You have to love them. You have to love them to the point where it nearly kills you. You have to love them like how they should love themselves.

You have to hold their face in the palms of your hands and tell them that they are more worthy than the thoughts they feel. You have to love them despite how they might sabotage good things (including your relationship) because they were never taught how to fully love themselves, never mind love another human being.

You have to be gentle with them, even if you don’t understand their actions. You have to reassure them that you love them even if they can’t love themselves because you see them as who they truly are. They’ll appreciate it, even if they don’t show it, but they’ll still never understand your answer completely.

Loving someone who doesn’t love themselves is the hardest thing you can do when being with somebody. But everyone in this world deserves love, even if they don’t fully understand the concept of it.

Maybe the best solution is a break, and that’s okay. People take breaks for different reasons. Sometimes it’s the right person, but the timing is wrong. Sometimes you have to face your own inner demons before you can throw a relationship into that mix. That is completely okay. It is all okay.

It’s hard. There is no denying that. How do you go from waking up happily next to someone in the morning to waking up alone, or not wanting to wake up at all? How do you go from being all over each other every moment to looking at each other from a distance in dead silence? It seems nearly impossible, believe me, I know. I don’t know what’s worse –staying and hoping things will get better, or breaking up temporarily to make sure they do. I don’t know what’s better either. It’s a miserable experience either way, but you have to be strong for them.

But in a way, a break is good. It’s good for you –both of you. It gives you time to figure out who you are as separate people and learn how to miss each other. What needs to come first is working on yourself to make yourself stronger. Love is often all in the timing.

It is tiring, though. It’s tiring to be pushed away no matter how hard you fight for them. It’s tiring to miss someone and have to live with the emptiness. It’s tiring to say I love you and not hear it back.

I really think I had true love. No. I know I had it. And this absence is making the heart grow fonder, as I am finding out again. Because the most bittersweet moment is when you hear the words “I love you” come from his mouth again after all of that time apart. I think you will come back to me. I’m hoping that you will. It will all be worth it in the end, just like you promised.