I kept trying. I kept letting you back in, hoping that some moment, some way, somehow, something would finally unlock in you — and we’d make things right, as right as they could still get. That you’d apologize for what you did, and what you kept doing. That you’d set things straight, fully, for everyone it touched — including yourself.
There’s a pattern I can see clearly now that I couldn’t see in real time: you’d leave. I’d change the locks. I’d hold for two weeks, maybe less, before caving. You’d come back. I’d let you. This happened more than once — different seasons, different excuses, the same ending every time. One of your absences stretched from a few days into a month.
After that month, and after you moved out before you left, which I assume was so you could stay away the whole time, I made up my mind for real. I said that was it. But you came back and begged to come back. You said you didn’t want to lose our union, and I finally accepted. This time I asked for a public commitment — a real, grand ceremony, because the first one had been so small and private. I knew what I knew by then. I asked anyway, because I thought a public promise, a public apology, might finally be the thing that unlocked whatever was missing. You agreed. The day chosen was one that mattered deeply to me. You showed up. You danced. You celebrated with everyone. Whether it was real or performance, you did it. We had this lavish celebration, and for a while I let myself believe the delusion that I’d finally been chosen.
Two years later, you left again.
This time it was over the holidays. You went away, and soon after you arrived, you stopped calling. Four days of silence passed and I took offense, then fear. The next day, I got on a plane to find out what was going on.
I found you right where you wanted to be, in the home of the life you had there. You let me have my conversation with someone who had every reason to tell me hard truths, and she told them gladly, with details. Eventually she softened, and we spoke like two women who had both been lied to. It was unreal, even sickening. It was New Year’s Eve and nothing was running that late, so she kindly drove me back to my hotel. After that night, you never called. You never came by to see whether I was okay, not even after what I had just heard. I sat alone in an unfamiliar place with all of it, and you stayed right where you were for the rest of your trip. What I learned that week told me the life I thought we had was not the only one you were living.
I’ve come to a conclusion I wish had come sooner: you had no real respect for me and no accountability where I was concerned. Honestly, I’m not sure you have the capacity to take accountability at all. As sickening as it sounds, I allowed you back again and kept building with you — partly out of hope and partly, I think now, to prove to myself how strong I could be. You liked what I could do and what I brought to the relationship. Looking back, I think that was the only reason you stayed: for comfort, and for what my effort unlocked for you and the people around you. I was never meant to be part of your world.
I spent years waiting for something to unlock in you. I never stopped to notice there was nothing there to unlock. You were who you were. And I was already whole. For some reason I kept handing the key to someone who was never going to use it right.
That’s not a wound anymore. That’s just the truth of what happened, finally said out loud.
If you’re reading this while you wait on someone to change, I’m not here to tell you what to do. I just want to offer a question I wish I had asked sooner: what are you holding back from yourself while you wait?
You are not too much for needing honesty. You are not too late for noticing now. And you don’t have to be sure about everything to start choosing yourself.