To the girl who tried to ruin my relationship,

Thank you.

Thank you for all the hurt, sleepless nights, and worry you put me through. Thank you for making my life a complete and total hell and turning everything I knew upside-down.

Thank you for allowing me to realize that no matter how long the relationship, you need to be grateful for the person. Thank you for showing me that just because we had been together for a while didn’t mean someone or something couldn’t come crashing through my “perfect” relationship. Thank you for making me realize that I am strong and can still be my own person.

Because of you, we are stronger than ever. See, when you caused all the problems and threatened to destroy the relationship we worked so hard to build, it put a new perspective on things. It allowed us to both see how much we loved each other and how much we actually wanted to be together. It allowed me to realize that you can’t get comfortable in relationships and put in no effort. It takes a lot of hard work to make a long-term relationship work, especially if there is distance involved, and you helped me (and him) see that we had slacked majorly on the amount of effort we were putting in.

You may have caused me lots of stress and tears shed, but in the end, I won. Not because I ended up with the boy, but because I learned a lot about myself, and it made me — and my relationship with him — stronger.

You may not think about me a lot; I don’t think about you too often either. But when I do, I always am grateful because you, in a way, saved my relationship.