I didn’t want to leave you behind. I fought for you for as long as possible. I apologized when I wasn’t even the one in the wrong — and I accepted apologies from you that never actually came.
I planned on keeping you in my world forever. I never even considered walking away until recently.
You didn’t give me a choice. Staying would have been stupid of me.
The first time you hurt me, it was your fault. But the second and third and hundredth time, I had no one to blame except for myself. I knew exactly what I was going to get by staying with you and I stayed anyway. I let you walk all over me. I gave you the freedom to hurt me again and again.
After all this time, I am finally coming to my senses. I love you, but I am not going to compromise my happiness and my comfort to keep you around.
There is no point in talking to you if it’s always going to end in an argument. There is no reason to give you everything I have when you offer nothing in return. There is no sense in continuing to love you when you only cause me stress and anxiety.
You used to be a source of happiness for me, but now you are my most unhealthy habit.
I wish that we could at least stay friends, I wish there was a way for us to keep in touch, but I know the best thing for us is to separate completely. We can’t text each other during the day. We can’t see each other for holidays. We can’t be there for each other in the way we used to be.
I have to say goodbye for good. You can’t be a part of my world anymore.
I feel guilty for walking away from you, because we have been through so much together. There was a time when I wouldn’t be able to imagine living without you, when I wouldn’t even know why I would want to.
But time has changed things. Our relationship is much different now than it was in the very beginning.
The only time I smile when I think about you is when I recall memories of the old you. The you I haven’t seen in a long time.
As bad as I feel about cutting you out of my life, it’s not my fault this is happening. I gave you a million chances and you blew every single one. Every time I decided to start fresh with you, you found a way to reopen old wounds.
You hurt me in more ways than I can count, so I am not going to let myself feel too bad about hurting you by walking away.
You knew this day was going to come. You knew I wasn’t going to let you get away with your chaos forever.
I am sorry things didn’t work out between us, but I’m not going to blame myself when I tried my hardest to set things right between us. I’m not going to let the guilt stop me from doing what I have to do.
By Holly Riordan for ThoughtCatalog