my anxious attachment (thanks to Harry's pack). In the beginning I was very confused by your actions, but once I learned about attachment styles everything made sense. You've labeled us "close friends." I don't know what wounds you have suffered that make you so independent that you won't accept help when you're sick or that have caused you to be closed to a full relationship with me. You let me in some of the cracks in your armor and for that I am thankful. I believe no one else has been there. I see you trying to be in a relationship with me--there are days you come over and we talk serious stuff and go out to dinner and play cards. I always get a hug (I initiated that tradition), but you hold back from anything further. No hand-holding, no kissing, no sex. You are wary of giving compliments, but I see your caring in your actions. You are consistent 95% of the time and have not dismissed our relationship. Our close friendship continues since I recognize your avoidant tendencies and I give you space. We've been out to concerts, dinner, etc. over 60 times, but I feel like I'm carrying the bulk of the relationship. I'd like more consistent togetherness, but I realize that is beyond your capacity for closeness, so I don't push it. I yearn for more, but accept what you can give me. I can't change you, just myself. I see the heartbreak of others who love avoidants and have been discarded, so maybe a closer relationship would not be better. I wonder about that. The grass looks greener, but maybe it's not. I try to live in reality and not fantasize about anything more. I am grateful you're in my life.

Instead: Worked on paperwork I've been putting off, took out the trash.

Anonymous

I laugh about that you will break me, but you did. So I never said I love you cause I know you would not choose me, cause you need something beautiful, not something similar. I was right.

Instead: Just going on.

Anonymous · day 5

I’m in love with Harry. There. I said it.

Anonymous

You always used to say I was "a lot," and now every date I go on I can't shake the feeling I'm putting people off, whether it's me, my past, my body, whatever it is you managed to make me self-conscious about. I've had enough of this dating bullshit

Instead: Deleted the apps for the third time this year

Sian

Most days I'm confused about why you treated me so badly. You were my best friend and I miss you everyday. I don't ever want you back, what I do want is a real heartfelt apology and acknowledgement that I didn't deserve to be treated so poorly.

Instead: Had a cry, said I love you- to myself, and got on with my day with an ache in my heart.

Robyn · day 244

went to a wedding yesterday, one of my oldest mates. I was laughing, dancing, having a good time, and then every so often it just hit me out of nowhere, this should've been us by now, we used to talk about it, half joking half not, what we'd do for our own day, and sitting there watching two people doing all that in front of everyone I just felt this ache I wasn't expecting speeches were the worst bit, groom said something about knowing straight away she was the one, and I just sat there thinking about how sure I felt about you too, how certain, and how none of that meant anything in the end apparently got a bit emotional during the vows if I'm honest, had to pretend I had something in my eye, my mate next to me clocked it and just squeezed my hand under the table, didn't say anything, didn't need to danced loads though, more than I thought I would, and for a few songs I actually forgot completely, just existed without the whole missing you thing running underneath everything constantly bumped into an old mate of yours there too, small world, he asked how you were doing and I just said I don't actually know anymore, which felt weird saying out loud kept looking at the older couples there too, thirty/forty years married, still holding hands during the first dance, thinking about whether we'd have got there, whether we'd have made it that far if things had gone differently drank way more than I meant to, ended up crying a bit in the taxi home, driver didn't say a word, just handed me a tissue from the glovebox which was oddly kind of him a bit hungover this morning but weirdly okay, glad I got through a day like that and came out the other side still standing

Instead: got up, made myself a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea, very much needed

Ivy · day 64

Woke up this morning and just lay there for ages before actually getting up. Sundays used to mean staying in bed with you, now it just means staying in bed on my own for longer than I probably should

Instead: Eventually got up, made breakfast, sat with it at the table instead of in bed

Lucia · day 28

You promised you would reply to messages in good time. The two messages I sent in the morning to see when you were coming over, were ignored. then you either turned the phone off or even blocked me. There was the single grey tick. I tried to call and you said I didn't. I tried to message you said I didn't. the next day you sent me screen shots with red circles round things I couldn't read. I had cooked for you because you love risotto. We were going to go to see the odyssey. You stood me up as well as not answering messages which you had promised to do, then what ensued was only your anger and self justification, saying I was responding excessively. the more you refused to apologise, the more upset I became. Betrayed by your lie. I only took you back on that basis. Always keep me informed. You could even have said you weren't coming over, but you didn't do that. You knew it would trigger me. Then you could say, look at you, you are crazy. I came to your house, you wouldn't talk to me, you went to bed and turned your back. You looked like a little old man. Actually you are an old man. I had made you into a hero, and a beauty, but your heart felt black in the darkness. At 2in the morning , although I held you you remained entirely still and unbudging. the window was open and the first rain of this drought summer bagan and the sweet smell infused the air, I cried out in joy, its raining! you ignored me. I went downstairs into the garden barefoot and look dat the stars and wept for the beauty that you reused to share. I knew then you had been planning this, somewhere in you, waiting for a moment when you could wind me up and then Balme me, and tell everyone I was unhinged. Coward. Maybe you have another younger woman lined up. you usually do double date, you don't care to be moral there. and you will go back to the harden who introduced us and conspire to talk about my inadequacies, and she will find you another woman to bleed dry.

Instead: got on with listening to Harry, and reading his wisdom, which gives me back to myself bit by bit.

annie · day 3

I want you and think about you all the time, i've missed talking to you so much. Seeing you was horrible as we couldn't talk or be together. i can't do this anymore as it's doesn't feel good and it's hurting me. Please don't message me anymore

Anonymous · day 4

I want to be able to want to be casual but that's just not who I am. I hope you don't text me and I can just forget this part of my life.

Instead: Read a book

Anonymous

You lied when you said you were grateful. You've already forgotten how much I've sacrificed for you to move forward. You've forgotten who was there when you were rock bottom. You've forgotten the person you've accepted. You've forgotten the person that made you feel safe. You've forgotten that he became safe in your arms too to a point he'd share all his insecurities. You've forgotten who you are. The kind and loving wife-to-be turned into a narcissist all because of your standards, because of money, because of my physical appearance. You forgot what I really meant to you. You are no longer you.

Anonymous · day 4

I keep hearing songs that remind me of you. Of us. And they're some of my favorites. Some favorites for 30+ years that I stupidly shared with you. And some you introduced me to. And I keep wanting to text you with my thoughts on them. Like, 'oh, hey, did you know that two of your all time 20xx favorites are actually remakes of songs 20+ years older? And sometimes I like the original better, and sometimes I prefer the remake. But I can't send this. Because I've learned you only want to know my thoughts when they don't contradict yours. How can you go from sending me the first chapter of the story you've been writing since you were 10 years old.....that you'd never sent anyone before me, not even your best friend or ex-wife.....to "calling it" and breaking up with me via text a few days later? And why do I keep trusting guys like you, who clearly don't know what the fuck they want? Who sends a text breaking up with someone but "didn't really mean it" until he sees my reply? I don't need to pass your bullshit tests. I will find someone who knows what they want....and actually wants to know what I think....and knows how to respectfully disagree

Instead: Cleaned my office and purged mementos I no longer need (straight to the bin)

KTG · day 7

Was it all worth it for you to use all my insecurities and vulnerabilities as a weapon to prove your point? Those weren't the words of a partner. Those were words of someone who is blinded by hatred fueled by your impossible to meet standards. I hope you made the right decision for your son. our son.

