Dear Princess,

It’s been six months to the day that you broke me and my heart. I’ve struggled and thought of you every day since you left me. I’ve cried, I’ve grieved, I’ve wallowed in self-pity and berated myself for my wrong-doings for so long. You have no idea the mental suffering you have caused me. YOU. BROKE. ME. I gave you everything of me. I left the key to my own happiness with you… that is my greatest mistake. I have written this letter and re-written it a dozen times in these past months. Only really now, I’m stronger in a new year am I really ready to put everything properly into words. Words that will permanently remove you and the longing I have to repair us, or, for you to come back to me.

If you ever read this letter I don’t know what circumstances they may be under as I have promised myself never to send you this, or to ever pro-actively contact you again to attempt to re-connect us. But this letter is not meant for you, it is meant for me. I know my love poem wasn’t welcomed and how a love letter would’ve been worse… this isn’t a love letter, this is a way of closure because you refused to give me any. When I asked you to meet me to get closure, to just help me understand the reasons why… you said I should ‘write something down’… well, this is me writing it down. I want to close this chapter of my life, you, and 2016 off for good. If you ever do read this, please take the time to read it in full; knowing it’s the truth from my perspective. I’ve written this to get everything out of my head, which I could never properly express to you.

It has been an awfully painful year; one thing after another has hammered me down. So low that at one point after discovering my Mum’s cancer when I had to face the realisation that I could lose all the people I love at the same time, I just didn’t want to carry on living anymore. That was a dark place and all I wanted to comfort me, was you. You weren’t there. On my birthday I didn’t ask for gifts, all I asked of you was to be there when I needed you, you weren’t! Do you realise how lonely and fearful I was? So lost and alone, broken and beaten beyond any pain I’d ever experienced. Looking into the future all I could see was darkness, void of love. I didn’t dare call you; you were off on holiday to the place I’d dreamed of taking you… alone.

See this is what I’ve come to realise about ‘us’. We were never ‘us’, it was 90% you and 10% me, I was just there to help you on your path and your ‘tough year’. If god had sent me to help you, then he sent you to destroy me. We were never ‘a team’ like you wanted us to be, because you never really picked me for your squad. When you spoke of the future, I was never in it. It was always where you were going, what you were going to do. It didn’t come into your mind where I would be, it was always just about you! All you ever let me be was an able bodied assistant that was there to run around and make you feel good about yourself. Don’t get me wrong, I thought that was the way it’s meant to be… it’s not. I realise now that when you jested that I was ‘good dick and money’, that’s all you really kept me on board for… a sex toy and a wallet, you never really had any true emotions for me.

Marriage… it’s a bond that’s supposed to last forever right? I thought you were the one for me when we were in Rome that weekend. I was so lost in you, I loved everything about you, I thought that we would carry on happily ever after. Little did you know, that two weeks later when you ripped my heart from my chest, the night before I’d been discussing with my best friends that I was thinking of proposing to you. You got me to the deepest point of love and affection, and then destroyed me. I spent months in a sleepless slumber. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t spend a moment of a day not thinking about how you giggled, or called me bear, Mr snuggles or any of the cute nicknames you had for me, princess. The look in your eye when you turned over after stealing all the covers…The way you smiled at me over dinner that night in Rome. The way we cuddled in front of the fire and slept in each other’s arms in Robin Hood’s Bay. There were so many moments of pure happiness; I’d never felt anything like before in my life. I was so in love with you. When it ended, it was like coming down from the hardest drug known to man, and the only cure was you.

I worked and worked on getting you back for months, to show you how I can be a different man. I am a different man now. I know I made some huge mistakes when we were together, for that I am so so sorry! I should’ve shown my love for you and myself through my actions. I should’ve heard everything you said and didn’t say and acted on it. I should’ve proven my love for you with actions, not just trying to spoil you. I’ve re-run the whole relationship over and over in my head piecing together how it went so wrong when things felt so right. I can see all the answers now; neither you nor I was really ready. We are both to blame.

What I really hate myself for, is that I didn’t know what it takes to really hold on to someone you love, I got complacent, arrogant even. I was naïve in the way of relationships and I didn’t really have any experience, you taught me so much, for that I thank you. When I met you I was in the peak of my health, I showed you the man I want to be in my life, then I lost him. I gave up on myself because I’d found you. I’d given up on looking after myself, as I should, because all I could think about was what we were doing together and what would make you happy! I arrogantly thought you wouldn’t leave me because I did so much for you. ‘Doing stuff for you’, that’s one of the reasons it went wrong. You shouldn’t have someone around to ‘do’ things for you; you’re not entitled to a manservant that will run around for you to please you. After a while it became stressful, I could only ever do so much for you I lost all that was left of me. I won’t ever leave the key to my happiness with another person again. I wish I’d learnt these lessons before meeting you; perhaps then it would’ve worked out. I’d have reacted differently, recognised the love, fought for it, and not settled for a time-restricted relationship.

