Why I had to leave the person I still love

When it comes to breakups, everyone seems to focus on the person who is left behind.

And on that person’s emotional pain. 

People tend to judge whoever is gone, thinking that walking away is the easiest thing to do.

But it is not. Sometimes this is the hardest thing you will have to do.

There are times when you don’t want to leave, but it’s actually the only choice you have. Sometimes you still love the person you leave behind, but you just have to decide that it’s time to start loving yourself more.

There comes a time when you have to choose between your sanity and your relationship – between you and the other. And it’s not selfish to choose yourself. Your heart may tell you otherwise, but your reason knows it’s the only thing to do.

It’s not cowardly either. There are times when you need more courage to leave than to stay. You are fully aware of the consequences – you know you will be devastated once you leave that person, but you will. You know you made the right decision, for your own good.

Yes, you will be heartbroken when you leave. But, you know you will be broken in more than one way if you stay. So you decide to choose yourself, for the first time. You decide to turn your back on the one person you might like.

Never think it hurts less because you are the one who ended things. Grief is always grief no matter which of you made the decision.

I speak knowingly. I left the person I loved and will probably love forever. And that was one of the hardest choices I had to make.

We all have this person who will always be our weakness. But, unfortunately, he’s usually the wrong person for us. I had a very toxic relationship. When I look at it from today’s perspective, I can’t say that this person was the only one who was toxic. I think we were toxic and bad for each other.

Sometimes two people share a strong love and passion for each other, but they just aren’t compatible. You can say these are things you can work on, but if you both have strong temperaments and both of you are stubborn, things will never work out the way they should. Yes, you can try to compromise everything and that will be a good solution for a while. But sooner or later your differences will resurface.

I liked someone who was bad for me. And this person loved me, even though I was bad for him. Maybe we were masochists and that was the reason we loved each other so much or maybe we would have loved each other even more if we had been compatible with each other, I’ll never know. 

But I knew from the start that our relationship was doomed. At first, I wasn’t thinking of anything serious and let my passions guide me.

I tried to fight these feelings. I tried to leave the moment I realized I was losing control of myself. It was the first time in my life that my reason could not dominate my heart. Maybe that’s why it was so good.

This relationship took me through an emotional roller coaster. There were times when I felt like I was on top of the world and the next day I was in a black hole. This person had that kind of impact on me and there was nothing I could do about it.

Instead of feeling relaxed and happy in a relationship, I started to feel more stressed and overwhelmed than ever before.

We both tried to break up more often than I could count. But something kept pulling us together. I thought the rare moments of peace I had with were worth whatever negative I went through. And I thought this person was going to change. In fact, I thought we were both going to change. But things were getting worse and worse.

The moment I realized that all of this was affecting my physical and mental health more than it needed to be, I knew I had to leave. So I did. And that’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life. But I knew it had to be done.

At first I was consumed with guilt. I thought I could do something more. I thought things would turn out differently if I was different. I considered myself selfish, only thinking of my own good. I thought I was leaving when this person needed me the most.

After the guilt period, I started to cry. My heart was broken and I was responsible for it. My mind was fighting a battle with my heart every day. And he almost lost.

But, I continued. But I don’t know how I managed to do it. Deep down, I knew it would be foolish for me to come back to this person. I know we would have been happy for a short period of time, and before we even realized it we would have been trapped in this endless circle of arguing and reconciliation. And that is not a basis for a healthy relationship and for a healthy life.

Of course, when you are in this phase, everything negative and everything that caused you to leave seems small and irrelevant. You only think of beautiful memories and all the happy times.

But, then reality hits you. You know you have to do it if you want to survive. You know that you have no future and that you cannot live in the moment.

And you live day by day. And every day it gets a little easier.

I never really stopped loving this person and I don’t know if it will ever be any different.

But I have learned to live without it. And I know I made the right decision when I left. I know I had the courage to make a decision that changed my life and saved me.