Anonymous · day 3

You said you were here, and you’ve disappeared. Here alone thinking you’ve decided I’m too much, not what you signed up for

Instead: Stood in the garden for a while, ordered a bottle of gin on uber eats, sent a message saying I’m confused, what’s going on. Sat in bed listening to music - thinking everything is lost

Anonymous

You are a fckn bastard for making me love you. For drawing me in and for loving me so deeply. What a life we had together. I can easily say that some of the best times of my life were with you and then my sister died and quite suddenly you changed. When the attention was no longer on you, you completely unraveled, abusing me in ways I could never of even imagined, forcing me to kick you out. I could never have imagined the heartbreak that came. I truly believed you were my person and I know you felt the same. I will probably always love you for the sweetest and most precious parts of us and the times we had together. I feel like part of me left with you and Ill probably never love again.

Instead: I held my head up high, I wanted to call his Mum, who loved me and who I loved deeply. I wanted to put a huge paper bag of dog shit at the front of his house and set it on fire so he would come out and stamp it out.

Anonymous · day 180

I will get over you. I will forget the taste of your lips. I will forget the sound of your voice. I will get to that point... But right now, I still love you for everything you gave me, and I really dislike you for not being able to at least give me a normal conversation at the end. I will try to forgive that you kept telling me how much you love me, how you'll be the best man for me and then kept disappearing, leaving me in silence so many times even though I told you how much it hurts. I've opened up to you like I never ever did to anyone, you pretended how you love all of me and two years later decided that actually that's not 100% true. Didn't I ask you to talk to me? Didn't I ask you to let me know if I am making mistakes? I didn't want to make any with you, I wanted us to succeed. Why couldn't you just talk to me? I hope you are enjoying your life, pretending that I didn't matter and how this is all my fault, because it's easier than to look at yourself and your faults. And I pray to God, I never hear from you or see you again if you are still a person that leaves when it gets hard. You should be ashamed of yourself and your behaviour, to me - you are nothing but a coward now. My brain is sure of that, my heart will catch up with time.

Instead: Continued my day.

Tina · day 39

Do you want to kiss me because kissing is nice, or do you want to kiss me because something also happened in your heart? Because i am sure that that kiss, dearest that’s not mine, would absolutely wreck my soul whilst it would only be pleasurable for you. Oh how I wish i could only know.

Instead: Made pizza and did dishes.

Anonymous

I wonder what she saw in you. Must have been the undeniable appeal of the huge beer belly, the farting, the mouth-breathing, the death-breath, the bone-idleness, the premature ejaculation. That must have been it. Or maybe it was purely the money *I* earned and brought to our so-called marriage that supported you, our son, and your mistress for 25 years. To her you must have looked like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if you could just have found enough backbone to dump me and our son after just 8 years of marriage? I guess you preferred to live comfortably and seem to be a decent person. Now I know what a total piece of shit you and your entire family are. If you think it was "love" you're definitely stupider than I thought.

Instead: Working hard to reach a state of radical acceptance of what a POS you are. That's a work in progress. Started taking good care of myself and my health in order to outlive you so I can have you cremated and flush your ashes down the toilet and then sue her for alienation of affection

Eve · day 1687

Santa came more than I did in the 20 years we were together and you wondered why I stopped wanting to have sex with you. The tears I cried everytime you let me down, were the wettest you ever made me. When I catch myself thinking about you, I remember who you actually are and am thankful that I learnt to love myself, and in doing so left you behind. Be better for our child's sake. Go to therapy. Not being loved enough as a child, is not an acceptable justification for your behaviour.

Aroha

You mistook presence for substance. You took being tall and made it into a personality. You're mildly entertaining in small doses, but there’s very little depth beneath the surface. Take away cricket, golf and whatever you've most recently absorbed from the internet, and there’s not much conversation left. You're essentially a fart in a room — noticeable, mildly entertaining for a moment, and then completely unremarkable once it’s passed.

Instead: Laughed at this and went on with my day

Aroha · day 1

Breaking up with me and then kissing me three nights in a row was the worst you could to to me. Please find out what you want, and deal with the demons from your past that render you incapable of staying in difficult situations with me despite being hurt and afraid. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here, giving you space, and it's slowly draining the life force out of me.

Instead: Looked at trailers for my forest retreat project.

Swamp Girl · day 24

I wish we met earlier in life… I wish I could tell you that I fell in love with you…

Instead: Stood up and continued with what was needed.

Anonymous · day 196

Hi, Im on day 2 of no contact and about to break it again because your behaviour has impacted your own son and I still have the honour in me to want to give him a space in the exhibition, but you have made no effort to get him to apologise before I started no contact, ad not effort to reply on the 2 times I also abandoned no contact in order to allow your son to show, so here I am giving you another chance. but you aren't going to do it are you. so luckily I can put my good intentions into the universe. the universe will receive my love, but sadly your behaviour means your son will not get to show. Because you betrayed me and actually knock on, him too

Instead: preparing for a reiki healing session to take the edge oft the disgust I feel about you

Anonymous · day 2

I wish you knew how your apparent unintentional care and light touch watered my famished soul. You crept beneath my skin, and crawled your way into my heart. A place where you are not allowed to be. The dessert place of my soul, where I kept on keeping on, because leaving is not an option. After months of standing strong against you taking a seat and creating an oasis in my desert, my heart is pining. For what my marriage should have been… For the love that is lost… For having to stay where I lost myself, for the benefit of my child… For getting in bed next to my husband, hoping he would embrace me, but getting up disappointed. For locking up my needs, emotions and craving for touch, to lessen the rejection. For knowing that we share a strange connection, and that you ‘speak my language’. You did nit even ‘come into my life’ like in a movie… small chats became ‘are you okay?’ - I was noticed, seen, acknowledged by you. I want to believe that you saw the abandonment in my eyes. I want to believe that maybe I also crept underneath your skin… And I will never know… because I am choosing not to find out… And I am grieving you. I am grieving me. I am grieving my marriage. So as I dodge you in the hallway, and as I look away from your questioning eyes, as I fall on my knees to pray for my marriage again… just know: my resistance is not indifference. And I hate myself for that! And Im mad - because it was never anything more than a light touch and care in your eyes. It was never something that should have thrown my heart the way it did. There was never messages, or anything that would justify the feelings that grew inside of me. Im mad that I will never know if you really cared. And i wish for a parallel universe - because we will be good together.

Instead: Cried, grieved - but kept my marriage promise. Still hoping things will change. Still hoping for repair. Still choosing to stay… maybe one day I will choose myself.

Anonymous

read Harrys writing about betrayal, that freezing lake of Dantes 9th circle of hell. yes it might not have been you sleeping with someone else, but you've done that before, and yes it put me into that lake, this time it was the betrayal of my setting up a community interest company and a gallery and having 30 artists including your son, and yes when you dumped me, there was that freeze. a burning freeze. freeze because I couldn't move. so yes, Keith, you betrayed me, you betrayed my trust. then at the end harry says, we don't know what we are capable of until we are dismantled. maybe some people don't have to go through it, don't need to know, but the only gift for me in your betrayal, is a better understanding of myself and yes harry is right, that when warmth comes again, I will treasure it even more.

