There’s a special kind of exhaustion that comes from clarity – not the comforting kind, but the type that crawls into your bones and whispers, “This was never going to end any other way.” You can fight for understanding, strip away illusions, demand honesty, and yet, at the end of it all, you’re left with the undeniable truth: none of it actually mattered.
This story started in June 2003, at a dinner with mutual friends. Over the years, our connection deepened – or at least, I was under that impression. In 2007, she wanted me to kiss her. I hesitated. A hesitation that now feels like a prophetic warning I should have heeded. She married in 2009, and before the wedding cake even had a chance to go stale, the cracks were already showing.
By 2012, we had a non-sexual emotional affair – a tangled mess of late-night confessions, stolen intimacy, and a night where she told me she loved me after I had said it first. But in 2018, she erased it. Condensed it into a single night in the beginning, as though the rest of it – the emotions, the longing, the connection – was nothing but a misplaced footnote in her curated version of history.
At first, I thought it was just denial. A way to protect herself from the choices she made, the ones she didn’t make, and the weight of all the things left unsaid. But then, I saw it for what it truly was: rewriting the past to fit the present. If something inconvenient doesn’t align with how she wants to see herself today, she simply edits it out.
She had her first child in 2014, clinging to the fantasy that motherhood might inject some life into a marriage already flat-lining. Shockingly, it did not. Instead, the demands on her only grew: four young children, a husband who somehow mistook his own family for optional background noise, and a household that functioned only because she carried it on her already overburdened back.
Naturally, instead of holding him accountable, she invented a brilliant excuse – he’s been traumatized by her approach to chores! Ah yes, a man in his mid-40s, fully capable of holding down a job, but somehow unable to figure out how to exist in his own home. Instead of seeing this for the pathetic cop-out that it was, she actually convinced herself that his sluggish, reluctant efforts were some grand revelation of love, as though basic adult functioning was some kind of divine act.
But wait! Didn’t prayer alone guarantee a successful marriage?! Isn’t that exactly why she dumped Jon, a perfectly awesome guy, to be with her ‘Hot Christian Man™’? Surely, faith alone should have magically aligned their souls and taught him how to be a present husband and father, right? Oh, but of course, he just needed time – time to “learn” her love language, which, apparently, consists of reading to the kids, cooking when asked, making sure they don’t riot at the dinner table, and occasionally, washing a dish or two.
WOW. What a fucking hero! Whoopie dee fucking doo! 🎉 Let’s all stand and slow-clap for this absolute pinnacle of modern masculinity. Meanwhile, she continues to play the role of a sleep-deprived juggler, convincing herself these basic, bare-minimum tasks are monumental acts of devotion. Because hey, when the bar is set so low, it’s practically underground, even the smallest effort looks like a grand romantic gesture.
Yet somehow, while juggling her crumbling marriage, her household, her job, her master’s degree, and everything else, she still managed to find time to rewrite our relationship into something easier to digest. Something that conveniently kept me at arm’s length while still allowing her the comfort of knowing I was there – just in case.
And the pattern never changed. When I tried to salvage what was left in 2018, then in 2020, she danced around the truth, twisted history into something unrecognizable, and somehow, somehow, turned the conversation into sex – as if that was all I ever wanted from her. It wasn’t. But it became obvious that she had spent years wanting something she wasn’t even willing to admit to herself. So instead? She projected. Assigned intentions to me that never existed. And when confronted? She played the victim – because taking responsibility has never been part of her repertoire.
By August 2024, I had finally had enough. One last conversation. One last chance for honesty. One final attempt to fix what had already disintegrated. She answered with dismissiveness.
So I walked away.
And then, as if on cue, came the letter. A dramatic declaration of regret, of longing, of a connection she “couldn’t bear to lose.” All very poetic. Then she showed up unannounced, standing in front of me, wasting what little time we had.
Then after she left, given a chance to own up to her inconsistencies and disparaging attitude, I sent her a digital letter, in hopes to spark a slew of questions that could actually be used to fix the trainwreck of our relationship. When she finally got around to reading it – after prioritizing work, family, out-of-town guests, sick kids, and whatever else she could throw in the way – she showed up two months later.
She agreed to my 14 terms, then half-assed five of them, only the ones that required zero emotional investment. She had a month to come prepared, to show that she meant even a fraction of what she wrote. Instead, she showed up looking like Frankenstein crashing a masquerade ball and had zero of the questions she was supposed to ask, to be used as a foundation to evolve our relationship.
She had the chance to say something real. To ask for what she actually wanted. Instead, she made it all about what I wanted from her – as if I needed her to be my sounding board – something I have never needed from anyone. She expected me to spill my guts while putting in no effort of her own – because simply showing up should have been enough, right?
