Below is a summary, in no particular order, of things I want to say.
I've tried to be succinct, though it's hard to condense months-worth of thoughts (it takes about 8-10 MINS to read).
For some points, there's further detail if you click on ``MORE''.
There's nothing intended to harm you, but some bits may be uncomfortable.
Here goes:-
You may think, from the limited conversations we've had, that I've cared most about my own pain in this. It's not true. (MORE);
I think there may have been another person, before me, who was never discovered. (MORE);
In our conversations you responded multiple times to things I never said - so I want to be clear: I understood your choices. I respected, accepted, and supported them. I haven't retaliated in pain or anger. These were my choices. I wanted you to feel safe, even in leaving me. It's not always been easy, it's taken strength, and might not be an option for someone who cared for you less. So it was disrespectful that you felt the need to say: ``I had to make choices'', ``we can't all be winners'', etc., as if I'd asked you to change anything. I had not.
I was worthy of more respect and a better Goodbye than you gave me, even if the overall outcome could not have been different. (MORE);
I want to put right the one time I wasn't authentic with you, even if it's insignificant now. The day you left for your holiday, after my rabbit had died, we spoke while you returned from golf. You said you felt bad about leaving me, and I replied: ``I'm not your responsibility''. I want you to know those words were a defence mechanism, a way to remind myself of reality. By then, you were the person I wanted to run to, confide in, and be protected by. I wanted to be your responsibility, but knew I was not. Your simple response, ``I feel like you are'', broke down my defences. I've never felt safer, more understood, or more able to be myself, than I did with you.
this is a recording I did a few days after our last conversation; the content is summarised below): -->
I don't believe that keeping people away was to protect me††
(MORE).
It's insulting, because of the contrast with what I've done for you.
Without retaliation, I've dealt with my own heartbreak,
with no comfort from the one who broke it.
I've suppressed all natural instincts to lash out or defend myself,
and made the choice to care for you above all else.
It isn't easy: I'm human, I've been hurt, and I've unfairly taken most of the blame.
It's especially difficult when I no longer know if you ever truly cared.
I hate myself for lying, when I know it's the worst part -
honesty would be much easier for me.
If you'd been protecting me, you'd have told the truth,
at least about your feelings at the time, and your role versus mine.
You'd have let me take accountability only for my part.
The truth is also the only thing that doesn't try and manipulate the outcome in your own favour.
(††To be clear: I don't fear confrontation and would welcome speaking to people such as your sister - if you're still unwilling to send them my way, perhaps it means your actions weren't for my benefit. You're also not alone in offering protection by keeping people away: my mother, though softening after our November conversation, has struggled to cope with my pain, and threatens to ``set things straight with Chantelle'' - I've given her no direct means, and made clear that harming you would hurt me. I've done my utmost to shield you, through actions, words, and in the details I withhold from everyone.)
Our last day was the same day that what remained of my barriers crumbled. Just an hour before the end, I'd known what I was going to do next. You'd never let me doubt your feelings for me. I'd come to trust you, the way you wanted, despite the impossible circumstances. I loved you that day. I wanted you. I wanted to experience everything with you. I'd never been happier than I was with you. I felt everything I needed to: I felt safe. So it's hard to cope with my current feelings: I still care for you, and if I let myself, still have all ``those'' feelings too, but, overwhelmingly, I feel dirty and used, because of what I allowed and was willing to give - it may not have mattered to you, but it did to me. (MORE);
You mentioned you were trying to change and aren't the person I knew. I accept that; the person I knew wouldn't have hurt me so easily. I'm not seriously playing victim, but I am making a point. I recognise the impossible position you were in, where pleasing one side meant hurting the other (though point 4 holds). I also want you to be the man you aspire to be, even if I can't be part of it. But, it's hard to imagine that if any part of the person I knew remains, you don't feel some remorse or anguish over how things ended. Additionally, without increased honesty, or if changes lead to excessive loss of individuality, I question if you've truly become better, or just more fearful, living with different lies.
I never realised the tenderness in your voice, towards me, until it wasn't there any more. It's harder to view you, now, as someone who'd never wanted to hurt me. Up to and beyond our November conversation I fully believed that what we'd had was real, even if it was a story that could never play out. But I can't unhear the lack of care in your voice in our last conversation, nor your apparent struggle to remember what was. I can't control your memories or perceptions, or make you feel something you don't. Yet, I'm angry with you for making me doubt what I thought I knew and, if ultimately I meant nothing, for your attempts to gain my trust and being so reckless with my heart. (MORE);
To address an elephant in the room: I suspect you know I've visited your Grandfather's grave.
I inadvertently signalled it on 11th January; consciously, I didn't want you to know, but I
would've also known you're not an idiot. I'm not sure why I slipped up.
To be clear: this was not about seeing you.
I choose random times in the week, when I'm almost certain you won't be there
(with rare exceptions when I've been busy and risked weekends††).
It started in Autumn, during a trip to Leicester via Chipping Norton.
On impulse, I stopped to try and find the grave;
I wanted to pay my respects,
given that story was one of the first things you shared with me.
Somehow, it helped me.
I'd been consumed with grief, pain, and care for you, bottled inside.
I couldn't direct it at you or help you.
I've heard it said that ``grief is just love with nowhere to go'',
and this became a way to channel those feelings:
by honouring someone so important to you, it felt like I was caring for you.
It was an action I could take without risking further harm.
There's more I could say, but this is the best I can do in a few lines.
It was never to see you. I never even wanted you to know.
( ††There have been 3 weekend visits; during the most recent, late January, I saw someone that may have been you - it's the main reason for this admission - and if it was, I'm sorry. I don't want you to fear going to your Gramp's grave. Equally, had I known you'd be in Chipping Norton on the Friday we spoke, I wouldn't have been. It hurts that you've allowed fear of me to be instilled in you, when it isn't to do with who I am, nor the true nature of our relationship, which - if viewed standalone and not through the lens of the pain it caused - was filled with happiness, laughter and trust. So, rest assured, I don't want to see you and be forced to witness what's been lost.)