MM reader, Sara* wrote to me recently: “Hi Mia, I was going through my files and I found this letter I wrote to someone I was in love with for many years. I wrote the letter as a means of trying to let go of some of the anger and pent-up emotion I still had towards him but I never had any intention of sending it.

I thought it would make a good Group Therapy topic- how do you get over someone who’s not in love with you? If anyone has any good advice, I’d love to hear it because at the time, I think there was nothing anyone could have said or done to snap me out of it.”

And here is her letter….

Dear xxx

This is a letter I’ve wanted to write you for years. Despite being best friends for a long time, I think we both know there were a lot of things that were unsaid. This is some of it.

I was in love with you. For a long, long time. Three years at least. I’m pretty sure you already know this. Maybe you don’t know the mechanics or the time frame but I’m sure on some level, you’re aware.

I tried to tell you so many times. I’d stand in the shower under the hot spray and rehearse exactly what I was going to say. I wrote endless letters, pouring my heart out in long-winded diatribes I knew deep down I was never going to send. I remember going for drives and I’d glance over at you and watch the way the shadows danced across your face as I tried to force the words past my lips. But they never came.

Do you have any idea how exhausting it was to spend every waking moment scouring every word you said and everything you did for signs you felt the same way about me? To lie in bed at night and analyse every minute of a conversation for evidence we belonged together? I remember one Christmas when you came over for dinner, as was our tradition. We didn’t usually buy each other Xmas presents, only birthdays, so I was surprised when you produced a box from behind your back.

I opened it, embarassed because I didn’t have anything for you. For a few months, I’d been feeling like maybe the fog was about to lift and I could start to envision a life where I was over you. But as I opened that green box and found a silver bracelet, I was plunged right back in the middle of everything again. It wasn’t just that you had bought me jewellery and it wasn’t just that it was exactly the sort of bracelet I would have chosen for myself. It was that you knew me so well you could pick a piece which would sum up my personality in twisted metal.

It’s a rude shock to realise that everything you’ve believed to be true for almost a decade is a lie. I used to reassure myself that no matter what, you and I would always be best friends. I’d comfort myself by remembering all the experiences we’d shared together- first kiss, high school, university, adulthood- and think that so much shared history would ensure we’d be friends forever. That you wouldn’t ditch me for the first girl who came along. I was wrong.

I could tell from the first head-to-toe withering glance she gave me that we’d never be friends. But I tried hard because I knew it mattered to you. But she was a master of manipulation, telling you I’d said things I hadn’t or refusing to let you go to our regular Wednesday night dinners alone. Slowly but surely, a wedge opened up between us. And eventually, you let the friendship die without so much as a whimper.

I think that was the part that hurt the most. I could make my peace with the fact you weren’t in love with me. It was the fact I never had the place in your life I thought I did that really felt like a shot of Novocaine to the chest.

And looking back, I think I know why I never told you. I used to think it was because I was afraid of the hot poker of rejection driving a stake through my heart, that I preferred to take my pain in gradual payments rather than one lump sum. But now I think it was because deep down, past all the denial, I knew that you knew I was in love with you. And instead of letting me down slowly or gently explaining that you didn’t feel the same way, you let me think that one day it was going to happen. You led me on, because it plumped your ego, and it was easier for you to have a friend who’d drop everything to be there for you.

I remember once you called me when you were upset over some girl who didn’t want to be with you. I’d actually agreed to go out with a guy and my date was minutes away from picking me up. But I duitifully ran over and reassured you she was crazy and things would all work out okay in the end. All that mattered was making sure the connection between you and I would never be severed.

You can’t swallow emotions for years without it having a serious impact on your personality. You wrote on the pages of who I am. Since you, I behave in a way I can never really understand or explain. I cancel dates for no reason. I look for superficial reasons to break up with people. I’m careful not to reveal much about who I really am and the idea of any kind of real intimacy fills me with anxiety. Because I exposed my heart and soul to you and you didn’t want it. So why would anyone else?

I know it’s not quite rational to have so much anger towards you, that I have to accept some personal responsibility in all of this. And maybe that’s what I’m really angry about, that I was such a coward. But you stole something from me, you stole my capacity to hand over my heart and bare my soul, to offer love without any consideration to whether the person was going to keep it safe. You changed who I was and for that I don’t think I will ever quite forgive you.

How beautifully written is that? Oh Sara, that is such an eloquent letter. I kinda wish you’d sent it although there is a huge benefit in writing those things down regardless.

Have you ever had an unrequited or unspoken love? How did you get over it?

As Sarah said…how DO you get over someone who isn’t in love with you? Perhaps they were once or perhaps they never were….

Any advice or experiences you’d care to share…?

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