Thank you. Really, thank you. Though I rarely think of you or those two absolutely horrid years, I occasionally become amazed with the person I have become, and you have played such a crucial role in that. It wasn’t that long ago, that I was entirely broken, miserable, and full of so much self- loathing. I used to blame you for this, but let’s be honest, misery loves company.

I was broke before I met you, and the fact I was willing to be treated so poorly from the get go, illustrates this. Broke from not knowing who I was, where I wanted to be, or how to figure any of that out. You were a challenge, and I was a competitor, and I wanted to think I could change you, I could somehow make you better. It was childish to think I could change a person who so obviously did not want to be what I wanted. I should’ve never jumped from one relationship to another, I should have ended things with my ex and been single instead of dating you, I shoud’ve found myself, because unlike you, he never forced me to ask hard questions about myself and what I wanted. I’m sorry that I put you through what I did, I have never apologized, but it will weigh on me from time to time. I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger two years prior, I’m sorry that I became just like you over the course of our relationship.

I still remember the first night you cheated, I have never experienced such a case of women’s intuition. Thank you for teaching me what it feels like to be betrayed because I would have never realized how someone who’s in love would never think about going out with their guy friends and sleeping with a random girl, any girl. Thank you for lying to my face for a week straight about this until I had to sink to such a level of reading your friend’s phone. I will never touch someone’s phone whom I love because I should never feel like I need to do this. You taught me that.

I’m sorry I didn’t walk away then. I’m sorry we became such awful people because of your inability to commit. I’m sorry we wasted so much time trying to fit a square into a circle.

Thank you for never making me a priority at any point in our relationship. I wake up every day valuing the commitment of the man I love because I know how awful it feels to be undervalued. Thank you for saying such cruel things to me, spitting on me, throwing drinks on me, and doing ugly things to me. I am a stronger, more resilient person because of these things. I realize just how lucky I am to have someone that respects me, since you never did. I was forced to learn to love myself somewhere in our relationship, because I couldn’t count on it from you, thank you for that too.

I could’ve let you decimate my self esteem with the constant let down, but I didn’t, and that’s where I have to apologize. I don’t know how many times you cheated on me. Three that I can count.. judging by the amount of nights you went MIA and ignored my calls, one can only assume it was much more. I don’t think it was the cheating that did it to me though, I think it was more of you being a constant emotional let down, and me never feeling like I was good enough. I mean clearly, I didn’t think I was good enough, or else why would I have stayed? I mean for godsakes remember when you verbalized to me that one of your friends thought I gained weight? What loving MAN could ever think about repeating those words to someone they care about?

The first time, you went down to Sea Isle, per usual, instead of hanging out with me after my Chickies AC orientation at Tropicana. I didn’t mean for it to happen, despite all your shitty behavior in that first year, I still always wanted things to work because I felt so invested, so stuck, like this was the best I was ever going to get. Colleen and I had plans to grab dinner after, we stopped for a couple drinks at Sports Bar and while leaving we ran into our future GM outside of Carmines. Minutes later, our very handsome, very wealthy 37 year old Vice President came out of the restaurant to invite Colleen and I to dinner. Many bottles of wine later, drunk in RiRa, a random girl came up to me and said “Oh my god, I have never seen someone look at someone like they are so in love, I hope I find a guy that looks at me like that.” The only problem was, the man who had his hand on my back, wasn’t my boyfriend. It was an acquaitence I had met a few previous times in EHT, who was 16 years older than me, who was showering me with compliments, and more importantly making me feel loved, something I looking back, don’t think you ever, save for one time long before we were official at Flip Flopz, may have looked at me like. I’ll save you the details, but that night was the first of an entire summer that I cheated on you, with a man, I wanted you to be, but you were nothing like.