Instead: got ready for my day.

annie · day 2

wasn't one big thing with you, that's the bit that's hard to actually put into words, if you'd cheated at least it'd be simple, there'd be one obvious reason, but this wasn't that, this was smaller stuff stacked up over years till one day I looked round and the whole floor had been pulled out from under me and I hadn't even noticed it happening started with the money I think, or that's the earliest bit I can point to now I've had time to go back through everything in my head, you always said you'd sort the bills, said it made sense since you were better with numbers, I just went along with it, trusted you with something I probably shouldn't have handed over so completely, found out a few months back you'd been taking money out of our joint account for months to cover debts you never told me about, telling me things were fine the whole time, telling me not to worry, telling me you had it sorted. you didn't have it sorted. you just didn't want me knowing, and I still don't get why lying felt easier to you than just saying things were tight then there's the stuff with my family, which honestly might be the bit that's cut deepest if I'm being fair with myself, my sister mentioned something a few weeks back, off hand, like she assumed I already knew, about a conversation you'd had with her ages ago where you told her I was "struggling a bit mentally" and that she should keep an eye on me without letting me know she was doing it. I never said that to you. never gave you a reason to say that about me to anyone. and yet there it was, this whole story you'd apparently been building with my own family, making them see me a certain way, without me having a clue any of it was happening behind my back keep thinking about family dinners where I felt like something was a bit off, people being extra gentle with me, my mum asking a bit too carefully how I was doing, and I just put it down to my own paranoia at the time, told myself I was reading too much into normal concern. turns out I wasn't reading into anything. there was something going on, just not the something I thought don't know how you managed to hold all this together at once honestly, the money stuff, the conversations behind my back, the version of events you were building that made you look like the steady one and me look like the fragile one who needed managing, that's actually the bit I keep circling back to at 2am, not any single lie on its own, but how coordinated it all feels looking back now, like you were building a case against me without ever raising your voice or doing anything that looked wrong from the outside my best mate asked me the other day if there was one moment I could point to where it all clicked and I couldn't give her a straight answer, wasn't like that, it was death by a thousand small cuts, each one small enough to explain away on its own but adding up to something huge once you actually stood back and looked at the whole picture at once one of your messages came through on our old shared laptop the other night, must still have been logged in from years back, wasn't even looking for anything, just saw a notification pop up and couldn't not read it once I'd seen who it was to, found a message to your mate from over a year ago where you called me "high maintenance" for asking a normal question about weekend plans, then went looking properly after that, found another one where you complained about me to someone I didn't even know you were still talking to, someone from before us apparently, telling them stuff about our relationship that wasn't even true, framing arguments in a way that made me sound completely unreasonable when I remember those exact conversations very differently think what gets me most is wondering how much of what I thought was affection from you was actually just managing me, like were you ever even on my side, or was I always something you were quietly keeping steady, managing the story around, so if this ever ended you'd already have laid the groundwork with everyone about how it'd be received. that's a horrible thing to sit with, wondering if you were building an exit plan the whole time you were also telling me you loved me my mum rang me after my sister told her what she knew, absolutely furious, wanted to come round straight away, I actually had to talk her down a bit, not cause I was defending you, more cause I didn't have the energy for a big confrontation on top of everything else I was already dealing with. she kept saying she should've noticed sooner, should've asked more questions when things felt slightly off, and I told her that's not fair on her either, none of us are meant to assume someone's lying that carefully, that's not a normal thing to expect from people you trust started quietly looking into our finances properly for the first time, going through old statements on my own when you're not around, not sure yet what I'm going to do with any of it, just needed to actually understand where things stand instead of only knowing what you've told me don't think I'll ever fully know the extent of what was said behind my back, to my family, to your mates, to whoever else you were managing this whole thing with. think I've had to make peace with never getting the full picture, cause even now, even after everything's come out, still don't fully trust you're being honest about the scale of it what I keep coming back to, more than the anger even, is this deep unease about how well you did it. how calm you stayed the whole time. how normal everything looked from the outside while apparently so much was happening underneath that I had zero visibility into. don't know how you live with yourself managing someone that thoroughly while still sharing a bed with them every night, still saying good morning, still doing all the small domestic stuff that's meant to mean something told my therapist about all this last week, the whole thing, laid out for the first time out loud, and she said something that's stuck with me since, that betrayal doesn't need a single dramatic moment to still be devastating, sometimes it's worse without one, cause there's no clean before and after, just this slow realising that you were never quite standing on the ground you thought you were anyway, should probably try and get some sleep before you wake up and ask what I'm doing

Instead: went through the bank statements again on my own after you'd gone to bed, still don't know what I'm going to do with any of it

Freya

You belonged among the wildflowers, where you could feel free. But you chose to stay with the more familiar, more chaotic one, who controls everything you do. I thought you wanted peace and togetherness in our final years. Fear sucks. I assumed wrongly.

Instead: Went quiet and dove into heartbreak.

Wendy · day 500

I miss you. I miss my best friend. It hurts to not be able to talk to you. To tell you anything and everything at any time. It hurts so much.

Anonymous · day 8

All I asked was for you to make sure the kid was home by 8pm on my first night off in three months. You said after they had dinner with you that you would. Instead you dropped him off to the park and let him walk home later in the dark on his own. I know you went to see her instead, putting your dick first as usual with woman number 3. Unable to be in any way responsible while thinking your so independent.

Instead: Stayed at my friends and vented.

Anonymous · day 7

No one will ever love you as much as I have loved you, and I still have a deep love for you even with everything you have done to chip away at it. How I yearn to be together but that cannot be; this time I must choose myself. In the end, your betrayal and disrespect was so painful to experience that it shattered any illusion of me continuing my life with you. You broke my heart. Once in a third room, we made love, a poet declared, only thing is, you foolishly lost the key.

Instead: Came here

A · day 14

I walked to the top of the mountain with you - it took months and at the top I realised I was exhausted. So over it and exhausted. So I am leaving you at the top and walking down the other side on my own, stronger and clearer.

Instead: Walked with my furry friend ❤️

Rachel · day 1

Yesterday you said you were so excited to see me this weekend. Today you said sorry, you have to cancel because you think you have feelings for someone else. How do you just decide that overnight?

Instead: Sat and reread the message many times, haven’t replied. Not really sure what to say

Penelope

You are really an asshole telling your kid the same week that you met someone new after your kid was crying at school, had a meeting with the school psychiatric to talk about the separation and how sad it makes him feel. I really do dispise you. Not only for how you made me feel, when you all of the sudden left after 19 years together. But mostly for how you treat our children now, when I cant protect them every other week when they stay with you. Only manage their feelings along with mine every other week when they are at home with me. When they are with you they withold their feelings and with me they release them. The curse and blessing of being the safe parent. Eventually they will on and on understand exactly what and who you are. They will end up nothing like you, because I will be their role model and safe place from when they were born and forever on.

Instead: Rang my mum. Poured a glass of wine and ate my favorite chocolate with the tears streaming down my face for my kids that will have to handle the feelings alone at his place tonight until they are with me on Monday.

Malin

I can understand you punishing me because you hate my guts for not having you back after you assaulted your son at 15!! But what choice did i have ? Apart from thinking why would i want to put up with that behaviour for the next twenty years or being afraid if you did it to one child it would be easier to do it to the other two?! But to keep punishing me my being so fucking awkward every text i need an hour to try and understand what the fuck you are trying to say. I tried to tell my solicitors that you would not agree to anything and you didn't, even now i am drowning in solicitors bills because you are constantly chasing me to do shit for the divorce whilst i work full time to pay the sole mortgage whilst you sit and bark orders through you solicitors, ignore having contact with your children or when you do barely engaging with them so they are messaging me about purchases on vinted whilst with you, fantastic quality time !!! The eldest naturally hasn't spoken to you in years not since you refused to let my daughter out of the car because you got angry and were shouting out a crack in the window and he came up to try and help get his sister with down syndrome out of the car. Really i cannot believe that you have the cheek to call yourself a Father i'm just thankfully that my kids know that the way you behave is not the right way to be and they have grown up to be the most amazing young men who i know will absolutely not behave like you or treat their partners or children the way you have ! I stayed silent and kept the peace for so long and 20 years was long enough , i cannot wait to be divorced and take back my name i would hope to never have to see you ever again. The second son is distancing himself, not down to me, but down to your own lack of interest in their lives, you didn't even ask him about his GCSE results or his Prom for school the only think you ever ask about is the house, money or making us all give up everything to make your life easier. I hope that one day you actually realise what you have done to your own family and the years of punishment that you inflicted upon your children by financially punishing me.

