I never felt good enough when I was with you, but I thought the problem was me. You certainly made me think that I was the problem. But now that you’re gone, I’m finding that I like myself a lot more than I used to.
Now that I don’t hate myself, I can see that you were the problem, not me. It wasn’t me. It was you. It was always you.
I don’t hate the way I look. When I look at myself in the mirror, all my imperfections are still there, but they don’t matter as much. I just see the things I like about myself. I don’t feel fat since you’re no longer poking my sides while telling me I ate too much and didn’t work out enough. I don’t feel ugly since you’re not inspecting my face and pointing out every pimple.
I don’t hate the way I feel. You never let me express my emotions the way I needed to because you didn’t understand them, but now I can cry when I’m sad and just need a good cry, and I can let off steam when I’m angry. I don’t bottle everything up as I did with you, which always just made it build up until it exploded. Now, I express myself and am much happier.
I don’t hate how much money I make. I don’t care about money the way you do. I make enough money doing what I love to live comfortably, and was ok with that until I was with you. You made me feel like money was the only thing that mattered and essentially told me that unless I could fill my bank account, I was worthless. My paycheck hasn’t changed, but the stress to make money has made it even more enjoyable than before.
I don’t hate my apartment. You didn’t like the colors, my furniture, or my decorating choices. And you often made fun of what I had. Sure, it’s just stuff, but it’s stuff that I picked to live with because I liked it, and you were saying how terrible it was. That made me feel bad about it.
But now, when I walk around my apartment, I remember how much I love the stuff I chose for it.
I don’t hate my friends.
One of your favorite hobbies was taking up as much of my time as you possibly could to take me away from my friends so they couldn’t see what a manipulative jerk you were to warn me. But they saw it anyway and weren’t afraid to tell me, but since you had me so wrapped up in you, I hated them for trying to take you away from me until I saw the truth for myself.
I don’t hate my family. Another of your hobbies was making fun of my family, and it was something that you did every chance you got. I know they’re not perfect, but that didn’t give you the right to find every little thing wrong with them and repeatedly point it out to me and complain about it until I, too, found them “annoying and overbearing.” Now that I see that everything they said and did was out of love for me, I love them more than ever.
I don’t hate myself anymore. My looks, my job, my possessions, and the people in my life are all part of me. You spent the majority of the eight months we were together pulling me apart by hating every aspect of me and constantly comparing me to other women and yourself until I felt like I could never be “good enough” for you.
In the end, it was you who wasn’t good enough for me. I deserve someone that appreciates me for me, not someone who tries to manipulate me into being who they think I should be.
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About The Author: Originally from Michigan, Melody now enjoys working as a freelance writer from her home in Nicaragua, which she shares with her amazing husband and their crazy cat that was raised on goat’s milk from the time her mother abandoned her at just ten days old. They’re excited to be expecting their first baby, who they thought was a girl, were told was a boy, and then was told was a girl. She also recently finished her first novel and is working on making a cat coloring book.
