Dear Someone: Read this if you're trying to understand how the person who promised to catch you became the one who keeps letting you fall.
Read this if you're wondering why does the one you lean on become the one who breaks you.
Dear, Dear Someone, _
I know you're tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep can fix, but the kind that settles into your bones when someone you love makes you feel like everything you do is wrong. When the person who should be your safe place becomes the source of your deepest exhaustion. When love starts to feel like a test you keep failing, no matter how hard you study the answers they seem to want.
Maybe it started small. A comment here. A sigh there. The way they looked at you when you tried to share good news, like you were speaking a language they didn't want to understand. Maybe they asked why you did it that way instead of celebrating that you did it at all. Maybe they wondered out loud why you couldn't be more like someone else, someone easier, someone who didn't require so much patience.
And now here you are, second-guessing every word before you speak it. Rehearsing conversations in your head, trying to find the version that won't disappoint them. Walking on eggshells in your own life, in your own home, in your own heart. You've become a stranger to yourself, all because you're trying so hard to be whoever they need you to be today.
The cruelest part is that you still love them. You still see glimpses of the person who made you feel safe once. The one who laughed at your jokes instead of explaining why they weren't funny. The one who held you when you cried instead of listing all the reasons you shouldn't be upset. Those glimpses keep you hoping that maybe tomorrow will be different. Maybe tomorrow they'll see you again, really see you, the way they used to.
But tomorrow comes, and with it comes more questions. Why did you say it like that? Why didn't you think of this? Why can't you just be normal? Each question chips away at something inside you. Each criticism becomes a voice in your head, even when they're not around. You start doing their job for them, tearing yourself apart before they get the chance.
You find yourself apologizing for existing. For taking up space. For having needs. For being human. You apologize when you're happy because your joy might annoy them. You apologize when you're sad because your pain might burden them. You apologize for apologizing, and then you apologize for that too.
Some days you wonder if you're the problem. Maybe you really are too sensitive. Maybe you really do everything wrong. Maybe if you could just figure out the right way to be, they would finally be satisfied. So you try harder. You bend further. You make yourself smaller, quieter, less inconvenient.
But here's what I need you to know: You are not too much. You are not too sensitive. You are not wrong for wanting to be loved without conditions, without constant correction, without feeling like you're failing an exam you never signed up for. You are not wrong for expecting the person who claims to love you to actually like you too.
The person who truly loves you doesn't make you feel like you're hard to love. They don't turn your relationship into a courtroom where you're always on trial. They don't make you feel like you need to earn your place at the table of your own life. Real love doesn't require you to disappear. It invites you to show up fully, flaws and all.
I know it's confusing when the criticism comes wrapped in concern. When they say they're only trying to help you. When they insist that if you would just listen, if you would just change, if you would just try harder, everything would be fine. But love that demands you become someone else isn't love at all. It's control wearing a costume.
You keep waiting for them to see how much you're trying. You keep hoping they'll notice how hard you're working to be what they want. But they don't see it because they're not looking for your efforts. They're looking for your failures. They've trained their eyes to spot what's wrong, and so that's all they can see anymore.
And maybe that's not entirely their fault. Maybe they learned this kind of love from someone else. Maybe someone taught them that caring means criticizing. Maybe they genuinely believe they're helping you become better. But their intentions don't heal the wounds their words leave behind. Understanding why someone hurts you doesn't make the hurt disappear.
You've probably tried talking to them about it. You've probably tried to explain how their words make you feel. But somehow the conversation always turns. Suddenly you're defending yourself. Suddenly you're the one apologizing. Suddenly you're comforting them about how hard it is to love someone like you. And you walk away feeling guilty for having feelings at all.
The truth is, some people can only love you if you're willing to shrink. They can only feel big if you make yourself small. They can only feel right if you're always wrong. And no amount of shrinking will ever be enough, because the problem was never your size. The problem is that they've confused love with power, and they can't tell the difference anymore.
You deserve to be loved by someone who celebrates your victories, not someone who finds the flaws in them. You deserve someone who sees your efforts, not just your mistakes. You deserve someone who makes you feel more like yourself, not less. You deserve someone who doesn't make you choose between their love and your dignity.
I know leaving feels impossible. I know staying feels impossible too. You're caught between two kinds of pain, and neither path looks easy. But there's a difference between the pain of staying in a situation that diminishes you and the pain of choosing yourself. One gets worse with time. The other leads somewhere new.