Instead: had a gin and tonic and chilled with my beautiful daughter

VA

This morning I’m forgiving myself for squandering my love on you. I will never forgive you for intentionally, repeatedly, knowingly hurting me. You were right to fear me finding myself and seeing you for who you truly are. I believed for 30+ years that you couldn’t help your character flaws…and I had nearly infinite patience for the hurt little boy I loved inside of you. You made me believe we loved each other’s inner child, but now I see that you cataloged my fears and insecurities, and used them first to hook me and then to make yourself feel bigger when you used them against me. You apologized for never giving me safety. I would argue that you also never gave me actual love. It was always a power struggle, walking on eggshells, and trying to manage your moods. But I didn’t feel insecure until you discarded me. And that was your plan. You tried to destroy me on your way out the door and you nearly succeeded. I am amazed and humbled by how many friends turned up to catch me when you dropped like a piece of a piece of human trash. Many have confessed that they’ve been waiting years to help because they saw troubling changes in me when I was around you. I’m still not sure I’m worthy of the love and care I’ve been shown, but I now know I didn’t deserve a day of your cruelty. I realized today that you discarded me at the exact age my Mom was when she lost my Dad…and a month from the first anniversary of her passing. So I’m left to contend with compound grief alone. Truthfully I was always alone with my struggles in the 30 years we were together because you were bored by any topic that wasn’t centered around you. I remember you picking a fight with me during the time I was minding my Mom in LA after Dad died…because I neglected to do your laundry on my one weekend home. You have always been a weak and cowardly abuser. As ever I wish for you all that you deserve, and I’m quite confident you will reap exactly that.

Instead: I tossed rings around in the garden for my dogs

Anonymous

I want to hate you and never see you again. But I don't. I want to be a cool girl and not care but that's just not me. I feel like an object to you

Anonymous · day 1

I love you, and i hate you I miss you but I never want to speak to you again I want you to be sorry, I want you to contact me with regret And I want to tell you to fuck right off

Instead: Turned tv on

Susie ⁸ · day 215

I feel stronger today so your son could exhibit at the show, but I haven't had an apology from him for what he called me, and he didn't invite me to his daughters christening saying there wasn't enough room, but when I saw the photos it was a church hall full of people, so it looks like maybe it was you who didn't invite me? maybe you who intended never to go that far into family, so basically, still your fault, and I don't like these nasty angry hurt feelings I have and you still haven't reached out to apologise yourself. so there

Instead: went and got on with my life instead

annie · day 1

Why is it always me? Why does this keep happening, over and over, like something about me specifically makes people think it's fine to lead me on and then drop me the second something better comes along? Feels like a pattern now, not just bad luck. This isn't the first time this has happened; you're just the most recent. Keep thinking about the little stuff that made it feel real, you double texting me when I took too long to reply, bringing up plans like they were already sorted, all that effort that apparently meant nothing in the end. doesn't add up if I was just a placeholder the whole time You made me feel special but then discarded me the second you were done, like I was chewing gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, something you just scrape off and forget about once it's stopped being useful to you. I don't know what it is about me that keeps attracting this. Maybe I come across too keen, maybe I trust too easily, maybe I just haven't learned my lesson yet even after all the times this has happened before. Whatever it is, I'm exhausted by it

Instead: Ate a whole tub of Haagen-Dazs

Hayley · day 26

I should be working but all I can think about is whether she was on your mind last night while we were having sex. You've no idea I already know about her. Just waiting for the day I actually find the nerve to tell you I do.

Instead: Sat at my desk pretending to work

Sandra

honestly your a joke lmao. you think your so clever blocking me on everything like i cant see what your doing?? your little friends are total snakes btw they already told me you were talking to that guy from your gym before we even broke up. why lie? just admit you wanted a way out because you couldn't handle someone who actually called you out on your bs.i gave you everything. bought you shoes, took you out to nice dinners, let you stay at my place rent free for months when you lost your job and this is the respect i get?? its pathetic. your gonna realize real quick that the grass isnt greener on the other side. that gym guy doesnt care about you he just wants one thing then he'll bin you off like everyone else does.i was actually gonna propose to you at new years. i had the money saved up and everything. thank god i didnt waste it on a ring for someone who runs away the second things get a bit stressful. im writing this here cuz if i send it to your email your just gonna screenshot it and show your little group chat like look at my crazy ex. im not crazy im just pissed off that i wasted a whole year of my life being loyal to someone who didn't deserve it. keep the clothes i left at yours i dont even want them back they smell like your fake attitude anyway. dont ever try come back to me when he dumps you because i’ll be long gone and doing way better than you.

Instead: I went straight to the gym, threw on my headphones with some heavy drill music, and smashed my pb on bench press until my arms were shaking too much to hold my phone.

Miles

John, When I met you, you were deeply wounded. Addiction had consumed much of your life, and everything around you was in disarray. I was also at one of the lowest points of my life since leaving my abusive marriage. I was kind to you because I felt you needed kindness. I was soft and non-judgemental because that is who I am not because I was naïve or because I couldn’t see what was happening. I saw everything. I knew more than I ever said. I knew you wanted to attach yourself to me, not simply because you valued my kindness and softness, but because you believed you could benefit from me. I knew that while not everything between us was false, much of what you offered me was shaped by what you wanted to take. I forgive you. You were deeply unwell and living inside the consequences of your own wounds and choices. But more importantly, I forgive myself—for accepting mistreatment, disrespect and behaviour that I should never have allowed anyone to direct towards me. Perhaps I needed that wake-up call. Because of what happened with you, I finally learned that compassion does not require self-abandonment. I learned that understanding someone’s wounds does not oblige me to become the place where they inflict them. I learned that my softness is precious and that access to it must be earned. I could never have imagined a life of celibacy and sobriety when I met you. Yet that is the life I live now and I am stronger, healthier and happier than I have ever been. You were not the person who saved me. You were the experience that made me realise I had to save myself. And I did.

Instead: Journaling

Kelly · day 316

i miss you so much it hurts to breathe like actually hurts my chest feels so tight today and i just cant stop crying because i found your blue cardigan in the back of my wardrobe the one you borrowed for that party and never gave back and it still smells exactly like your shampoo vanilla and coconut and i just collapsed on the floor holding it and screaming your name but obviously you didn't answer because your gone and it makes no sense why are you gone you were only twenty fucking one it’s not fair it’s not fair at allmum is trying to be strong but i can hear her crying in the bathroom when she thinks i’m asleep and dad hasn't spoken more than ten words a day since the funeral we are all just broken pieces wandering around this house and you were the glue that kept us happy everything is so quiet now i hate it i hate walking past your bedroom door and seeing it closed knowing your messy clothes arent on the floor and your makeup isnt all over the deski wanted to text your old number just to see the typing bubbles even though i know the company probably gave it to someone else by now i just want my big sister back i need to ask you what to do about university and boys and everything else i was supposed to have you for my whole life we were going to be bridesmaids for each other and travel to japan and do all the stuff we planned on late nights in bed now i have to do all of it alone and it feels completely pointless without you here to see it i love you so much sissy i hope you know that i hope you can see me from wherever you are because i’m completely lost right now

