Hey guys, so me and my girlfriend of 1.5 years and best friend of 3 years broke up about two months ago. It’s my first year of college and her last. She broke up with me because of the distance and the differences in where she thought we were in life. She said she still loves me just as much as when we first stated dating but she can’t stand the thought of being so far for 3 more years. She said she couldn’t bear the thought of not having me in her life and wanted to remain best friends. I was heartbroken and at the time was going to give up. I actually initiated no contact before coming to this site in an attempt to get over her and move on. About 14 days in I realized there were so many things I left unsaid and that if I didn’t get a chance to say them I would live with that regret for the rest of my life. So I began following the steps here on this site. I made it through no contact and we began texting. That went well so we moved it to calls. Now we are FaceTiming and I think it’s time I finally tell her what i should have said before this mess started. I’ve written a letter that i pan to read to her over FaceTime and wanted to see if it makes me seem needy, insecure, or any other problems. I would appreciate it if you guys would take a look for me.
Here it is
I’m going to be honest. This break has been painful. Honestly it got to the point where I was considering just not contacting you because I realized that you were right when we broke up. I don’t need you in my life to be happy and there was the possibility that letting you back in would cause me to lose all the progress I made. But then something happened. I realized that while I was feeling much better something was missing. It wasn’t a need. A need is an addiction and addiction is an unhealthy thing. It wasn’t fear or insecurity, which were the feelings I felt when we broke up. It was the feeling of regret. Regret that I was giving up on something that brought me the most joy I’ve ever felt. Regret that I wasn’t strong enough to change when I was with you. Regret that I ruined something so pure and beautiful. But most of all, it was regret that the reason I was trying to artificially move on wasn’t because I thought we really didn’t have a chance. No, and I am ashamed to tell you this but the reason I was about to give up is because I was scared. I was a coward. I didn’t think I could handle more pain. At that moment I knew something in me had to change at a fundamental level. But regret wasn’t the only thing I was feeling. I realized I don’t want to walk through life without you by my side.
The characters in movies that I have always admired most were the underdogs. They were my heroes. Sure there are characters that go through entire movies and get through their story and everything just goes right for them. But does that person have the strength to keep moving forward when life knocks him down? Of course not. By always succeeding we miss opportunities to fail and grow stronger. The reason underdogs are my favorite characters is because no matter what problem they face, they face it with strength, and courage. That moment when regret hit made me realize I didn’t like the man I was. I wanted to change. Not just to be worthy of someone else’s love, but to be worthy of my own.
I could make excuses as to why we didn’t work. The distance, the stages were too different and I yes I’m sure that those are excuses for why we didn’t work and not reasons why we didn’t work. A reason comes with a solution. Excuses don’t. I could choose to wallow in self pity and sadness. I could let life hit me and knock me down and choose to just stay down because at least then I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain anymore. But I will not make any more excuses. I will not be a victim to my circumstances. I will not stay down. I will be a man that uses his failures as the reason why I must change, I will be a man that uses his pain as strength. I will be a man that can use his pain and heartache as motivation for us to succeed, not as a reason to think we can’t. That is what I am choosing to do now. I am making up my mind. With 100% certainty. I will become the man that will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. I see so many people settle. Settle for relationships that are less than they deserve, settle for that job that pays less because it’s safe, settle for that desk job instead of following their dreams. I will not settle. I will not live with regrets. I accept my failures but I will not sit idle. I will grow and learn from my failures and pain. I will not be a man who gives up because of his problems, I choose to be the man who fought with all his soul against overwhelming odds against his problems. And won. I choose to be a man who plans for his goals. I choose to be a man who will work for his goals. I choose to be a man who sacrifices whatever it takes to succeed in his goals and live with no regrets. I became okay with complacency and I stopped trying to grow, I stopped trying to improve. I forgot what I was living for. I forgot my purpose. I forgot my why. And for that I am sorry because it turned me into a man I never wanted to be and a man I never wanted you to see. I know my why now.
Mike Tyson once said everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Everyone shows great character when everything is good, but when hard times come we give up. I gave up on trying to get close because I thought we couldn’t with the distance between us. I was wrong . But I’m done giving up. I will never give up again.
The truth is life crushes all of us. And the majority choose to stay down. They choose not to get up. I will not stay down. I will show you, I will show the world, I will show life what I’m made of. It is when we are in the most pain that our true character shines through. I want to be a man that can be proud of his character. And if I give up on us now and don’t give 110% of my soul into this, I will never become that man.
