How To Tell Someone You No Longer Love Them

By

I’ve stopped and started this so many times.

I’ve asked myself over and over: Do I really need to? Is it really necessary? Will it just make everything harder? But deep down, I know the answer to those questions. I have done from the start.

I have to tell you that I’m not in love with you anymore.

“I don’t want to be the love-sick little girl you can’t seem to shake. I’m so much more than that.”

You don’t know how much of a relief that is to me. I had loved you for so long that I wondered if I’d ever be able to let you go. If I’d ever not long for the boy I’d fallen for so young and loved ever since. I was immature and foolish, but you – you were magnificent. In your eyes, I saw everything I thought I’d ever want and a million times more.

You probably think I’m exaggerating with this- that it’s just some overworked hyperbole that my writer’s mind can’t resist. But it isn’t. I promise.

I don’t think you realize how incredible you are, how kind and beautiful your heart is, how adored you are by so many. I say this completely without expectation and with a heart full of happiness because, once upon a time, you were my everything. And I wanted so badly to be yours, to make you happy, to make you feel the way I felt every time our eyes met.

I wonder how much you knew that, if at all. I wonder if it would’ve changed things if you did.

I never expected for you to love me back, I hope you know that, and I hope you don’t blame me for writing this, either. I just needed to tell you, to set us both free.

The truth is this: I don’t want to be the love-sick little girl you can’t seem to shake. I’m so much more than that.

That’s not to say I don’t think about you, because I do. I do. But I’ve stopped playing every moment back to myself, analyzing every word, every look. I was just so afraid that what between us was just something I’d fabricated. That it never really happened. I didn’t want to be the stupid girl that mixed what she wanted with what was real, the one who made everything out of nothing.

(I still don’t really know)

But one day that stopped. I stopped longing for you and wishing things had turned out differently. That was the day I realized:

I love you, but I’m not in love with you.

There’s a difference, I see that now.

Forgive me for being so outright. So selfish. For parading my feelings for the world to see and mock, but I’m not ashamed to have fallen for you, just as I’m not ashamed that you didn’t want me back.

I won’t say I’m over you, because you’re not the kind of person you can love for a while and then forget about. I will always love you because you are and have been such a big part of my life.

We just weren’t meant to happen. And I get it now. That’s okay.