Instead: I put your cardigan on over my clothes even though it’s way too big for me, crawled into your old bed under the covers, and just lay there hugging her pillow until I finally fell asleep for a couple of hours

ellie

Still can't get my head round it, three weeks, that's all it took to go from you saying you really liked me to telling me you see things going somewhere with her instead. Wasn't even official or anything between us, I know that, but you made it feel like we were heading there, texting every day, meeting up loads, saying stuff like you hadn't felt like this in ages, and the whole time apparently you were seeing her too, deciding between us like it was some kinda trial run Think what actually gets me most is you telling me yourself, like I'm meant to give you points for honesty or something, doesn't make the timing any less rubbish, could've just said nothing, let it fizzle out, would've hurt less than getting a whole explanation of why she wins Keep thinking about the last time we met up, how normal it felt, actually thought that one went well if I'm honest, and the whole time you already knew, or at least were already leaning her way, and I was just sat there not having a clue Don't even know what to do with the fact I was really excited about this, told my friends about you loads, now I've gotta go back and say it just didn't happen, feels embarrassing somehow even though I know it's not even on me really Hope it works out with her I guess, not that I mean that, but there's no other way to end this is there

Instead: Took a screenshot of his message and sent it to my friend, she hasn't seen it yet

Anonymous

Hey i miss you, im sorry i ended it xx

Instead: Cleared out my house

Lucy · day 4

dk why im even typing this tbh you left me on read for 3 days then post a tiktok with him like i wouldnt see it?? we were together 2 years bro. 2 years of me paying for half your rent helping with your car when the engine blew up and you cant even text me like a normal person to say its over?? you literally said next year we were gonna look at flats together in manchester. i told my mum you were the one and she actually believed it. now i look like a proper idiot in front of my whole family.honestly my head is completely fried i cant sleep i cant eat properly everything tastes like cardboard. i keep checking your location on snapchat even tho i know i need to turn mine off but i just want to see if your at his house. if you are just tell me so i can block you and move on with my life instead of sitting in my room like a mug waiting for a text that isnt coming. you always said your ex was toxic but your doing the exact same thing to me right now. worse actually coz you wont even give me closure.im not even angry anymore i just feel sick. like a knot in my stomach that wont go away. i want to call your phone right now and scream at you till my voice goes but i know you'll just reject the call or give it to him to laugh at me. you really changed so fast it’s scary. i dont even know who you are anymore. i just wish i never downloaded that app and met you in the first place. you ruined my trust for anyone else now cheers for that.

Instead: screamed in my dead car

Anonymous

You left your wife for me. We planned a life together. You told me I was your everything. We risked everything to be together. And when the moment came for me to leave my abusive husband, for us to start creating, you had sex with someone from your running club and then chose her over me because she gave you ‘peace’ - but told me you loved me and would forever. I fell apart, you broke me. My boys almost lost their mother because of you. And when I told you I was going to tell her about me, you threatened to destroy my career as well as having already destroyed my personal life. You left things half open for months. I have lost 25% of my bodyweight, my hair is falling out and my mental health is in tatters. My brother is not speaking to me because of you and I have to speak to you every working day and ‘make things work’. I hope she rejects you, and that you hurt for the rest of your life. You could have been happier than you have ever been or believed was possible, but you chose a quick shag and didn’t fight for me.

Instead: Walked away from my phone.

Anonymous · day 140

My sweet boy. The apartment is so quiet without you. The dog still sits by the front door around 6:15 PM every evening, waiting for your key to turn in the lock. I try to distract him with treats or a toy, but he just looks at me with those big, confused eyes, and I have to sit on the floor and hold him while we both mourn you. He misses his dad, and I miss my husband.I haven't changed the sheets on your side of the bed yet. I know it’s been a month, and people are starting to drop hints that I need to 'clean up' and 'move forward,' but changing the sheets feels like washing away the last tangible proof that you were here with me. Your pillow still has a slight indent from your head. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I roll over and put my hand on it, pretending it’s still warm.I am finding it so hard to interact with our friends. They look at me with so much pity it makes me feel like a ghost myself. They speak in these hushed, fragile tones, like I’m going to shatter if they speak too loudly. I just want someone to talk about you normally. I want someone to mention that stupid argument we had about the kitchen tiles, or how you always managed to lose your keys inside your own pockets. I don't want you to become a taboo subject that everyone is too afraid to bring up. You were so full of life, so vibrant and loud and funny. Reducing your existence to sad, sympathetic head tilts feels like an insult to the beautiful man you were.I walked past the bakery we used to go to on Saturday mornings today. The smell of the fresh croissants nearly brought me to my knees. I couldn't bring myself to go inside. Eating one without you sharing the crunchy end felt like a betrayal. I love you so much, my darling. The space you left behind is too big for this small world.

Instead: I packed a small bag with his favorite blanket, put the dog in the car, and drove down to the beach where we got engaged. We walked along the shoreline for two hours until the dog was exhausted, then slept in the back of the car.

Anonymous

It’s been months, and I know I shouldn’t care anymore, but the fact that you just vanished without giving me a single explanation still eats at me. You literally woke up one day, packed your things while I was at work, and left a post-it note saying you 'couldn't do this anymore.' That’s it? That’s what a year of sharing a bed, sharing a life, and introducing you to my family was worth to you? A yellow square of paper?I spent the first month convinced you were having a mental health crisis. I was terrified something terrible had happened to you. I called hospitals, I checked in with your sister, I drove past your office—I made myself look completely insane because I couldn't accept that someone I loved could be that cruel. But then your sister told me to stop calling, and I realized you weren't having a crisis. You were just a coward who didn't have the decency to look me in the eye and tell me you didn't love me anymore.I write this draft at least twice a week. I want to send it to your email just so you have to look at the words and know exactly what you did to my self-esteem. You made me question my own sanity. You made me feel like I was a chore to be dropped instead of a human being to be respected. I want you to feel the weight of what you did, but I know that sending this just tells you that you still have an effect on me. It gives you the satisfaction of knowing you left a scar. So I’m burying it here. I am rebuilding myself out of the rubble you left behind, and one day, I won't even remember the shade of your eyes or the way your voice sounds. But today is not that day.

Instead: I printed out the draft on a piece of paper, took it out to the fire pit in my garden, and watched it burn to ashes while listening to a really loud heavy metal playlist to drown out my thoughts.

Anonymous

I know I promised I wouldn’t text you again, and I’m keeping that promise by putting this here instead of your inbox, but I am so angry at how easily you seem to have walked away from everything we built. It’s been six weeks, and my entire life looks like a bomb went off in it, while you’re posting Instagram stories at bars like the last three years didn’t even happen. Did it really mean that little to you? How do you go from talking about buying a flat together and naming future dogs to treating me like a stranger you pass on the street?I still find your hair grips in my bathroom drawer. I found one of your grey hoodies behind the washing machine yesterday, and I hated myself because the first thing I did was inhale it to see if it still smelled like your cologne. It didn't. It just smelled like laundry detergent, and that felt like a metaphor for how completely you’ve erased me from your life.I want to text you and beg you to come over so we can just talk like normal people, but I know how that script goes. You’ll be cold, or you’ll take six hours to reply with a one-word answer that makes me feel even smaller than I do right now. I hate that you still have this much power over my mood. I hate that I’m sitting here crying over my laptop while you’re probably out not thinking about me at all. I gave you the absolute best versions of myself, I loved you through your worst mental health slumps, and you threw me away the second things got slightly complicated. I don't know if I want to scream at you or have you hold me, and that is the most frustrating part of all of this. I just want my best friend back, but the person who looks like my best friend is the one who broke my heart

Instead: I blocked his number for the third time, deleted the Instagram app off my phone so I couldn't check his profile, and went for a furious, three-mile run in the pouring rain until my lungs burned too much to let me cry.

Romana

Happy 60th Birthday in heaven. We should be blowing out candles and listening to you complain about getting older. Instead, I’m sitting in the garden looking at the rose bush we planted for you. It’s blooming beautifully this year. I hope you can see it.

