To All The Men I Have Loved Before

Lisa
Lisa
Sep 7, 2018 · 5 min read

I saw this American rom-com a few weeks ago, To All The Boys I have Loved Before. In which, you guessed it right, the main character Lara Jean writes letters to all the boys she has loved before. Regardless of it being a shitty film I felt inspired to do something similar. It’s just one letter because I have only truly loved one man in my life. His name is Jack.

We met through the infamous dating app Tinder in the middle of June just over two years ago. Our first date went like this: Met up in a pub, got drunk, invited him home to my place down the street, shared a frozen pizza and had sex.

But we saw each other again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that until we realised we should probably skip a day to give each other a break to then hold each other again. From then on we were simply inseperable. We were so similar in so many different ways, but also different which was perfect as it would complement and balance us. I took initiative, he always held a bit back. He was political correct and I was straight forward and blunt. I found it hard to connect with people, he was a social butterfly.

But even though we grew closer and appreciated each other more, with time I realised that perfect means “as good as it is possible to be” and that even the real meaning of perfect doesn’t live up to what you think it means.

Jack had suffered from two mental breakdowns, of which one was only 8 months before I met him. He was taking meds for it, which I hated. I had just moved to the U.K. a year earlier and found it hard to settle and make friends, I felt quite lonely. In that way we both saved each other. I didn’t pressure him over and over again talk about his mental health and he didn’t mind that I was a loner and didn’t have any friends. We comforted each other and it was perfect.

This is clearly not my arm

But he didn’t want to be friends on facebook, or meet my actual friends (the few I had made). He didn’t want to meet my family and it took him six months to introduce me to his mum. He never told me that he loved me, not even that I was beautiful, or that he missed me. Ever.

Eventually after nine months he became distant and started avoiding me. I put too much pressure on him about his behaviour and he broke up with me. Said he “couldn’t give me what I needed”, and “didn’t feel the same as I was feeling”. It was painful and I cried straight for a month.

We didn’t speak at all for five months, on purpose. We (he actually) decided it would be better to give each other some time and have a break. Until he texted me and asked me how I was doing. I had moved houses, was about to start a bachelor and had started to forget what he was like, his voice, smell, choice of words, his personality. I was moving on until he walked back into my life and asked me if I wanted to go for a coffee sometime.

The last thing you would expect happened. He didn’t say it with so many words but he basically told me that he had missed me very much and wanted to get back with me (he didn’t say that last thing, I kind of had to guess). And we started dating again, because he was everything to me. He was going to be my husband someday and I would carry his children. I was pretty serious about him but he didn’t knew that.

Eight months later we broke up again. This was March 2018. Bascially the same issues came up and one morning I put pressure on him by asking, “What do you want from me?”. He immediately said it would probably be better to not be together and he broke up with me again, because he couldn’t give me what I needed and he, I literally quote, “am not in love with you”. When he left that morning for the first time in my life I had an actual panic attack and started hyperventilating. In the following months after that I would regularly have panick attacks. I’d have dreams and nightmares about him weekly, waking me up in the middle of the night in shock, or in the morning after a beautiful REM-fase realising that he was out of my life forever.

Not soon after that — and you have to realise that I had had to deal with the pain twice, I had built a wall around me and I thought nothing could hurt me more than what had already happened — I told him I was fine and we could be friends as we had talked about. But we were both attracted to each other and that soon became more than friends. After the first time we slept together he wanted to formally apologise. He said it would never ever happen again, he respected my friendship and it meant a lot to him. But we ended up having sex anyway, and no we weren’t that drunk. We both were almost addicted to each others mental and physical company.

You have to understand that this is the short version of this love story and I am leaving out a lot of detail. Jack hadn’t slept with anyone, yet kissed anyone else since he had met me. And I had probably slept with over ten different men in the period of knowing him. So when we started being “friends” I had pushed him to go out on dates and get out of his comfort zone. I told him it would do him good. So the next time we met up he told me he was going on a date the following week. I felt a storm of anger, jealousy, emptiness and sadness racing through me but I remained calm and told him I was happy for him. Somehow I just knew the date would go well, and for the first time I felt it was time to let go and move on. A few weeks later I decided in an emotional episode (my period was coming up and you know hormones) that I would block him on all social media. I didn’t notify him, I just did it.

And with that I said goodbye to whom I thought was the love of my life.

Now the whirling of the wind has calmed down and ending this relationship for good, space in my head has been made to feel anger and reevaluate the past two years. I am starting to realise that it wasn’t at all the beautiful fairy tale it had seemed. It had been an emotional rollercoaster in which I was emotionally neglected and I dare to say, abused. He didn’t make me happy, he didn’t support me as he should have. In a way I was always taking care of him, while taking care of myself.

I realise I actually haven’t written a letter to him. I thought it would be good to introduce Jack first and write a letter later. I know this is a sad story and he seems like a horrible person. He is a good guy with a warm heart. He is just not the right person for me.

Lisa

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One year, no sex — A weekly update on being abstinent

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