Dear Ex No.2...

In the last letter I wrote, I did it for my first boyfriend. You were my second boyfriend, but not my second love. 

I don't know how I'm going to feel about writing this one. I feel as though you might have been the rebound. I still loved my first love for at least four months on after him and I broke up, and then you came along and made me feel warm again inside. I was so heartbroken and I needed mending. It was wrong to use you to heal my heart, but at the same time, it worked. However, time being with myself would have worked better.

I tried so hard to fall in love with you but in the end, my heart had always belonged to someone else. You were a good boyfriend - loving, caring and always sweet to my family but you had your own baggage too. You had issues that I couldn't handle as your girlfriend and it made me realise that I wasn't ready to be in another relationship.

Your autism didn't bother me though. Let's get that straight. I treated you like anybody else and you didn't even act like you had the condition. What bothered me was your insecurity and jealousy. It pushed me away. 

Keeping you as just a friend would have been the best option. For both of us. To be honest, we were in it for the sex.

There was also speculation saying I cheated on you with my current partner now. I didn't. We broke up and I met the new one the next day. I don't condone cheating.

You became difficult after we broke up, even though we said we would stay friends, but I should've known that it wasn't going to work. I left some of my belongings at your house before university because you got upset that I was going to take it away, with the prospect of us potentially breaking up so, I left it there. Big mistake. You wouldn't give it back. I asked for it back politely and arranged for my mother to pick it up for me since I was in Southampton and wouldn't be home for three months, but you didn't want my mother near your house at all. You said that I either sent money for packaging or came to collect it myself and then, it's the thing afterwards you said which made my shiver "but we both know which one you're going to choose". I was shocked and it struck a bit of fear in me because you were becoming quite scary.

 

After that, had no choice but to contact your father. Your father is a good man and one of the loveliest people I have met. Luckily, he convinced you to hand over my bag but that meant coming to my house. 

I remember phoning my mother up afterwards to see if you handed over my things and what happened. She said when the doorbell rang, she opened the door to you and felt frightened as soon as she saw you. Your body language was stiff and rigid. Your eyes bloodshot and aimed at my mother. She said it looked like you were going to kill her. I remember her saying that she stood right in the doorway to block you, in case you tried to come in. I didn't mean to put my mother in that position where she was scared. It should've been me dealing with you but she wanted to protect me. 



To be honest looking back, it wasn't all smooth sailing trying to part from you. You wanted to mutually break up at New Years which was your version of "a new start"  but none of it made sense. If I wanted to be happy then, why wait another 3 months? And why at New Years? Breaking up when I said and did would still be classed as a fresh start and you knew Christmas/New Years was a sensitive time then due to the previous boyfriend breaking up with me around that time. 

So do you know what I figured out? It was because it wasn't on your own terms. The last time you were in a relationship, you broke up with the poor girl and had me lined up as back up - and then we dated. I noticed since you didn't have a back up already in case we broke up, you wanted to wait until New Years which would give you three months to find a new girl. As much as you said you loved me, you couldn't stand the idea of being alone. Yes I went into another relationship straight away but that's because I did it for love. You would've done it purely because you were scared. Nothing was going the way you planned and you thought you could control that aspect in your life. Emotionally, you were unstable. You needed to love yourself before you started loving someone else because those fears and insecurities would pile on the other person and the strength to hold you up any longer would break. 



And that's what kinda happened. We broke. Our relationship broke, and so did our friendship. 



You said I was cold but I saw myself as emotionally okay and independent. I promised myself that I would never revolve my world around a boyfriend again because I lost my focus last time and my main priority was and still is education, but it seems that it never happened with you because I guess I never fell in love. I just loved you a dear amount. 



After everything that happened, I am sorry I caused you a lot of pain for dating so soon. I remember that was one of your biggest fears, that one day someone would make no effort to woo me and I would just be head over heels like that, whereas you had to make the effort to get into my heart. I tried not to fall for someone so quickly because of the pain I knew it would cause you, but the thing is, I fell in love. I couldn't stop how I felt and I realised that you have to be with people for the right reasons. 

Of course I still cared about you after our relationship ended because I first gained you as a friend but it was never going to be the same afterwards. We both should've handled the situation better but we're exs by the end of the day. 

I hope you achieve what you want in life and wish you all the best. Take care.

Love Isobel.