Dear Former Best Friend,

I say ‘former’ because you are no longer the friend I came to know and love. You have pushed everyone, including me, out of your life to be with someone who treats you far less than you deserve. You lead a double life pretending that everything is okay on the outside, while you are alone fighting this battle on the inside. You think that you can hide what is going on from everyone, but we all know and catch the small pieces you forgot to cover up. You feel that you have to defend his actions and words because we don’t understand that he really does love you, but someone who loves you doesn’t treat you like this. We, your friends, couldn’t possibly fathom that by him verbally tearing you down, he wants the best for you and just doesn’t know how to express it. We don’t get that him mandating everything you do, is just his need to control his surroundings. When he lashes out at you, it’s because you should have known not to say or do whatever you did. It’s not his fault.

But it is. It is his fault. He is a functioning human who is well aware of the words he chooses to use as weapons and he is also aware that the way he treats you is unacceptable. But you let him because you love him and he loves you and he has a great job and promises you a lifetime together where he will take care of you. You think that sounds amazing. He can also help you escape from your messed up home life and you can conquer the world together. So what if he has to manage everything you do and when you get in fights he is overly cruel and you’re the one that always comes groveling back? I don’t know if he hits you, but I’ve seen the texts he sent you when you dared to accuse him of something he did wrong. I’ve never seen anyone be so nasty to another person and when I told you that his reaction wasn’t normal, you turned it around on me. You threw in my face that since I didn’t have a boyfriend I don’t get how real relationships work. I saw your undying devotion and defense of him and knew that no matter what I said you would still go back and I’d be the bad friend who pointed out his imperfections. Because I saw through the façade you both put up of your faux fairytale relationship, now you feel like you can’t trust me anymore since I said he wasn’t good for you. You pushed me away slowly, making excuses to not hang out, weeks turned into months, with only sporadic texts now and then. Whenever I asked about your relationship you gave a blasé answer, with no real details stating that everything’s great because you don’t trust me anymore since now I reflect the true reality back to you.

Even though we aren’t as close anymore, I want you to know that I am always here for you. I want you to know how strong I believe you are and that you don’t need him in your life if it means getting treated like crap everyday. You are so smart and wonderful and deserve to be treated with respect and kindness all the time. If he really loves you, it would kill him to see how devastated you are when he freaks out on you and he would stop doing it. I know it seems like he’s all you have because you pushed everyone out, but we are all still here for you and love you. We miss the girl we became friends with and believe that inside she’s strong enough to make herself happy again.