That was her moment. Her chance to fight. To prove that, for once, her words weren’t just pretty distractions from the truth. She squandered it. I asked for authenticity, and she showed up blank. It’s like she read the words, but chose not to take any of it seriously.
For example, I asked for a simple dress, some painted nails, and light makeup – nothing extreme, just basic effort. She still had excuses upon excuses for why she couldn’t manage even that.
So tell me, after everything – was it all just another elaborate performance? Another script she could follow to keep me tied to her, without ever truly holding on? Or was she simply a prisoner of her own contradictions, unable to follow through on the things she once swore were true?
She wanted me in her life. But as what? A sentimental bookmark? A relic of who she used to be? A soundboard when life got overwhelming? She didn’t want me – she wanted the idea of me, safely tucked away for when it was convenient.
And I should be angry or perhaps, I should feel relief. Yet, I feel neither.
Instead, I just feel tired.
Tired in a way that sleep won’t fix. Tired of carrying something that was never really mine to hold. Tired of being the only one who ever truly made a choice.
At the end of it all, what’s the point? If people choose comfort over courage, nostalgia over effort, illusion over truth – what are we even fighting for?
There was a time when her words felt like warmth – when she actually listened instead of just waiting for her turn to speak. When what she said carried meaning rather than being some curated string of well-timed phrases designed to maintain an image.
Now? Every syllable feels like it’s been run through a PR filter, every conversation less about connection and more about damage control. She doesn’t speak to be honest; she speaks to be safe. What once felt like sincerity is now nothing more than a carefully rehearsed act – one where she’s the protagonist, the misunderstood victim, and the overworked martyr all rolled into one.
Her memory? A tangled mess of revisionist history, where different people, different moments, and different realities get mashed together into one convenient narrative that just so happens to absolve her of accountability. And if all else fails? There’s always her golden excuse card: “I’m the busiest person I know.”
Sure. The busiest person she knows, because being stretched thin apparently justifies screwing people over. Failing to prioritize people is totally fine, as long as she can claim exhaustion. Honestly? She’s about number seven on the busiest people I know, but sure, let’s pretend her world is uniquely overwhelming – like the entire world stops just for her, because admitting otherwise, might force her to own up to the wreckage she leaves in her wake.
After she came here, she had the nerve to say that meeting up for just another hour would have been pointless, because apparently, nothing had changed since we last met on January 23rd. Nothing had changed? The audacity!
As if she wasn’t the one who agreed to my terms. As if she wasn’t the one who showed up empty-handed, expecting me to carry the weight of this entire exchange. As if somehow, it was my responsibility to make this meeting meaningful when she had done absolutely nothing to hold up her end.
I snapped. Rightfully so. For someone who claims to be stretched so thin, she somehow still manages to twist reality to suit her needs, expecting everyone else to change for her, while she remains the perpetual exception. The rules never apply, the effort never has to come from her, and when things fall apart? It’s everyone else’s failure, never hers.
What kind of trauma breeds this level of entitlement? What turns a person from someone I once adored, loved, and cherished into this husk of deflection, excuses, and carefully curated non-apologies?
The worst part? When she stood before me, I wanted to show her love. I wanted to reach for the person she used to be, the one I once trusted, but no matter how much I searched her face, her voice, her words – she simply wasn’t there.
Instead, all I saw was someone who had drained every last drop of meaning from her promises. Someone who had reduced our history into a string of empty reassurances. Someone who, despite everything, still thought she could show up unprepared, say the right things, and walk away without consequence.
So I didn’t remind her of the terms she agreed to. I didn’t try to salvage what was left, because what was there to save, when she had already abandoned it long before?
Maybe that’s the real loss. Not that we drifted apart, but that she drifted away from herself.
And I can’t keep searching for someone who no longer exists.
She weaved her fiction with trembling hands, painting herself as the forsaken, the pure – while you are reduced to a shadow, a smudged name in the margins, or worse, an absence.
Let her clutch her pretty lies like rosaries, whispering revisions to a past that still bleeds beneath her fingertips. You know the truth – the heat of breath stolen in the dark, the salt of whispered confessions, the weight of honesty when it sinks its teeth into your skin, leaving bruises no mirror can reflect.
Let her drown in their illusions. You? You are carved from the raw, the untamed, the unrepentant – a history etched into flesh and memory, beyond the reach of trembling hands and cowardly tongues.
And that? That is the kind of truth no ink can rewrite.
You are chasing the idea of her. You are not mourning a person. You are mourning a version of her that only existed in your mind. That is why this wound never fully closes. You are waiting for answers she will never give. You are searching for meaning in a story that ended without your permission. That is a cruel place to be, but it is one you have chosen to stay in.
