Why The Best Thing You Did Was Not Love Me Enough

By Kristina Modica

I was so in love with you, that I was constantly making exceptions and excuses for your behavior. I started to accept the things you did to me, the way you would talk down to me, or the way you spoke about people, and how almost everything under the sun was much more important than I was...

I tolerated it — all of it. And I made it seem admissible.

Because you were incredible, in my eyes, and I was so blinded by loving you, that those things seemed so irrelevant. I compromised the person I am, to make your life a bit easier.

To make you feel big, I made myself small.

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You were demanding, harsh, moody, and selfish... very selfish. I would go to extreme lengths just to put a smile on your face, especially if I knew you had a rough day.

But that was always dismissed because there was never any way to make you sincerely smile. It was all in my head.

You were always upset and irritable. But it never stopped me from loving you, completely and wholeheartedly. Can you say the same?

But time has gone by since we’ve been apart, and the best thing you could’ve done was not love me enough.

You taught me how I shouldn’t be treated, what I should never have to put up with, and that I should never have to make myself smaller in order to make someone else feel bigger. I’ve learned not to compromise the good parts of myself for your own pleasure.

For a while, I was really upset with you. Heartbroken and absolutely distraught, but it didn’t take long for me to realize how much of myself I actually lost being with you.

I felt like you had taken a big piece of me and everything I’ve ever given you, and anything I’ve ever done to show you I loved you was easily disposable.

But things seem lighter and much clearer to me now, and for the first time in a long time, I’m me again.

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You always made it apparent that you were resilient and nothing can ever tear you down because all you ever wanted in life was to get rich or die trying. And that family was a possibility but not a probability.

For quite some time I pretended I wanted those same things as you, but as time went on I realized how lonely and isolated that sounded.

You constantly reminded me about how crazy it sounded to ever want to have kids, or how stupid the constitution of marriage is. You genuinely took the excitement out of one day fantasizing of growing up and being an adult who has a family.

That seemed like the worst idea in the world to you, but what you didn’t know is while I was nodding along with all you were saying, I was secretly always holding back a smile to the thought of those things.

You took a piece of me by making me feel insignificant, and by loving me half-heartedly. It made me question why I wasn’t enough for you, but I now realize it goes far beyond that. It might have to do with you feeling insignificant and small.

And I had no problem being your punching bag, even being taken emotionally advantage of; I wanted to be there for you, through thick and thin. But you never felt the urge to genuinely reciprocate the same feelings.

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I don’t hold any grudges towards you, but I definitely pity you.

I experienced what it’s like to give myself to someone else, I was able to be selfless in a relationship and open up to you completely. You’re the one who held back and didn’t get to experience the joy with me.

In the long run, you’re the one who will realize you missed out on someone who would’ve gone to the end of the earth and back just to show you I cared.

At the end of the day, you taught me a valuable lesson in life and that’s hard to be upset with. I now know much more about how I should be treated and what I shouldn’t tolerate.

Thank you for showing me what love doesn’t look like.

Thank you for not loving me enough, so that now I can choose to love myself. And thank you for breaking my heart time and time again, because without that, I wouldn’t be able to see what I truly deserve.

Thank you for showing me that your perception of love is a one-way street and a bicycle path. I’ve come to learn that’s not what love is at all. I was willing to put in the work for us; however, you just consistently showed me that you weren’t.

So, thank you for showing me there’s more to life than settling for mediocre love.

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Kristina Modica is a writer and frequent contributor to Unwritten whose work focuses on topics of friendship, self-esteem, and relationships.