Dear Kourtney Kardashian,

Reading online blogs and seeing television broadcasts reporting on you and Scott Disick’s recent break-up, for me, is reminiscent of hearing ghost stories from my past.

I, too, once dated a Scott Disick type of guy, and that crashed and burned just as magnificently as yours and Scott’s relationship did.

All I’ve seen lately on Twitter and Facebook are posts about how “love is dead” since you two couldn’t make it work, but, honestly, the way I see it, this proves to me that your will to love is stronger than ever.

Now I don’t know you personally, obviously, but from what I’ve seen on “Keeping up with the Kardashians” you have spent more than enough time trying to love Scott. No one can understand how exhausting it is to try and love someone who doesn’t know how to love himself.

For the first time you are loving yourself FIRST and that is so important.

We have spent nearly a decade watching you and the entire Kardashian/Jenner family struggle and plead with Scott to become the man they know he is capable of being, but he wouldn’t. He is and will remain the person he wants to be. No one can change his mind.

It’s not true that people don’t change. People have the ability to change if they make the decision to change for themselves. Scott has had so many opportunities to prove he is capable of being better than the person his actions portray him as, and he literally has wasted them away.

The worst part is that I’ve seen so many people shaming you over Scott’s mess. People are honestly saying that you were too demanding and hard on Scott and that is the reason he continued to party and stray with the mindset that his actions only influence him.

Do people really feel that way?

Kourtney, I hope you take those people’s comments with a grain of salt and a smile.

You cannot expect people to understand the embarrassment of being that girl whose significant other doesn’t know how to put the bottle down and walk away. You cannot expect people to understand the way the hateful, slurred words of someone you love cut you like a knife when you want to leave the party early. Or the fear of the morning-after argument or phone call where you don’t know if they are going to thank you or break up with you.

You can’t expect people to understand why even years later, when you see a girl in a bar or party experiencing the same thing you once dealt with, the only way to describe the feeling in your chest is how you would imagine a soldier with PTSD feels.

What you should expect is for people to support you when you make the decision to run. Run from someone who only hurts you and causes you pain. Run from someone whose only mission is to tear everyone who loves them down with them.

Just because you love them doesn’t make their actions acceptable.

Run toward a new future. Both of you deserve happiness, so run toward a future where both of you are able to find the happiness that you so desperately want. That’s all you can hope for for some people.

So to you, Kourtney, I just have one thing to say: Be proud of the person you are for yourself and your children. You have so much support from us women who have felt what you are feeling. You are brave and encouraging and are being such an incredible role model for women across the world who are experiencing scary, toxic relationships like the one you were a part of for so long. You are giving them the courage to begin loving themselves first.

You deserve better. We all deserve better.

Love,

Someone Who Has Also Dated a Scott Disick