I used to think love was a magical fairytale — simple, natural, easy. I believed that if I loved someone with everything I had, I would inherently know the "right" way to do it, and that love would be returned in kind.

Well, not anymore.

I met him at the start of college, in the strange, distant era of COVID. We were just faces on a Zoom call, classmates with no pretense of becoming anything more. But somehow, we did.

It wasn't his looks that pulled me in; it was his presence. His reputation, his lifestyle, the way he thought and spoke — he possessed a quiet magnetism that made me admire him far more than I ever intended. We grew close, then fell apart, then grew close again. The first time, it crumbled under the weight of his uncertainty. The second time, it ended in something far worse: heartbreak.

In an attempt to keep him, I tried to mold myself into the version of me I thought he wanted — the perfect, cookie-cutter ideal wife. I thought if I could just be "enough," he would stay. I thought we could be happy.

I was wrong.

In that process, I lost the very person I was trying to preserve. I stopped recognizing myself. The mirror reflected a stranger, and the happiness I chased turned into a hollow ache. I started questioning the foundation of it all: Was any of it real? If I had just been myself, would he have stayed? If I had set boundaries, if I had held onto my truth, would it have ended differently?

I don't have the answers. And frankly, even now, the ghost of that guilt lingers. I carry the shame of the things I allowed, of the version of me I sacrificed in the name of a love that wasn't designed to last. If I could turn back time, I wouldn't try to change the outcome — I would simply protect the version of me that deserved better.

I know I was wrong in parts of this story. I have to admit that. But I'm also struggling to reconcile that with the fact that what he did out of anger… it just wasn't something I should have had to tolerate. Even though I forgive him so easily — even after everything — I am trapped in a constant battlefield with myself. It feels like a moral tug-of-war, analyzing every cause and effect domino. Was it just him losing control, or did I push him there? I feel like the architect of my own heartbreak.

I can't help but wonder: if I had just been able to speak my truth, to tell him wholeheartedly about every drop of frustration I felt — without filtering it, without fear — would we have separated at all? Would it have changed the trajectory of us?

It eats at me. Even though my head tells me this is for the best, my heart still desperately wishes for a different ending. But I suppose, in the quiet moments, I have to accept that this is the best.

The truth is, I don't know what love is anymore. I don't know how to give it, nor how to receive it without fearing the cost. And that scares me.

But even in the confusion, I still want to believe. I want to feel love again — deep, real, and true. I want to love someone with my whole heart, and for the first time, feel genuinely loved in return.

I still catch myself wondering: With all my flaws, will someone really choose me? Will they see me — the real me — and stay?

I don't know the answer. But I do know this: I want to heal. I want to love again. And next time, I want it to be real.

For me. Because the version of me who stayed, who suffered, and who gave up so much? She never deserved to feel this lost.