Anonymous

Hey Dad. Just wanted to let you know the car passed its MOT today. I know you were worried about the brakes. I used that garage you always recommended on Elm Street. The mechanic remembered you. Made me tear up a bit in the waiting room, but it was a good sort of cry. Miss you

Instead: Cooked a good hot meal, missed you.

Ian

i love you and hate you and miss you and never want to see you again. thanks for that

Anonymous

Being a single parent is so hard. I feel so utterly solely responsible and things are hard. I don't know if I'm getting things so wrong. I don't know what to do. I don't know what I am doing. It is hard to bear this alone. I don't want you in any way but this part is so terrifying and lonely. I lay a lot of this at your door and know that you don't have anything to offer. I am so scared of fucking this part up.

Instead: Cried. Wrote it here instead. Went to stay with a friend for a break.

L · day 1448

When you ended things, I was devastated. I counted the days after you left hoping that you would change your mind and come back. I wanted to believe the reasons you told me for why you had to end things, but all I felt was that I wasn’t enough, that I was doing too much, and that I wasn’t what ever wanted. In my eyes, you were this lovely person that deserved so much better than me. You were the first person that I have ever loved, trusted, and felt safe with.

Instead: I waited, and worked on loving myself. Three months later we reconnected, and it’s been the best it’s ever been. I worked on me, you worked on you, and now we’re working together.

Anonymous · day 150

It’s been 3 years and I still miss you as if it has only been 3 weeks. Even though we’re strangers now, I still miss you and wish you were still in my life.

Nicole · day 1095

Whyyyyyy did I do it? I wanted to be seen heard and held and you actually weren’t capable. I looked in the wrong place. All you did was go on and on about you. I was invisible fighting to be seen. Makes me feel sick how you moved on so fast. I hope she feels seen and heard.

Instead: Blocked and ghosted. It was all I knew how to do. I’m actually glad because it helped my healing process.

Anonymous · day 365

I’d like to talk about what’s been happening recently - you know that I asked out X and he said no so this has nothing to do with whether he likes me or not - I’m not one to dwell especially when it’s been explicitly said like that. But I’d still like to talk about this - this being the conversation we had a while ago and how you’ve been acting afterwards. You email him during class (and text him during the school day), which you never even did if I emailed you first - in that way, it kinda feels like you’re undermining our friendship (as best friends) by saying you’re just being friendly with him when you are spending so much more time hanging out with him or talking to him - and going out of your way to do this - than we did previously at the start of the year or even previous years. While you can do what you want, after I had the conversation with you and before I asked him out, I felt like your behaviour hadn’t changed and instead you started lying to me about how long you were spending with him or how often you texted him - this avoiding of telling me the truth continued past when I asked him out which is mainly why I’m still annoyed currently. This avoidance may have been because you didn’t want to make me mad by informing me of this, but I’d rather be informed of this and just be a bit mad for a while than to stop trusting you because you are avoiding telling me things. If you had told me and had been truthful about it, I would be less mad than I am now, since currently you are deliberately lying to me about the things you are doing when I ask you about it. Doing all this (going out of your way to spend time with him over the rest of your friends, sitting extremely close to him) would be ok even if I still liked him, because obviously you can do what you want; but this is in the case that I did not talk to you about it beforehand and tell you that even if you didn’t realise you were doing this, it was making me feel uncomfortable, and you’d agreed to try and reduce how much it seemed like you were “backing on”. Specifically, this is after we talked about it over text and before I asked him out, when you knew that I liked him and I’d told you that what you were doing made me feel uncomfortable, but you continued behaving in a way that made me feel like that you hadn’t heard what I told you about how it felt to see you act a certain way with him, and that you didn’t care about how what you were doing made me feel. EVEN IF NOT THE CASE AND YOU DID CARE - IT FELT THIS WAY :(

Instead: talked to my online friends that are on the other side of the planet at midnight for 2 hours

Total

You emotionally unavailable sirface level wanker who thinks he's fucking spiderman ....

Instead: Danced on the rain

Tneresa · day 20

Why did you behave like a ghosting tosser. I hope karma catches up with you in the form of a giant spider placing you in its Web for eternity. And on a more sane note.... Big Hugs

Anonymous

I've put you first for the last time. I am sitting here so upset with myself. I thought I'd moved on, I thought I was stronger. This is it now, I want this to be the last time I promise this to myself. Let me be. Goodbye.

Instead: Write it in my journal, and here.

Anonymous

Nine years nine years we’ve been doing this push pull push and pull aren’t you tired?

Instead: Journaled why I’m happier now

Anonymous · day 23

You reached out after ten years like it was nothing, like sending one message could undo an entire decade of silence. I don't even know what you want from me, an apology accepted, a relationship restarted, forgiveness handed over easily just because enough time has passed that it's supposedly water under the bridge now. It's not water under the bridge for me. I grew up without you there for any of it, every birthday, every difficult year, every moment I needed a parent, and you were just gone. I've thought about replying so many times since your message came through. Some days I think maybe I owe it to myself to hear you out, to finally get some kind of explanation after all these years of just guessing. Other days I think about everything I had to figure out on my own because you weren't there, and I don't know if I want to let you back into my life just because you've decided now is the right time. I don't know how I actually feel about you anymore, I think that's the honest answer, and I'm not sure reconnecting after everything actually undoes any of what happened. Maybe one day I'll be ready to hear what you have to say. I'm just not there yet.

Maria · day 119

I told you all the things that could hurt me the most. You lined me up and took the shot. Somehow I'm still glad that you found me.

Instead: Kept on driving

b · day 623

I will find someone who loves me just as I am.

Sophia · day 3

I am beautiful

Sophia · day 3

Fuck you for the comments about my body you passed off as jokes

Instead: Looked at my naked self in the mirror and told myself what I liked about my body

Sophia · day 3

Fuck you for making me feel like I wasn't pretty enough for you

Sophia · day 3

you're going to be okay, I promise, even though right now that feels impossible

Anonymous

You slept with my husband. My best friend of twenty years slept with my husband, and I still can't say that sentence out loud without feeling sick

Instead: Called my other friends to ask if they knew

Fatima

I keep replaying every conversation we ever had wondering what else you were hiding from me

Pete

I don't think I've ever felt as betrayed by anyone as I did by you, and you were supposed to be my best mate

Kelly

I wish I'd seen who you really were sooner. I don't know how I missed it for so long. The way you spoke to my mum the other day said everything, and I can't believe I didn't notice you treating me the same way for years

Instead: Rang my mum after to check she was okay, ended up apologising to her for not seeing it sooner myself

Natasha · day 50

I think about you constantly and I hate how much power you still have over my mood. One minute I'm fine and then a song comes on or I see something that reminds me of you and I'm in tears. I don't know how you're apparently doing so well without me when I can barely function some mornings

Instead: opened a bottle of wine straight after work, didn't bother with dinner, just drank until I felt numb enough to sleep

Grace · day 9

You said you needed time and I gave it to you, turns out you just needed time away from me specifically

Trina · day 18

I do still think about you and you know I want you. But I'm just conflicted.

