Please don’t take my letter to you the wrong way. I would never say anything that would hurt you if I didn’t think that somehow it would benefit you in the long run.

We were roommates, though only for a short period of time. You confided in me and told me your honest feelings. You told me stories about your relationship with him -- the good, the bad, the ugly -- and in that short period of time, I learned a lot about the both of you.

For countless hours, I listened to you go back and forth about your feelings towards him. One minute he’s the missing piece to your happy ending and the next he’s the worst thing to walk the face of the earth. I’ve seen you cry, I’ve seen you struggle, and I’ve seen you desperate for his love.

I can’t say I blame you for wanting to spend the rest of your life with him. You two created a beautiful child together and I know that you want your child to grow up with both parents in the same household just as you did. I want you to know that you don’t need the fairytale family to have a happy ending.

I’ve seen him manipulate you, degrade you, lead you on, and use your child as ammunition in your fights -- all things that he wouldn’t do if he loved you. When we first moved in together, I watched you hurt as you dreamt of your fairytale family. I watched as you got giddy when he came to pick up/drop off the little one, only to see the pain in your eyes when you came back inside and told me that he started yet another argument about something so miniscule.

As time went on, I began to see a change in you -- I saw you find your worth. When we first began living together, you constantly compared yourself to him. He had the better car, the better job, and the better education -- all things that he planted in your head during arguments to make you feel like you weren’t good enough. I watched you bust your ass cleaning apartments, eventually moving up to a leasing agent position, and now into management. All of that hard work to provide for your child -- the only person whose opinion really matters.

I saw you finally learn to enjoy yourself and your twenties, and might I tell you, happy has never looked so good on you. I watched as you slowly let go of the “what if’s” and lived life in the moment. I saw you get ready for a new first date and giggled as you paced in front of the window waiting for your date to arrive. I waited for you to get back and listened as you went on and on about how great of a time you had and that you hadn’t felt that way in years.

He couldn’t stand to see you doing fine without him and I watched as he pulled you back by telling you exactly what you wanted to hear. Whether or not he meant it, I’m not sure. What I do know is that when you reached out to me and told me that you were having second thoughts and that you felt you were too invested to get out now, I knew I couldn’t let you walk down the aisle without telling you how I feel. Unfortunately, I walked down the aisle (of the courthouse) questioning why I was there and if I was making a mistake, but thinking that I had already come this far and spent so many years trying to get there. Though I had people advise me it wasn’t the best decision, no one ever sat me down and told me that he wasn’t the one. So here I am now -- in the middle of a not-so-friendly divorce -- something I want to spare you from.

Yes, it is normal to get cold feet before committing yourself to someone. It’s perfectly okay to be nervous about taking on a new name, new responsibilities, and a new life, but when you start questioning that person and their actions is when you know they aren’t the one. When you being to think, “Well, I’ve already come this far I have to go through with it now,” is when you know they aren’t the one.

A few sunny days can’t take back the damage caused by a storm, so don’t let the warmth of the wedding planning fool you into thinking that marriage will solve all your problems- the damage will still be there when the wedding is over. If things like parenting, finances, and home keeping aren’t agreed upon before hand, it will bring on a whole new storm to your marriage, all things I know you both have disagreements on already.

You had your fair share of listening to my marital issues and you see where I am now. Learn from my mistakes. It is never too late to start over, especially if starting over now saves you the heartache of starting over years down the road.

You are gorgeous, funny, talented, smart, a hard worker, a great mom, and a great woman. You deserve nothing less than the world. I love you and I only want what’s best for you, but what’s best for you might not be him.