He was the opposite of you in every aspect, humble where you were cocky, made me a priority depsite the fact he lived an hour away, respectful and old school, where he did everything he possibly could to protect me from hurt. He was the first one who taught me how I could be treated, but I still delusionally had hopes that person could be you. So as that summer closed, I said goodbye to the man who took me out to $300 dollar dinners, rubbed my back every night before I fell asleep, praised me for looking incredible naked, clothed, and in every state in between, and most importantly made me feel wanted. That life was fun, but I didn’t want to be a step- mother and keeping up appearances with someone who drives a car as much as a house is worth is, frankly, exhausting. That summer, I figured out who I was and was not, and renewed myself to trying to make our relationship work, which proved to be an exhausting and frankly irrepairable task.

We had both already done too much damage at that point. We were hypocrites. You had cheated on me twice, at least, and I had had a full blown affair. Neither of us were what we wanted and we became such awful people in the process. Despite all this, I did my best to make things work. I really don’t remember many good times now, I remember feeling like I was stuck with a bad roommate, in a life that I didn’t want, I’m sure there were nights that we laughed, but I made sure the person I was marrying, doesn’t like videogames or fantasy football. You and I weren’t really that compatible. It makes sense why you constantly chose your friends over me, it was probably the same reason I would spend hours at Chickies every day, those were the people that made me happy. I’m sorry that when I became emotionally disengaged I didn’t break up with you. My poor financial choices of funding most of our life until you started at Chapman left me in a bind late that fall, where I thought I relied on you to live.

I don’t know when I finally realized I was no longer in love with you. It could have been as early as Novemeber, it was certainly when I found you in bed with someone else, and I realized I had come to loathe you by the time we got back from Nashville, to the point where being intimate was literally painful for me.

I’m sorry for the ugly night at the beginning of January, where you saw texts from Sean and I bit your arm, and Maria was stuck to witness everything. I was texting Sean, who had no idea we were still together, I’m sorry for lying. I’m sorry for just not asking you to move out that weekend or many weekends before that. I’m sorry for asking you to move in, but I thank you for doing it because you made me realize how co-habitation should not feel.

Him and I were never like that, and then you didn’t answer me that entire next Friday or the day after that, or the morning of the Sunday of the wedding we had been texting about, so I was his awkward wedding date, since he had just broken up with ex that week. Even after the wedding, it wasn’t supposed to be anything, it was a mistake, as I’m sure you made that weekend, and I figured we would call it even. And then something happened, I started to be happy again, I looked forward to going to work, started shaving my legs again, and wanting to be attractive. I started to catch feelings.. but just like for the past year I strung you along, as you did to me, and we couldn’t walk away from the ugliness.

The morning Doug’s ex texted me, I was in bed with Sean, I am sorry I was hypocritical, I’m sorry I didn’t just pick Noah up and leave your parents, I am sorry I took you back. I am sorry that I let us go on a vacation where I thought about how fun it would be to be with the person I was really falling in love with. And then we got home, and the first opportunity arose for you to choose your friends over me and I finally realized I didn’t need you. I was better than all of this, and I didn’t want to lose the right person for me to keep hurting the wrong person.

Thank you for making me realize I deserved more than empty promises, I deserved actions. Thanks for helping me realize I should wake up looking at the person next to me with nothing other than love, not deep seeded anger. Thank you for helping me realize my self worth, because I am really, really deserving of being loved and loving someone in return. Thank you I guess for helping me grow, in a really odd way. I am such a better person, because I saw the worst parts of myself in you.

I’ve wanted to get all of this off my chest for a while, and none of this is sarcastic or meant to be hurtful. I am just so thankful for our relationship because I don’t think I would be the person I am today, or nearly as good of a fiance had I not been through our ordeal. I wake up every day so appreciative for the little things, something I would have never valued had I not experience it. I get excited to spend Saturdays on the couch with my dogs and someone who chooses me over their friends 10/10. My life is so much less stressful now that I am not a raging psychopath crippled by the real insecurities in my life. I never really realized how much the right person does bring out the good in you, but jesus is it true.

Thank you for this life, because without you I probably would have never taken this path.