You really fucked us up from the start you know. When you put the time frame on us to go travelling or away to study, you started a ticking time bomb. You created a self-fulfilling prophecy with the intention to destroy us. You kept a knife to my throat the whole time we were together because ‘I didn’t have enough time for you’. That’s why I didn’t go to the gym because that’s the only time I had left to myself that I could spend with you. In truth, you just didn’t have time for me. You never did really care or love me, you loved having me there and running around under your control but you never loved me. Why did you lie to me then? Why did you tell me you loved me when really it was only ever to pull me back in and control me? I used to say you were ‘evil’, you’d mimic me and laugh; little did I know that’s what you are. You manipulated and belittled me, you didn’t respect me, you constantly had me fighting for your affection and jumping through hoops to earn your ‘love’. That isn’t love; love is something you give someone because you see the beauty and good in them. Not something you give when someone does a good job of doing your work. You should’ve never let us carry on when you felt like that from the start. If you had loved me, you’d have supported me… If we’d looked past the 10 months together then buying a flat would have been about ‘us’, not me. I’d have asked to move into somewhere rented with you, looked to have removed the obstacles that made being together hard for us. I’d have made so many different decisions to those that I made. When we argued at the pub and I said you should go if you want to go, that was out of despair at having been held in a noose for so long, not knowing what was happening with us, where I stood or where I belonged in your life. It was torture, pure torture to keep me hanging there, trying to hold on to a thread of your love for me.

Then again I wonder whether you did try… but you gave up on me so quickly. You were worried about me at one point… my weight, my health, my own ambitions and my own path in life, but I didn’t really listen then. I have now; I have re-lived those moments and wondered ‘what if’ over and over to a point where I can’t breathe anymoree. I’ve suffered from anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, and depression, everything since you left me.

My friends now say you were toxic, that you are not a nice person and that you will move on to the next person that will eventually suffer the same fate. The same ‘love’ then ultimate loss. I can’t believe that you moved on so quickly, that you messaged my replacement you had lined up the very next day after breaking my heart. You were still logged in to Facebook on my iPad and I saw everything. ‘Team Vogue’ back in full force, just as you wanted really the whole time. I see so many signs now, the messages and talking to your ex. The ‘snapchat’ stories reminding you of previous lovers and conquests ‘making you jealous’, how you’d used tinder just to hook-up or how your previous affairs had been to control otherwise ‘taken’ men. How you used to say I had a ‘side bitch’ and that I was cheating… All of those signs I ignored blinded by love for you. I would have done literally anything for you princess. I’d have jumped in front of a train to save you. I’d already given you every shred of dignity I had, but I’d of given you everything else I possess. That’s how much I loved you and how much control you had over me…

When you left me, you said ‘I didn’t have enough time for you’, that I you weren’t the right girl for me…. later you said I was lazy and too emotional. Love is emotional! When we spoke after, I told you I’d changed. You said that ‘now wasn’t a good time’… ‘We could be friends with benefits’. You’d finally got your freedom and probably another man good enough without the emotional attachment. That’s all you ever really wanted from me, you never wanted a relationship, you just wanted a friends with benefits relationship that would keep you satisfied. That’s why you never really invested in ‘us’; you always had one foot out of the door ready to move on. You can’t go in to a relationship with someone like that. Tell me I’m wrong?!

What I guess hurts me the most is what could have been. If you’d only worked with me and given me an ultimatum about what was displeasing you. Talked about how you wanted our future to be like together, not you alone. Just really communicated openly with me, not through undertones of discomfort hidden under constant belittling laughter. I would’ve worked my ass off to do anything to keep you in my arms.

Before, I didn’t really understand how I was living to please others people, how I’d spend all my time trying to keep you happy and my family running. I didn’t allow any time for myself, or what really made me happy, for those fleeting 10 months that was you. For the painfully slow last 6 months it has been forgetting you. I guess really you got tired of my empty promises to you, that’s not respectful from me, Love is about respecting each other, and for that I’m truly sorry. In the future, it will be about me, it will be respect for my partner and me; it will be what I want to do and what’s important to me first. Not what I have to do for others first. I look back now and see your face when we came back from Rome, how I had to go home for ‘tea’… that really wasn’t important to me, it was important to my family, not me. I’d have spent the rest of the week with you, had my mind been in the right place.

