LOVE LETTER SERIES - EP 8: SORRY MY 'WHY' TOOK THIS LONG

 I’ve spent time reflecting on your question “why?” And I think you deserve an honest response, not to reopen wounds, but to give us both a path toward peace.

The truth is, I began to feel emotionally suffocated in the relationship. It wasn’t something you did deliberately, but over time I started to feel like I was shrinking not fully myself. I also often felt like I wasn’t your priority. Whether it was intentional or not, I carried the weight of feeling like an option and that slowly eroded my sense of safety and certainty with you.

Alongside that, I struggled with the romantic side of things. I cared for you deeply as a friend, but I couldn’t sustain the emotional and physical connection that a true partnership requires and I didn’t want to pretend or force it. That wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.

I didn’t handle my exit well, and for that I am truly sorry. But walking away was one of the hardest things I’ve done not because I stopped caring, but because I finally accepted that we weren’t aligned in the way I kept hoping we might be.

You deserve love that feels mutual, effortless, and certain. I hope you find that. And I hope you find healing too because you’re not a bad person.

There’s a particular kind of pain that doesn’t come from betrayal or cruelty it comes from disconnection, from the slow unraveling of something that once felt sure.

I’ve been thinking about the kind of love that looks perfect on paper: kind, consistent, spiritual, respectful the kind that makes everyone else say, “You’re so lucky.” But deep inside, you’re slowly choking. Not because they’re bad, but because you can’t breathe in a space that doesn’t fit you anymore.

Reflection

That was me. I left someone who deeply cared for me. Someone who prayed for me. Someone who believed I was “the one.” And still, I left.

Not because I wanted to hurt him. Not because I found someone else.

But because I couldn’t pretend.

I felt suffocated. Like I was playing a role I never fully stepped into shrinking emotionally, feeling like an option instead of a partner, and silently mourning the absence of attraction that I kept hoping would magically appear.

He deserved to be chosen completely. But so did I.

And when I looked into the future, I couldn’t see us thriving not without pretending, not without resentment growing in the background.

Breaking away wasn’t clean. It wasn’t poetic.

But it was necessary.

He asked for closure. For clarity. For the “why.”

And I didn’t know how to say: “Because I couldn’t breathe. Because I felt like an option.”

It’s a strange thing to walk away from someone good someone who loved you. But love alone isn’t always enough. Compatibility, attraction, freedom, feeling chosen… those matter too.

I don’t write this to shame you.

I write this to speak for the version of me who used to settle out of guilt who thought walking away meant failure.

Sometimes, walking away is honesty.

Sometimes, staying is the real betrayal.

And if you’re in that space confused, guilt-ridden, emotionally tangled I hope you know:

It’s okay to outgrow something that once felt like everything.

It doesn’t mean you’re heartless. It means you’re finally listening to your truth.

And that’s worth honoring.