When we first met, I was in a space where I was strategically planning how I could use men and get what I wanted from them because I had been hurt so many times and I got tired of feeling like a loser. I was talking to another guy before I called you, an older gentlemen who was going through a divorce as well and wanted to ‘date’ me and was talking about taking me out on trips but I didn’t really like him all that much. Then I called you and we talked on the phone for the first time for about an hour. I kinda liked you. It was refreshing to talk to someone like you. That weekend we went on our first date and I have to be honest and say that something didn’t feel right for me but I thought it was from all the pain I’d been through with guys and I didn’t want to take my past out on you. I wanted to love again. As time went on, I got to know you a bit. You admitted to struggling with insecurities and I admired and appreciated your vulnerabilities. I saw a lot of strength in you until we had our first argument and you gave the impression that you didn’t care. You told me you did. I wanted to believe you did. But it didn’t feel like you did. I began to feel like just a piece of ass to you. So I left, or at least tried. We broke up and got back together for the first time. Things were fine until you patronisingly put your finger in my face. We argued. I left and came back. And things for were fine again for a week, two days, a month, and for the past two years I have been leaving and coming back to you. I thought my instincts were off about you, but they weren’t. YOU. DON’T. CARE. I used to take it personally but I don’t anymore. I understand that if you don’t take care of yourself first then you can’t take care of another and you couldn’t care for me the way I needed to be cared for because you didn’t care for yourself. You didn’t care about my feelings because you didn’t care about your own. You beat me up emotionally for expressing vulnerability to you because you believe your own vulnerabilities to be weak. You mocked me and mad fun of me when I expressed my loving feelings to you because you didn’t believe you were worthy of those feelings in yourself. You saw me as weak because I am a woman. You tried to weaken me because, in your eyes, women are weak. But you and I both know that I am not. You and I both know that I am strong. I was strong enough to be open to love again, even after being hurt. I was strong enough to have the compassion and the empathy to love you even when you didn’t love yourself. I was strong enough to be patient with you. I was strong enough to give you chance after chance. I was strong enough to be there for you even when you kept pushing me away. And guess what? I am strong now for letting go. Every time you sucked your teeth or rolled your eyes at me when I was expressing myself to you, every time you took my listening ear for granted, every time you put yourself down, every time you reminded me of why you are a shitty person, little by little I lost respect. And my love includes respect. I held on. I held on tight. and you didn’t realize how much I loved you. You didn’t realize my love for you at all. You continuously tried to push me away. Well, this time you’ve succeeded. Just because I said I was afraid to lose you doesn’t mean I don’t have to courage to let you go. It hurts definitely because I loved you but just because I loved you doesn’t mean I have to let you mistreat me. Right now I am debating on whether or not I want to put your email address in the box below so you can see this letter, but the truth is I won’t do that. Because you know all of this already, but you JUST. DON’T. CARE.