Hey, you.
Right now it’s the fourth month of us dating. We just passed three months, which officially makes this the longest relationship I’ve ever had. It’s also the longest time I’ve been in a relationship without saying “I love you”. That’s right. I’ve always said “I love you” in a short amount of time, usually within a few days. But you’re different.
You know my past with dating. You know that I’m not really good at this whole thing, and that I feel like I’m flailing my arms and constantly wondering if other people approve of the pace we’re moving at. I hope that other people don’t think that we’re moving too fast, but to me it feels like we’re moving snail speed. I don’t want to say those three words yet because I don’t mean them.
I don’t think I ever meant those three words when I said them before. When I said “I love you” to the boys I have dated in the past, what I really meant is “I’m lusting for you.” My desire for them was inappropriate, and you could even say obsessive. That desire caused me to move way too fast in a relationship that was headed down a bad path- which always ended in disaster. So no, I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before. I think I’ve been obsessed with boys, and that I didn’t really know what love was, and I didn’t even know what it meant to me at that time. I said those three words because I felt like I had to.
I don’t think I’m ready to say that I love you because I don’t think I love you. I think I appreciate you, and I definitely like you a lot. I like spending time with you. But I don’t think I’m in love. I think that it will still take time for me to figure out what love means to me.
Right now, “love” is a term that I would use to describe God. He loves everyone sacrificially and perfectly. He loved me (and loves me) enough to come down and die on the cross so that I could be in heaven with Him one day. God’s love is eternal, sacrificial, all-knowing, selfless, and perfect. My love is not. Take for an example- my roommates. I am selfish with my love towards them. When we talk, I tend to dominate the conversation. I don’t really care to sit and listen to their stories, and most of the time I turn the conversation back to myself. It’s something I’ve noticed, and something I don’t like. My love for them is selfish. I love them because they make me feel good. But that’s not what love is meant to be. Before I can say that I love you, I think that I need to figure out how to love selflessly (at least, some of the time).
It’s still the fourth month of us dating, just a week or so later. I have decided that we need to slow things down. I like where we’re at right now, but I think we got here a little fast. So maybe we can take a few steps back. Spend more time with other people on our dates. Not text every single day. Maybe we’ll decide to stop making out for a while. It just all happened a little fast for me. I don’t think I can say I love you yet, and I want to take my time to get there.
Four and a half months. That’s two months and two weeks longer than any of my other relationships. Two weeks ago, we broke up. We didn’t even make it to four months. But a few days later, we decided to stay together. Because there’s something about this relationship that is completely different from past ones. There’s something about you, the way that you push me towards God, that I really didn’t want to lose. We got back together because it was worth it. I can’t say I love you, though, because I just lost you. I don’t want to get hurt again.
It’s been three weeks since you broke up with me, and I know that this time, it’s for good. I can’t take the pain on my own. If it wasn’t for God, I would be in a lot more pain right now. But when I start to spiral into sadness, I remember that God loved me more than you ever could. And that he died for me- and I don’t know that you would have done the same. I never said that I loved you, and I’m glad I didn’t. I wouldn’t have meant it. I loved being around you, and I loved the way that you made me feel. I loved the way that my heart would drop to my stomach when you would go out of your way to surprise me with a flower. I loved that you tried to be smooth and buy me a necklace while I was standing ten feet away, and I totally knew that you did it. But my heart still twisted itself up in knots and my lungs imploded when you actually showed me the necklace. I loved that you cared for me more than any person ever has. But honestly, I didn’t know how to love you. I cared about you a lot, but I didn’t love you.
Because love doesn’t manifest itself in fear. I was so afraid to lose you that I didn’t learn how to love you. I got so caught up in trying to make you like me and give me attention that I got wrapped up in my feelings for you, and things progressed way too quickly. When we had been dating for a few months, it felt like we had been dating for years. And so we both decided it was better to pull back. But you pulled back in ways that we hadn’t discussed. We said we were going to text less in between dates, but you treated it like we could never text at all. We decided to only have dates once a week, but you decided that if that date didn’t work out, then we could just have a date the following week and it would be fine. The more you pulled away, the more I wanted to pull away from you. The more I didn’t see you, the more I worried that you were pulling back from me because you didn’t want me. I’ve been hurt in so many ways. And yes, I did want to hurt you because I wanted you to feel the pain that I felt. I wanted you to understand that you were hurting me, but I went about it the wrong way. And I’m sorry. If I could go back and tell my past self that you were doing all of that because you cared about me, I would.
People lie, and I was scared that you were lying to me. That you didn’t really care as much as you said you did. I opened up to you about all the ways that I was lied to and manipulated by boys like you. Boys I thought could never hurt me. And when you started to pull away from me in ways that I didn’t expect, I thought “I’m going to be smarter than him this time. I’m going to hurt him in the ways that he’s hurting me”. But I’ve realized now that you weren’t lying to me. That you didn’t want to hurt me. That you wanted, more than anything, to help me in every way that you could.
I’ve also realized that you wanted to do what was best for you, too. And pulling away from me was going to help you focus on your relationship with God and growing to be more like Christ. And I wanted that, too. Somewhere inside me, I realized the truth of why you were doing what you were doing, and I wanted to help you.
I’ve realized that it’s both of our faults that our relationship failed. And I try not to blame myself anymore, but honestly, it’s hard not to. I’ve learned over and over again this same lesson- that my past really affects my present, and I need to learn how to trust the person I’m dating. Without real trust, I’ll never be able to maintain stable relationships with anyone.
So I wanted to say thank you. Even though this hurts, I want to thank you for helping me to realize what love isn’t. And I hope that someday I’ll learn what it looks like to love someone other than myself.