Instead: Went for a walk to clear my head, came back still just as confused

Victoria · day 20

right I don't even know why I'm doing this again, it's gone 2am, told myself last week I'd stop doing this but here I am again, can't sleep, brain won't shut up, hasn't shut up in weeks. I just get better at pretending it has during the day walked past our old road today, just ended up there, don't know why I do that to myself honestly, stood outside looking up at the window, someone else lives there now obviously, there was a kid's t-shirt hanging on the balcony, some dinosaur thing, and I just stood there staring at it for way longer than a normal person would stare at a stranger's washing. Don't know what that was about. Just really got to me for some reason. Maybe because we used to talk about that, having kids one day, painting the spare room, all that stuff we never actually got round to, and now some other family's just living the version of it we talked about, in the exact same rooms, with the exact same view out the window that I used to look at every morning while I made coffee keep thinking about when it actually started going wrong, not the end bit, before that, way before, there was this one night, few months before you left, you came in and just didn't say anything for ages, just sat on your phone, and I remember thinking something wasn't right but I didn't say anything, told myself I was being paranoid, that's what I do apparently, I just don't say anything and then act surprised later when it all falls apart. I do that with everything actually, not just you, my sister's always saying it, that I notice things and then just swallow them instead of saying anything rang my sister earlier, just needed to hear someone. she asked how I was and I said fine like an idiot and she said you don't have to say that to me, and I don't know what happened after that, I just cried, first time with her, don't even remember what I said half the time, just cried for ages, and she stayed on the phone the whole time, didn't try to fix it or say anything clever, just stayed there while I cried, which honestly might have been the nicest thing anyone's done for me this whole time I still make two coffees sometimes. still. it's been weeks. I don't even notice I've done it till I'm stood there with two mugs like some sort of muscle memory thing, it's stupid, everyone probably does this, I don't know, I saw a video online the other day about how habits take like sixty something days to break and I remember thinking well I've got a long way to go then, cause I'm still doing loads of the little things, still checking your side of the bed like you might just be under the duvet somehow, still glancing at the door around the time you'd usually get in from work you knew for ages apparently, before I did, you got to plan all this out while I was still hoping, still making plans that had you in them, and you already knew none of that was happening. I keep replaying conversations where I was talking about the future and you just went along with it, nodded, said the right things, and the whole time you must have known, and I just think, how do you do that, how do you sit there and let someone plan a future with you when you already know you're not going to be in it some day, I have this flat sad feeling that doesn't go away all day, I was at work Tuesday and laughed at something for like two seconds and then remembered everything all over again, had to go hide in the toilets for a bit, sat in the cubicle just breathing for a minute till I felt okay enough to go back out and act normal for the rest of the afternoon, that's basically my whole life at the moment, just acting normal for stretches of time and then falling apart quietly somewhere private when nobody's looking went out with the girls last Friday, everyone being really careful with me, not saying your name, being all gentle about it, which I get, but it's a bit much sometimes too if I'm honest, like I'm made of glass or something, one of them asked how I was doing and I actually said not great instead of lying for once, and she just nodded and didn't push it, which I appreciated more than she probably realises, sometimes people just want to fix it straight away and I don't need fixing, I just need someone to sit with me in it for a bit I still wonder what you're doing some nights, if you're sleeping fine, if any of this even touches you the way it's touching me, and I hate that I still think about that, hate that part of me almost wants you to be struggling too, not in a nasty way, just, I don't know, so it means something, so it wasn't just easy for you, because from the outside it all looks so easy for you, you've barely posted anything different, still seem to be going out with the same people, still seem completely fine, and I don't know if that's actually true or if you're just better at hiding it than me I keep thinking about the little things too, not just the flat, like how you used to leave your socks inside out and I used to moan about it constantly and now I'd give anything to find one single inside out sock somewhere in this flat just so it felt like you'd been here recently, isn't that mad, missing something that used to genuinely annoy me mum keeps saying it gets easier with time and I believe her, I do, I've seen other people go through this and come out the other side, but right now, tonight, it really doesn't feel like it, feels like this is just how things are now, missing someone randomly at weird times, a t shirt on a balcony, two mugs, an inside out sock I'll probably never find, stupid stuff I've started doing a few things differently though, went for a run twice this week which is basically a miracle for me, cooked myself a proper meal instead of just living off toast, even though a meal for one person feels like such a strange concept, like why am I making a whole roast dinner just for me, but I did it anyway and it felt like something, some tiny step in some direction, don't know which direction exactly but a direction at least anyway, hope you're okay. Even with everything. hope you're okay and hope I actually get there too one day, not just saying it, actually meaning it. not yet though. not really. maybe getting there a bit, some days more than others, tonight probably one of the worse ones if I'm honest, but I suppose that's just how it goes, up and down, better days and worse days, and I've just got to keep getting through the worse ones until there's more good ones than bad, that's what everyone keeps telling me anyway, and I've got no choice but to believe them at this point

Instead: Didn't send, put in my notes and now pasting it here

Julie · day 50

I know I don't mean anything to you

Instead: Exercise

Jo · day 1

Never told you this but the sex was pretty average, didn't want to say anything back then

Instead: Treated myself to a whole collection of sex toys instead, they do the job way better than you ever did

C · day 75

We tried for years, tests, appointments, all of it, and I don't think I ever really told you how much it did to me, like my own body was failing at the one thing it's meant to do. Kept most of it in, didn't want to make it harder on you too, and now I don't know if that was even the right thing to do, maybe you should've seen how much it was actually wrecking me. Think a lot of what happened with us wasn't even really about us, it was about all the stuff neither of us said properly during that whole time. You started pulling away right around when we stopped trying, and I don't think that's a coincidence, think it was just easier for you to walk away from the whole thing than sit in it with me. Don't know if I'll even get the chance to try again with someone else, running out of time really, and that scares me. Just wish we'd actually talked about it back then instead of both just quietly falling apart on our own

Instead: just sat on my bed

Melanie · day 40

How could you make everything so special, talk about future plans and let me open up only to walk away so abruptly because I got ill and wanted a conversation. I'd have given everything to make you feel loved. How could it all mean nothing to you and be so easy to let go of what we had like I was nothing and act like a stranger. You absolutely broke my heart but I can't hate you, and that hurts the most.

Instead: Spent weeks crying, lost myself, questioned everything.

Anonymous · day 25

I'm really hurting. It's been almost 3 years now since we met. When I see you in the usual place each week I long for us to spend time alone again as we did on a few memorable occasions. I know it can't happen and I know we cannot be together but it doesn't stop me hoping and longing. Every time I try to go no contact I cave after a few weeks, the sadness overwhelms me. Whilst I am sure that you are genuinely fond of me, you don't realise that the tight hugs, the kiss on the lips, the compliments....the breadcrumbs....leave me longing and hanging on. Hanging on to nothing. M I absolutely adore you and I so wish that circumstances were different.

Instead: Put the washing away and carried on with drudgery

Mug

Don't really know how to write this without sounding pathetic but I don't care anymore so here goes, miss you so much, miss the small stuff mostly, your laugh, the way you always just knew when something was wrong before I even said anything, the way the house felt different just cause you were in it tried telling myself I'm better off, that it's for the best, and some days I actually believe it, most days though I just miss you so much it's hard to breathe things weren't perfect I know that, we both messed up somewhere along the way, doesn't mean it's not worth trying again though, keep thinking about the good years before everything got complicated and I don't get how we let it fall apart like that, not asking you to forget any of it, just wish I had the chance to try again if you even wanted that don't know if this'll ever reach you or if you'd even want it to, just needed to say it somewhere, that I still love you, don't think I've ever stopped, and if there's any bit of you that feels the same I'd try again in a heartbeat

Instead: read it back once, didn't send it

Eleanor · day 15

Remember when you sent me that reading about the value of waiting. Three years later, I’m still waiting to be chosen. You don’t deserve me.

Instead: Went on a trip

Anonymous

I did send you something. I needed to explain the territory he will now find himself in. He discarded me at the point when I was getting up a massive exhibition and many people would be depending on my capabilities to present their art work and trusted me because of my enthusiasm and joy. So at this essential point, he sued every devise he knew to destroy me and he did trigger all the darkest responses. But Im not 3 or 4 days in and he will be appearing in those places. At the exhibition, in the social scenes and he will, I know, appear in the cold dark vortex. I have to be strong and I have to let him know, having already been through this in April with him (yes dear reader he weedeled himself in again with love bombing and promises) that everyone will gradually be asking where he is, and the word is out. He has an opportunity to make something good out of what he has done. I won't go back, but if he can be efficient at love bombing he is capable of being efficient at practically supporting this exhibition. He will think about it and maybe I'll get some practical help. Not that he was even offering it before. I don't actually care if he reads the messages or not. I will not be sending any more.

