If you really believed it then maybe you’d try treating me better yourself. But what you really mean is that you might want me to be happy in some vague, half-hearted manner requiring no effort on your part. You hope I’m happy, just not enough to be involved in making me so. And that’s ok. You’re allowed to feel that way. But for goodness sake just say so.

Your life is not a rom-com. Stop trying to justify your actions with trite platitudes. There’s only one thing I’ve ever asked of you – honesty. It’s just not as difficult as you seem to think. You know all those times that you’ve told me ‘I don’t know how to talk about things’ or ‘I can’t make the words come out’ – it’s crap. The reason you can’t find the words is because you’re too busy trying to make them up. Try not lying – the words will come much easier.

Truthfully, my anger does nothing. You will not ever understand what it is I’m angry about because it’s too easy to dismiss it as heartbreak or ‘girl drama’. Let me be clear – IT IS NOT ABOUT THAT. It’s that there is a right and a wrong way to go about things; and given the choice, you will always choose the wrong way. Stop trying to rationalise and justify your behaviour, because all you’re managing to do is put the responsibility for your actions onto other people. You do what you do because YOU choose to – your failings are on you. You didn’t break up with me because I’m not spontaneous enough or because we hadn’t been talking enough – those things can be talked about and worked on. You broke up with me because you saw a shiny new thing you wanted to play with. And I reiterate – that’s fine! But don’t make me have to question myself because you’re too chicken to just say what needs saying. If you choose to do whatever suits you, with no thought for anyone else, then that’s ok – but own your shit! Don’t delete the photo of the two of you holding hands on facebook in the hopes that I won’t see it. Don’t sneak her out of the house (the house we’re stuck sharing for the foreseeable future… you know, since you made the commitment of a lease with me.) in the middle of the night like she’s just some dirty secret. Don’t disrespect her in the vain hope of not disrespecting me. Want to know the only way left to show me respect? Just learn a bit of honesty, with yourself as much as anyone else. It all comes back to the same thing; either you are who you want to be, in which case good for you and don't bother apologising for it, or you're not, in which case it's on you to do something differently.

I’ll never say any of this to you because it's not a lesson anyone can make you learn. I just needed to say it somewhere. I regret nothing. It was a good few years and I get to leave with my dignity intact and my head held high, because I said what needed saying and did what needed doing. Can you really say the same?