Dear Rachel,
You were always joking I wouldn’t marry you because you threw your clothes into piles on the bedroom floor. The real reason I was never going to marry you is because you treated me like an adversary. Every time we talked about anything, you Googled what I was saying so you could try to correct any factual error I made. I will never marry anyone who makes themselves feel better by trying to make me feel worse.
Dear Jane,
I was never going to marry you because you popped pills and wine corks the second you got home from work. Every night you got sloppier, meaner and belligerent. I will never marry an out-of-control megalomaniac whose own therapist tells her she’s emotionally dysregulated on booze and meds.
Dear Isabella,
I still love you. I thought we would be together forever. But for one hour every night without fail, you poured your unhappiness into me. You’d say things like, “I can’t feel your love because you put the pots and pans in the wrong cupboard.”
You used these insignificant details to rehash your lifetime of complaints at me. I wish I had been strong enough to be your man, and I wish I could’ve helped you, but I was not and I could not. Heartbreaking.
Dear Maura,
I was never going to marry you because after you introduced me to your mother, she hated me, and you didn’t treat me nicely ever again.
You told me you never wanted to break up. But you valued your mother’s disapproval over our perfect relationship, and you withdrew until you didn’t exist anymore. So I had no choice but to break up with you, and I mourned for four long years.
I don’t blame you. I love you. But if you had taken my side, I would have done anything for you and for us. Anything.
Dear Isla,
I would have married you, but you kept flying off the handle over nothing. I didn’t know if it was because you were in perimenopause—I mean that respectfully, not as a joke—or if you didn’t know how to engage in conflict resolution.
Either way, I couldn’t navigate your overreactions to everyday life. If you had tamed your temperament to be half as dramatic, we would be living in married bliss right now.
Dear Torrance,
You were the first person I ever fell in love with, and all I wanted was to marry you forever. We talked on the phone for hours and raced to each other at school. You had a truly great boyfriend.
When I finally, embarrassingly, declared my adoration, I knew the marriage I dreamed for us had become my happily never after. You will always be my original love template for radiant joy, star-bright smiles and death-squeeze hugs.
Dear Sloan,
You thought we would never get married because we’d been together for years, and I hadn’t asked. But then one day I proposed on one knee, and you said yes, we got married, and my life felt fulfilled in a way that exceeded my wildest dreams.
Unfortunately, we just ran out of time together. We tried counseling for two years, but that was a lifejacket we wore while lost at sea. We divorced. I’ve never been the same.
I’ve been better in almost every way, more successful, therapeutically healthier, stronger. I went on to develop deep relationships with other people who were more nurturing than you—and less hard on me. But the younger me would have traded my subsequent, extraordinary life for a long life with you. You were my Disney princess until the fantasy ended.
I used to say, “My heart’s not broken; it’s empty.” But I got over you, the staggering pain faded, and the ghost of us was replaced by my stunning life in progress. I don’t know how I survived, but look at me go.
Dear Me,
I am thrilled to be married to me. Every love who pointed out my faults was usually correct. I take accountability, and I’ve worked on fixing myself constantly. The people I date benefit from my devotion to improving and to my exes who saved me and showed me the real them.
I’m as open as ever to love. But I’ve learned to nurture myself first. I haven’t traded Cupid’s arrow for bitter blood. I found Mr. Right, and he’s me. I am my soulmate. Quiet is the heart that ticks for one.