If you can't leave yet, that's okay. Sometimes we need to sit with the truth for a while before we can act on it. Sometimes we need to gather our strength in secret. Sometimes we need to remember who we were before they convinced us we were wrong. Take your time. There's no deadline for saving yourself.
But while you're gathering that strength, start being gentle with yourself in the ways they won't. Start celebrating your own victories, even the tiny ones. Start noticing your efforts, even if no one else does. Start speaking to yourself the way you wish they would speak to you. You can't control their voice, but you can choose your own.
Remember that you are not responsible for healing whatever made them this way. You are not a rehabilitation center for people who refuse to do their own work. You are not obligated to keep setting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm, especially when they complain about the smoke.
Your gentleness is not weakness. Your desire for kindness is not neediness. Your hope for partnership instead of constant criticism is not too much to ask. These are basic ingredients of love, not luxury add-ons. Anyone who makes you feel greedy for wanting them is telling you something important about their capacity to love.
I know you're tired of fighting. Tired of defending yourself. Tired of trying to prove your worth to someone who should already know it. You don't have to fight anymore. You can simply decide that you deserve better and start walking in that direction, even if your steps are small, even if you can't see where you're going yet.
The saddest part is that they've made you afraid of yourself. Afraid of your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own instincts. They've made you doubt the very things that make you who you are. But those parts of you they keep trying to fix? Those might be the best parts. The parts that someone else will treasure. The parts that make you irreplaceable.
You are not a project. You are not a problem to be solved. You are a whole person worthy of love that doesn't hurt. Love that doesn't make you feel like you're always one mistake away from losing it. Love that doesn't require you to prove your worth every single day. Love that lets you rest.
Somewhere out there, there's a love that will feel like coming home instead of walking through a minefield. A love that will make you more yourself, not less. A love that will celebrate your growth instead of demanding it. A love that will hold space for all of you, not just the parts that are convenient.
But first, you have to stop believing that this is all you deserve. You have to stop accepting criticism as care. You have to stop translating control into concern. You have to stop making excuses for people who make you feel like you're hard to love. You're not hard to love. You're just with someone who makes loving look hard.
Your heart knows the truth, even when your mind tries to rationalize it away. Your body knows too. It tells you in the way your shoulders tense when you hear their car in the driveway. In the way your stomach knots when you see their name on your phone. In the way you've learned to make yourself quiet and small. Your body is trying to protect you from a love that feels like danger.
Listen to it. Listen to yourself. Listen to the part of you that knows you deserve better, even if that voice is barely a whisper right now. That whisper is telling you the truth. You deserve a love that feels like safety. You deserve a love that helps you bloom, not one that keeps cutting you down to size.
The person who breaks you while claiming to love you is teaching you something important: not all love is worth having. Not all love is actually love. Sometimes what we call love is just fear dressed up in familiar clothes. Fear of being alone. Fear of starting over. Fear of admitting we chose wrong. But staying in the wrong love is lonelier than being alone. At least when you're alone, you have yourself.
And you are enough. Even if they've made you forget it. Even if you can't feel it right now. You are enough, and you always were. The right person won't need you to prove it. They'll know it the moment they meet you. They'll protect it, celebrate it, cherish it. They'll make you feel more like yourself, not less.
Until then, be your own safe place. Be your own soft landing. Be the voice that says you're doing okay, even when you're not sure you are. You've survived every hard day so far. You'll survive this too. And someday, you'll do more than survive. You'll remember what it feels like to be free.
—Ali Papa.
Author of Letters of Woe and an ever-growing library of books
Conveyor of the Vistas of Hope Newsletter
Shepherd of Wayward Wanderer
P.S. — You don't have to figure it all out today. You don't have to make any big decisions. You don't have to know what comes next. All you have to do is remember that you deserve kindness, especially from the people who claim to love you. If that feels like too much to ask, it's not your standards that are too high. Some people just love from too low a place. You're allowed to want more.
P.P.S. — If these words found you in the middle of your quiet struggle, there are more like them waiting in Unfair: A Compendium of Letters to the Wounded, the Weary, and the Wondering. These aren't solutions or easy answers. They're companions for the days when love feels like punishment and you need someone to remind you that you're not crazy for expecting gentleness. Begin here: 👇
P.P.P.S. — If you’re still searching for your reflection in these words, if you’re feeling unseen or unheard, don’t worry—your unspoken words matter more than you know. Let me write you a personal letter - one that speaks directly to your heart. Click here and share your story with me. In the quiet space between your words and my understanding, we'll create something sacred together. Each letter is crafted with care, written just for you, and completely FREE.
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