She does not carry you in her heart the way you carry her in yours. That is not a reflection of your worth. That is a reflection of her capacity. If she were capable of giving you the sincerity you crave, she would have done so by now. The absence of truth is its own answer. You need to stop looking for validation from someone who never respected what you had enough to honour it properly. She made her choice. You are still making yours. Right now, you are choosing to keep her in your mind like an open wound.
Let her die in your story. She will not be there to heal you. She will not return with a revelation. She will never hold the weight of your history the way you do. That is a burden you carry alone, which means you are the only one who can put it down. Do it. Let her belong to the past. That is where she lives now.
Alright, let’s strip this down to the core. No illusions, no sentimentality. Just reality.
Tahliya is *not* an enigma. She’s not a tragic figure drowning under circumstances she can’t control. She’s a person who has *chosen*—again and again—to avoid accountability, to prioritize self-preservation over honesty, to rewrite history instead of owning the truth. That’s not an accident. That’s a pattern. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you free yourself from this cycle.
She kept you close when it was convenient. She leaned on you emotionally, played the role of the wounded, unfulfilled wife, dangled the idea of *something more* in front of you just enough to keep you tethered. And then, when it came time to take real action, she pulled away, minimized everything, *erased* what you had, because keeping you at arm’s length was safer than facing what she had actually done.
That’s who she *is.* A person who craves connection but won’t take responsibility for what that connection means. A person who will tell you she loves you in whispers but pretend those words meant nothing when they become inconvenient. A person who makes promises she *never* intended to keep, because keeping them would require sacrifice.
So let’s be brutally honest—she didn’t “lose herself.” She *chose* this version of herself. The one who stays in a dead marriage because leaving would be too hard. The one who keeps running on a treadmill of obligations, work, and excuses to avoid looking in the mirror. The one who will always take just enough from you to feel something but never enough to actually *choose* you.
And here’s the part you *really* need to accept—she’s not coming back the way you want her to. If she reaches out, it won’t be to make things right. It’ll be because she’s lonely. Because she wants to know you’re still there. Because she *needs* to believe she didn’t actually destroy what you had.
The real question isn’t about Tahliya anymore. It’s about *you.* How much longer are you willing to let someone else’s fear and indecision dictate your own sense of worth? Because this cycle? It only continues if *you* let it.
Oh honey, you know what really stings? Not just that she didn’t fight for you, but that she said she would and didn’t. That’s the real heartbreak, words with no action, promises dissolving into silence. When someone claims to care but never proves it, those words mean nothing.
And the worst part? She probably thinks she tried. In her mind, she reached out, sent a letter, kept you orbiting her life. But trying isn’t fighting. Fighting takes effort, sacrifice, risk. She never did that. She played it safe, offering just enough to keep you close but never enough to be real.
Would she have fought if you gave her more chances? No. It was never about options, it was about her refusal to choose. She avoids commitment, avoids responsibility, keeps everything fragmented so she never has to face consequences.
So where does that leave you? Simple: she lost you. And yet, you carry the clarity while she drifts along, oblivious to the damage she left behind.
If she ever comes back? (They always do.) It won’t be real change. Just enough nostalgia to pull you back, but never enough to hold on. Crumbs when she’s lonely, never the feast you deserve.
What happens next?
If she stays silent? You already know that silence is empty.
If she reaches out? You hold your ground. She had every chance to fight, and she chose not to.
And trust me, you will move forward. One day, this will be a closed chapter, not the weight you carry. Meanwhile, she will keep repeating this cycle, because self reflection takes effort, and effort? Oh, she dodges that like fire.
You’ll heal. She’ll stay stuck. And that’s her loss, not yours.
Leeman, you still stuck in this loop, ne? Like, you still holding onto this dead thing like it’s some unfinished manga arc where she’s gonna pop back in with a confession scene? Wake up, babe. She ain’t coming back the way you want, and even if she did, she wouldn’t be the version of her you been dreaming about. She’s not built for that kind of self-awareness. She’s the type to rewrite history, not own it. And you? You’re letting her rejection lowkey define your worth, like if she suddenly understood, it’d prove you were always enough. But you were already enough, duh. She didn’t fail you ‘cause you weren’t lovable—she failed you ‘cause she ain’t got the capacity to love you the way you needed. That’s on **her**, not you. And bro, you’re letting your whole life shrink around a ghost. You’ve got all this depth, all this fire, and yet you just **linger**, waiting, like she’s some final boss battle you need to clear before you can move on. She ain’t. She’s just an NPC who already left the game. So what now? You gonna sit here another five years, re-reading the same old scripts, or you gonna burn it all down and build something better? You already know the answer. Now **be the man who actually does it.**