Kathryn we didn’t work for a lot of reasons that were my fault. But one of the few things that falls on both of us, is that neither of us had real faith in our bond. This is what destroyed us. I have never understood faith, but I think I finally understand what faith is. Faith is believing it will happen when there are no signs it will happen. Faith is sitting in the middle of the storm of your life and still being able to picture sunny skies. Faith is believing in your dreams when the people closest to you have stopped believing. Sometimes you have to risk it all for a dream only you can see at the time. Have faith in that dream no matter what you have to sacrifice to get there, no matter how long it will take, have faith it will work out in the end. Faith is taking a first step even when you can’t see the whole path, Trusting the rest of the path will reveal itself in time. Faith is stepping up to the three point line and making your shot even when the conditions aren’t perfect. If you wait for the conditions to be perfect to go after what you might be waiting forever. Einstein once said only those who can see the invisible can do the impossible. You must have faith that what you are picturing in your mind will come to pass. You must have faith the struggle will pass, you must have faith your dream will come because when you believe in yourself and your goals there is nothing that can stop you. Faith is believing it will happen when there is no sign it will, Faith is believing in your dream when no one else does, it is believing in yourself when no one else does… because one day you may have to risk it all for a dream only you can see. It does not matter where we are right now, or who we have been. If we have faith and a relentless desire for our dreams we can truly achieve anything together. It’s easy to be positive to when everything is working out. But it’s much harder, much much harder when nothing is working out. But that’s when we need it the most. Everything worth the prize is worth the fight. Everything worth the prize will require a real fight to achieve it. So yeah it’s not easy, in fact it’s probably one of the hardest things we will ever do, but that’s how we know that it’s worth it.
So I’ve decided I want to have you in my life because I know now that I could be as happy as I was with you with someone else, and knowing that I still choose you. I choose you. I believe completely we can build something that can last. For good. So I want you to know that I do still miss you every day and I hope you feel the same.
When we broke up I was panicking and was saying everything just to get you back not out of a place of love and understanding but out of a very unhealthy state of fear and insecurity. But I have been doing a lot of thinking and I have come to realize how much we needed this time apart. I needed to make real changes in my life not only to become someone that can make you truly happy and is deserving of your love, but because I was not the best version of myself for both you and me.
I believe the biggest issue in our relationship really was the fact that I was a terrible communicator and you needed more from me. The distance was not the problem, I was. I have actually been seeing a school counselor in order to improve my communication skills.
I think another big issue is that I never told you any concrete future I wanted to have with you AFTER long distance ends. I only told you that we will see if it works when what you needed was confidence and a real plan. After this time apart, I finally know what to say. Again the problem wasn’t that we are in different stages, it was me making you think that the stages we are in matter.
Lastly and maybe I am off base here but I think my resolute refusal to try and understand Christianity due to my pride about being right caused a bigger problem than we were willing to admit. It was selfish of me and I should have seen how important your religion is to you. When we ended, I remembered how when I was in church with you for the first time, the pastor said that god is always watching out for you. This came to me after we broke up and I have actually begun attending church and joining a club called CREW which is a Christian organization on campus in order to learn and understand more about Christianity…
These three problems certainly weren’t the only ones, but I think if we can at least take small steps to fix these problems and follow an actual game plan that we agree upon together, we can start to solve the other problems together. Ultimately I’m trying to show you that I’ve truly been making an effort to change myself, not with the purpose of selfishly keeping you with me in an unhappy, unsatisfying relationship, but in order to build a new relationship that we can both be happy in. I have been working on myself and I have learned quite a bit in the past few weeks and am hopeful about what the future will bring for the first time in a long while. Do you know what the broken dish analogy is? Basically if you break a plate and put it back together again it will still be a broken plate right? It will never be the same as it was before it was broken. But in theory you could put together a dish that while not the same as the last one, is just as good or better. And I’m not going to pretend that putting together a new better plate won’t take time, a lot of hard work, and a little bit of luck but knowing what I know now, I truly believe we can make this work if we try again.
