It breaks me to have to say goodbye to you. You were my very best friend, but you broke me one too many times. And now I think it’s time to say a final goodbye. I don’t want to say it, but there’s nothing else to say. In fact, for many years, I so badly wanted with every fiber of my being for us to make it. I wanted the words you say not to be lies, even just once. I wanted everyone to be wrong about you, even just for a while. And I wanted you to prove my deepest fears of you, wrong. But it never happened.

It hurts, it’s always hurt. Never knowing what was really going on, that’s what hurt the most. I never knew how you felt about me and this had me on a constant tangent of “does he really love me,” which is red flag number one,do you feel loved? The answer was no, and that’s what drove me insane.

As you used me over and over again, I wondered if you ever even cared or if it was all just a lie?

My phone chimed. “Text from ****” appeared on my screen. My heart raced and the blood rushed all throughout my body. “I’ll be there soon.” I dressed in my new champagne colored cardigan, my dirty old chucks and bright red lipstick, hoping you thought I looked pretty. I sat by the door waiting for you. 5 mins, 20 mins and an hour slowly passes by… But you never showed.

For 6 years I let you run my life like this. It was a constant push and pull battle. I always wanted you when you didn’t want me, and when I finally moved on that’s when you would come back. I tried to stop it, I really did. I blocked your number so many times and deleted you from my life, but somehow you’d just magically appear again.

You were just so good at convincing you loved me.

Our relationship was on a loop of building me up and destroying me. It was manipulating me into doing things I knew were wrong. It was the constant conversations with other girls behind my back. It was hiding me from everyone in your life. It was your lack of affection, when I just wanted to be held. It was every day I talked to you about something important and you looked right through me. It was ignoring my calls and texts. It was your one word replies when I said I missed you. It was controlling me. It was the way you looked at me, not in a good way. It was the secret relationship we had. It was showing up late to every date. It was cheating on me. It was making me cheat with you. I was always your fallback plan when something (someone) else didn’t go your way. I was always second choice. Sometimes I didn’t even have to wait my turn, you’d keep me on the back burner until you felt like cheating on your current significant other with me, over and over again.

I couldn’t push you away, not even for my own sake. The rejection I felt from you over and over again, engrained in my mind “maybe I’ll never be good enough.” It literally burned under my skin. A dull but persistent pain ached in every inch of my body as I struggled to fight for your attention. You pushed me away several times, sometimes telling me you’d never want to see me again, but reeled me back in like a fish on a hook with lines so scripted they seemed to come from a romance novel.

“You’re mine forever.”

It possessed a feeling of the absolute need to try and conquer the rejection. You wore down my self-worth so much that I actually hated my very being for not being yours. I constantly wondered what was so wrong with me that you bailed on me, and yet to my face said, “I love you.” I actually drove myself to seek your approval in everything I did in hopes maybe one day you'd finally accept me. It gnawed at me for so many years and it completely destroyed me and the image of myself. Every picture I took it was “I wonder if **** will see this.” Every shirt I bought, every night I spent out, every song I liked, I always wondered if it was good enough for you. This disgusting desire to please you slowly was built into my mind as you push and pulled me.

It grew into a disaster that was no longer in my control. For years I let it spiral into this pattern of secretly dating, actually dating, breaking up, secretly talking, getting back together, breaking up, cheating, hating each other, being your other woman, then getting back together, all just to break up again.

And no matter how many times I let you in, there was always one day you’d just quit replying.

For whatever reason I couldn't see the pattern.

Don’t get me wrong, we had our good times. There was a time when I was happy. I have memories of family Christmas, cuddling at the drive in movie theater, playing drinking games with our friends, building forts and kissing all night long. I wouldn’t have stayed if there wasn’t any good. But the bad outweighed the good by thousands and I just was too blind to see that.

When you finally ended it with me, I thought for sure it was done. I was wrong, you always came back for more.

Like clockwork, you’d return and somehow I’d roll over in bed and it was always you I’d wake up next to. You’d whisper in my ear “Don’t tell anyone, I swear, I’ll deny it.” As if anyone would believe me, even if I did tell. You built me into a fool proof master plan, so many years of convoluting this idea I was the crazy one, so if I was to tell anyone he cheated, it seemed to be me making it all up.

I was your perfect lie.

Somewhere along the lines, I lost it and decided I was worth more than this. I can't wait around for the respect I deserved the whole time. I was going to lose my mind over you.

Because of you I struggle to trust, I struggle to accept and to love. Even harder I don’t know how to let myself be loved by anyone. I don’t love myself as much anymore. I self-destruct in every relationship because I don’t know any love apart from our unhealthy ongoing diseased “love.” I can’t even tell someone my feelings because every time I tried to tell you how much I cared for you, you said “I don’t know what to say.” It wasn’t because you couldn’t put your love into words, or you were bad at expressing your feelings, it was because there were no words to say. And now the image of you pops up in my head anytime I start to love someone else, and it reminds me of how painful it is to love someone who doesn’t love you.

I'm no longer "Yours forever," nor am I your "other woman." And I am definitely no longer your perfect lie.

Goodbye.