You were wrong about me you know. You told me I’d die before I was 50… that I just wanted a ‘fat homely’ Harrogate girl, that I couldn’t run a 10k, that I couldn’t find someone that’ll love me whilst I’m at home. But I’ve run 2 races now and I’m signed up to a ½ marathon tough mudder this year, I will keep doing these challenges every year now. I’ve quit smoking and doing drugs completely, I couldn’t carry on as I was, I’d not really grown up I suppose, I guess that’s one of the reasons I loved being with you, I could carry on being childish and care-free for somewhat longer… I did love your childishness you know… it was cute and endearing. Regretfully that’s what also destroyed us.

It’s funny how being broken lets you re-build yourself in to someone else new. They say people change when their hearts are broken or their eyes are opened. You’ve done both of those things to me. I can’t be the same as I was before. I can’t look on my life so carelessly and look to please other people. I have to think about me now, what I want to do in life, where I want to go and things I want to see. I think I want to go travelling, so I’m going to book a few months off to travel the world next year. I want to move away from this sleepy town, I never just wanted a ‘harrogate house wife’ I wanted a partner. Anyway I want to try another part of the world in my life, I’m thinking New Zealand… so I’m going to visit there in my travels, probably will learn to snowboard first… that’s this new years’ challenge.

I’ve started this year for the first time with a plan. A plan for me and where I’m going to take my life, a plan that will fill myself with pride at the accomplishments I will achieve, a design for the man I’m going to be, that very same man you met at the start, the man that was ‘on the tin’. When you see me again you won’t run past and ignore me. You’ll think how I once knew him, helped him by breaking him.

You showed me what loving someone is, and how devastating it is when it’s broken.

You said I am a great guy, a great boyfriend and that someone will be lucky to have me. You so flippantly said that there must be dozens of girls that would want a guy just like me. Well it’s not about just having someone; it’s finding that someone you love. It’s about that common connection and chemistry. It’s about wanting to fulfil all of their hopes and dream and help them become everything they want to be. I’m sorry that I didn’t prove that to you enough.

Truly and irrevocably, I was so deeply in love with you.

There are so many things I want to say sorry for… so here they are:
• I regret not listening to you and acting on my promises to stay healthy
• I regret not fully understanding how important you were to me or thinking that you were not a priority in my life
• I regret being arrogant and cocky thinking that I was superior in any way, not showing my respect I had for you
• I regret trying to spoil you with gifts and money, I should’ve been more caring as a person
• I regret not going back to you within hours or days of breaking up, not a month later like I did, it was too late.
• I regret not saying ‘what about us’ when you discussed your future, I should’ve insisted that I had a place in it. We had a future!
• I regret not proposing to move in with you
• I regret that I ever made you think I’d come see you when it was convenient
• I regret ever being late for our dates or standing you up for my mates
• I massively regret not letting you stay at mine that weekend you left me, It would’ve done no harm having you there for the boxing. I’d of loved for you to have been there with me. I’m sorry I made you feel like second best when you obviously wanted company. I’m so sorry!
• I regret smoking weed and letting that be one more foible of mine, I’m so sorry
• I’m sorry I let my health slip and get fat, there’s no excuse.
• I regret that I didn’t show you how you were a priority to me, and I regret trying to please everyone by splitting my time between you and my family.
• I regret haggling down the cost of that polaroid in Rome
• I regret every time that I said I was right… a lot of the times I wasn’t!
• I regret letting us drift apart and not seeing the signs.
• Most of all I regret not knowing about how relationships worked, how I needed to act and what Love really is, I wish I’d had my heart properly broken before meeting you so I could’ve seen how precious it was. That’s my greatest regret.
• I’m happy that you said I was a great boyfriend and that I’m a great guy, but I’m sorry that was not enough for you.
• I regret that I ever made you think like you couldn’t achieve your dreams of being a solicitor and that you should ‘settle’.
• I regret running around after you and doing your housework. I should’ve made a point that I want your company when we were together
• I regret not helping to teach you to cook and cooking together
• I regret not taking you to a dance class and learning to dance with one another
• I regret not letting you take the lead when you wanted
• And I regret I ever let you go without you giving me one last shot.
• I regret not ‘making love’ with you rather than just having sex and I wish we’d have made it more emotional. I wish I could turn back time so I could do things differently.

That’s about everything I wanted to say to you Princess. There have been countless thoughts that have gone through my head over these past months. Oh how I wish you knew just how much I loved you and what I’d do to be with you again.

Just like how our relationship ended – unfinished, so is this letter.

I wish you all the best, I hope everything works out just as you dreamed. I still Love you and I always will.

Good Bye my First True Love

Bear

xxx