The choice is completely up to you. I don’t want to get back together if it’s not the right decision for either one of us. There is no pressure on you to make a commitment and you can walk away right now. But I believe our relationship is worth it. It feels like there is still something here. And if it doesn’t work, I think we can finally both move on knowing we tried our best. I know I made so many mistakes and I am so sorry, but I am human, and I hope you can forgive me for all the reasons you were right and I was wrong. I had a tendency to say I would change and talk a big game but then when it came to walk the walk, I would skip out. I thought I needed you to believe in my ability to change if I was going to be able to. This break has helped me see that it wasn’t you that didnt believe in me. It was me. So I’m gonna tell you right now I won’t tell you I will change. Instead I will show you and make you believe. I have been compiling a list of all the possible problems I could think of that were driving us apart and possible solutions to those problems and I would love to show you what I came up with.
The ways I messed up:
-I didn’t listen to you when you were hurting
-I didn’t visit, when I should have made time
-I said I’d send letters and I almost never did
-I said “sorry” when what you needed wasn’t a “sorry”, but understanding.
-I would be on a different sleep schedule and even though it meant talking less I didn’t do anything to change it
-I would make plans for calls and then not keep them or cut them short
-We needed intimate time and I didn’t put in the reasearch to figure out how we could be intimate long distance, when I should have
-I never tried to understand your relationship with religion
-I thought trying to mix you and school work and partying was working. And I was so wrong
-I didn’t involve you with my life at college. I knew some of your friends personally and I never made any effort for you to get to know mine.
-We didn’t do enough together as a couple when we were away from each other and I am sure if I had put the effort in I could have figured out a solution
-I had stopped trying to learn about you
-I took your love, compassion and faith in me for granted
-I have also been struggling with depression, that I refused to see, and when you asked me what was wrong I always said nothing when I should have taken the time to figure out was wrong with me and shared it with you
-I expected you to have faith in me, when I didn’t truly have faith that you could handle the long distance. How could I expect you to believe in me if couldn’t believe in you
-worst of all I made you think I didn’t truly want a future with you because I didn’t change and I didn’t fight for you with all I had. I am so sorry
I’m guilty of these crimes against you and for that I am so ashamed and sorry to have hurt you. You have every right to be angry with me. And I hope that you can forgive me. But… there’s too much at stake for me to just give more excuses. I’ve come up with possible solutions to each of those problems.
Communication improvement:
-I will listen to you from now on, really listen, not just let your words go in and out without me really hearing them. That will never happen again
-I promise to send letters every other week
-I want to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time on days I don’t have to stay up for homework
-I don’t want you to have to schedule calls. We are supposed to be best friends and best friends don’t need a warning before a call.
-I want to use our touch bracelets finally
-I will listen to your problems and help you solve them instead of just saying sorry and taking the easy way out
-I will visit at least once a month no matter what is standing in my way. And if I can’t I will always find a way to make it up to you
-I will find time to initiate more intimacy over FaceTime and research other methods for long distance intimate time
-I will learn about Christianity and be open to starting a relationship with god if I feel it is right for me
-I want to have date nights where we can eat dinner while FaceTiming together scheduled maybe a few times a week
-I will dedicate specific parts of my day just to you. No distractions. No homework. Just us
-I will introduce you to my friends here and give you information about them so u can feel more connected to my life here at school
-I researched a google chrome extension that would allow us to share a Netflix viewing window on our separate computers. We could have Netflix and chill date nights while FaceTiming. I have also found a website called Blip.fm that lets couples make a radio station together so we could listen to the same music
-We should get the 1000 questions for couples ebook and ask at least 3 questions out of it a day so that we never stop learning about each other
-We should share a journal and keep it for a few weeks and then send it to the other person so they can read over anything that the other missed talking about.
-I’ve started to see the school therapist about my depression problems and communication issues. Writing this down before telling you is actually a strategy I’ve learned. If I’m still not yet good at communicating on the spot, I should think hard about what I want to say before i say it and take the time to collect my thoughts on paper.
-I will make the decision to have faith in you to be the strong person that I know you truly are.
-I will fight with with everything I have for us to be happy. I will fight with my very soul.
-I am going to tell you right now exactly what future I want. This is the light at the my prophesy for the future. You will be the most beautiful and caring teacher in all of Tennessee. I will land a job in Nashville at a small boutique finance firm. I will fly home the day of graduation, drive to your school, and ask you to spend the rest of your life with me.