Instead: Listened to pod casts from Richard Grannon, signed up with Marisa Peer to change my programming, and actually went out and saw the incredible work of the artists I will be promoting . Found myself with them, because they know me and trust me. I m blessed, and a bit wobbly, but Im doing it

annie · day 3

I can't quite believe this is my new reality. Just nothingness. After everything we poured into you and you just discarded us like we were rubbish. I still see you around and we act like strangers. It's too hard for my soft heart to accept.

Instead: Going to make myself something to eat.

Anonymous · day 27

I nearly wrote to you a hundred times. I had this whole thing planned about how you knew and you did it anyway. But someone told me last month that he’s doing the same to you now, the phone face down, the gym at ten at night, and I felt nothing like triumph. I felt sick for you actually. You’re going to spend the next two years thinking you’re mad. You’re not mad. Nothing about him changed, only who he was doing it to. I’m not going to be your friend. But I’m not going to enjoy it either.

Anonymous

I don’t want you back. I want the money I spent on your business and the four years I spent telling everyone you were going through a hard time.

Anonymous

You booked the dentist for the 14th. That’s how I found out. Not a text, not lipstick, a dentist appointment on the shared calendar that I knew you’d already been to because you complained about the bill three weeks before. You dick. I sat in the car outside Sainsbury’s and scrolled back eleven months. Eleven months of dentists. You must have thought I never looked at it. I did look at it. I looked at it every Sunday night to work out who was doing what. Twenty two years and the thing that ended it was that you got lazy with the admin.

Anonymous

How careful would we be if we knew which good buy were our last. I love you Mister A.

Instead: Put my toes in the lac

Miss B · day 1

I'm wearing that lingerie you like tonight. It's not for you anymore

Instead: Went to bed feeling like myself again

Anonymous

Caught a whiff of your aftershave on a stranger on the tube today, whole day was ruined.

Instead: I cried a little without letting anybody see

Anonymous · day 3

We look so happy in our photos. So what actually went wrong?

Instead: Went back through years of photos, not just the recent ones, trying to spot when it started

Anonymous

Did you love me?

Instead: Got ready for bed

D · day 20

hope you remember the small things I used to do for you

Anonymous · day 33

Who can I turn to now when things go wrong?

Sharon

Bumped into your mum today, first time since everything happened, and neither of us really knew what to do with ourselves. She asked how I was, I said fine, she said she was sorry, and then we both just sort of stood there for a second before she said she had to get on

Instead: Carried on with my day

Lottie · day 27

still can't believe you're not in my life anymore

Instead: had a meal with friends instead of sitting home alone

Anonymous · day 25

Two things I regret: Not blocking you sooner. Believing you the first time.

Natalie · day 5

You told me it was safe to be vulnerable with you, I told you my fears and insecurities. You then used those against me. I wanted to walk away a while back, I gave you all the options, you stopped me - why? So you could keep breaking me? And now, months later you message every so often just to fck with me? You're not interested in how I am you just want me to absolve you of any guilt you feel. I WON'T DO THAT, if you feel guilty, trust when I say it's fully deserved. I wish I'd never met you - whatever the 'lesson' was, I didn't need it. I poured my love into a black hole when I should have poured it into myself. Fk u!

Instead: Ate chocolate

Anonymous · day 112

I loved you more deeply than anything ever I don’t know why. I just wished you missed me

Anonymous

God I wish you could read this. I I know you wouldn’t even if I do send it. You hurt me so much. You didn’t deserve me. I didn’t deserve this Do you feel nothing?

Instead: Threw the kitchen sink at healing. Thank you Harry

Anonymous

I miss you. I miss our conversations. I miss being noticed. I miss being known. I miss being seen.

Instead: Just not send it, I guess. I would never send it.

Anonymous

I hate you for what you did to us all. And continue to pretend living like you did nothing wrong. I hate what you did, so much. I cannot believe the audacity of it all.

Instead: Cried.

Anonymous · day 758

You know how much being accused of something you would never ever do destroys you. We met when you were at your lowest from experiencing that, and now you're doing the same thing that broke you, to the woman that loves you. I still do, despite how badly this hurts, I just want you to see the truth and come back. You called me your safe place, and I trusted you to be mine too

Instead: Cried

Anonymous · day 2

I hate how much I miss the man you pretended to be. I hate how badly I still ache for your touch. I want comfort from the man I loved, but the man you actually are is repulsive. I hope you're hurting as much as I am. I wish nothing but the worst for you.

Instead: Gonna keep doing me. Gonna keep rebuilding myself into a woman who can protect myself.

Anonymous

It's my birthday today. Not sure why I was expecting a message from you, you didn't even remember my birthday last year

Instead: Bought myself a birthday cake, got my fork, and I'll be eating the whole thing

Ellie · day 30

Realised I hadn't cried in two weeks, feels like progress

Instead: Told a friend, we celebrated with cake, felt silly but nice

Anonymous · day 90

You took the plant that was doing well and left me the dying one

Instead: Googled how to save it

Sam · day 24

I am SO grateful for this. It is disrespectful of your son to expect to exhibit in the major show Ive been organising for months , when you decided to scupper our relationship. Your some calls me unhinged and unprofessional and expects that he and the whole family will come to my gallery that I have paid for, with 29 other artists, and swan around. when you have disrespected me appallingly. You didn't turn up for the date where I cooked your favourite meal. You turned off the phone and didn't pick up messages or return in good time, even to say, sorry I can't come. That evening I had to ring said son and ask him to call you to call me to say what's up. You shouted at me, put the phone down and set off my ptsd and anxiety. This would be the 4th time Id have taken you back. If you even thought about it. You promised because of the trauma I have previously been through, some created by you, that you would always reply in good time, that was out agreement. YOU broke that promise. Then the party. a week later, Im so upset I leave and sit outside and you refuse to drive me to the hotel. Ive had to take diazepam for a panic attack, you say I can sleep in the car. The eventually we go to the baiiutiful hotel . the next day you refuse to drive me home even though I still was unable to drive. You did this ghosting for 2 months before and I was well into 30 days no contact when you decided to call me. That's when you promised you'd not do this again. Now your son and you and all that family have decided because Im upset hat I am mad. This is disrespectful . your son is disrespectful. Im not going to spell it out, but you broke the promise, your promise and you lied. and your son's art work will go unseen. Too late to apologise. Ive gone no contact

Instead: Fumed and was glad to write this. Now Im doing Marissa peer rewrite my brain or something like that ! Already I'm walking tall, Im ver fragile, but I know that the cuddle, the apology and the respect that would have been the right way to build the relationship was never coming. He seems to like this power. Ive had enough. Im worth more, and if he treats his women like this, then it only reflects on him

Anonymous · day 2

Two things you never found. 1. The delete button on Tinder 2. My clit. Thank god I found the door

Instead: Everything you can imaging

Anonymous

Can't stop thinking about how easy it all seemed to be for you

Instead: Sat in the car and sang Un-Break My Heart at the top of my voice, cried through most of it, felt strangely better after

Chloe · day 14

Why was I never enough for you?

Janice · day 40

Thought I'd finally got it right this time, guess I was wrong again

Instead: Did a breathwork video in Harry's AA pack

Anonymous · day 28

I still miss you, even now

Instead: Baked a gingerbread loaf

Anonymous · day 70