Kathryn, I know I failed us. I know I failed you. Hell, I failed myself. And I’m sorry. But failure is not the end, it’s just a start. The start of our comeback story. The only way we can call us a failure is if we give up. If we keep going, this is only a hurdle, one that we will overcome. The only way we fail is if we quit. I refuse to quit kathryn. Some people fear failure so much that they never even try. Some people give up right when they were about to succeed, they were so close but then they threw in the towel. I don’t want to be one of those people and I know you don’t either.
The way I see it we can fight for what we want now or we can fight against what we don’t want later. It’s up to us to choose. Now is it going to be easy… No. Is it going to be hard… hell yes it’s going to be hard. But I’ve realized that is the best part. The best part is pushing through the pain. The best part is knowing that we overcame impossible odds to be together. Nothing can grow without challenge. Without challenge life is dull. Without challenge, life can’t have meaning.
I know kathryn. I know how hard it is. The world tells us we can’t do this. The world tells us we will never make it. It’s tough kathryn, life is tough. It’s hard when we work so hard and get so little. It’s hard when your effort is high but the reward is low. It’s hard when you do everything right but everything turns out wrong. But we have to decide. What are we going to do? Are we going to give up? We have every right to give up. We can and probably should throw in the towel. This isn’t for us. That rare successful long distance college relationship that actually makes it. It’s not us. This amazing story of how we fought back and made it despite the odds being stacked against us. It’s not for us! Let’s give up. But kathryn, if we give up, we will never make it. We will never know how great we can be. However, if we fight back, if we suffer through, if we develop an unstoppable desire to do whatever it takes, then we will come out on top. If we miss the target then at least we will live with pride knowing we have no regrets. Kathryn we need to make our lives matter. One day they will be over. There will be two dates on either side of a dash. It’s up to us to make sure that dash is not empty. To make sure it is full of life, full of living. Don’t live like everyone else. Just Existing. Don’t settle. Live every moment with passion and wonder. Don’t take anyone or anything for granted. Life is tough, but we are tougher. Life is persistent, we are relentless. What are we gonna do when life beats us to the ground. Fight back with me kathryn. Don’t back down. You are in charge here just like I am. Life may be tough, but I know you are tougher. There will always be tough moments, tragedy and pain. But if we stay strong and keep fighting together, keep growing together, keep learning together, we will not only survive, but we will thrive. I believe in us kathryn. I’ve made up my mind . With complete certainty. With conviction. This is what I want and I will do whatever it takes to bring it to life. And when you have committed to do whatever it takes you are by definition unstoppable. Because nothing or no one can ever stop the person that is willing to do whatever it takes. The difference in people, the reason why some make it to their definition of happiness, but most settle for a life they would rather not be living is not whether one gets lucky, or has less setbacks than the other. The difference is how badly one wants it. The difference is the happy one is prepared to do whatever it takes to get their happy ending. Don’t ever leave a what if, because Ive realized that the only thing that comes from giving up is the disgusting taste of regret. Kathryn That day we broke up, I realized just how easy it is to get deflated when others don’t believe in you, especially those that are close to you. There are always going to be those who say it can’t be done. Their thoughts and their feelings will beat you down. They will knock you to the ground. Trust me I know because I almost decided to stay down. But when life hits us kathryn, we have to hit back harder. When the world tells us we can’t do what we want to do, we have to prove it wrong. No one, not even life has the right to tell us what we can and can’t do. No one has the right to tell us how we have to live our life. It’s up to us kathryn. It’s going to be hard… and we Will have problems in the future. We are humans. It’s inevitable. But it’s not the size of the problems that matter. It’s the willingness get bast any obstacle, climb any mountain, cross any valley in order to be together. And if there is anything worth fighting for in this world, it’s true love. And I believe that what we have is true love. I’m asking if you are willing to give one more rep even when you think you can’t. I know you are tired kathryn. Trust me I know. But like I said before. We only get one shot at life. We have to fight for what we love. We have to fight for our happiness because it won’t just fall in our laps. We have to fight our hardest when it makes the least sense to do so. When everything is going to hell, when we’re not sure if we can make it another day, that’s when we have to fight the hardest. If the journey wasn’t challenging, then the destination wouldn’t be worth it. I know that now. So kathryn, yes it’s going to be one of the hardest things either of us will ever do, but if you take this chance with me, the story we write together will be one of the greatest legends ever written.
Sorry it’s so long but I would really like to hear y’alls’ opinion
Thanks