For over two decades, Tahliya and I played the same unspoken game – moments of emotional intimacy, missed chances, and tension that never quite went away. And in 2024, I made my last attempt at seeing if she would ever step up. She didn’t.

In 2012, we came close to something more. She made advances, indirect but undeniable, and I rejected them – not because I didn’t want her, but because I was in an existing relationship. Even though that relationship was falling apart, I wasn’t the kind of person to betray it.

Beyond that, Tahliya still clung to the dream of a perfect family. Her relationship was already crumbling, but if we crossed that line, she would never get the future she once envisioned. So, I did the noble thing. I walked away.

She went on to have children with a man who was nothing more than a provider. A man-child who barely functioned outside of bringing money home. She convinced herself that he was afraid of her temper, that his laziness was her fault, that she had somehow made him this way. Classic deflection. She saw the truth but chose to avoid it. She let herself decay in that toxic existence.

Years passed, and every now and then, she would resurface – just enough to keep a sliver of a connection alive. In 2024, she rekindled our dynamic with a warmth I hadn’t seen in years. For three months from March to June, she was the Tahliya I once knew – bubbly, engaged, teasing at the possibility of real, meaningful time together. So when she unexpectedly reconnected with me, I thought maybe, finally, we could have an honest, mature conversation about 2012, and resolve it, evolve from it, and move forward. But that wasn’t what she wanted. I overestimated her.

From July onward, she shrank back into the hollow version of herself, the one that was bitter, easily triggered, and incapable of meaningful effort. By late August, the cracks had fully reappeared. She made dismissive and disparaging remarks mocking me, invalidating my feelings, making it clear that the cycle of condescension and avoidance had never really stopped. Of course, it was all a projection of her own life, but I was so done with her bullshit. I cut her out of my life for good.

Then, in September, she sent me a letter, telling me that we had a special relationship, something unique, a bond she would fight for. She wrote about how much I meant to her, how we were different from anything else in her life, and how she was willing to do whatever it took to keep us from slipping away. She even mentioned irrelevant things, such as if I permitted her to, she would tell me about the sex dreams she’d had of me when we met up again. I rolled my eyes at that last bit. Since 2018, she seriously believed that everything I wanted to talk about came down to sex. It never was, and clearly, she was projecting her own feelings, juxtaposing them as mine. Regardless, making an effort and fighting for us was her promise.

Then she showed up unannounced on October 20th because I had not responded to her. For 20 minutes, she cried, telling me that I was unreachable. Before she left, she awkwardly asked for a hug. I gave it to her. She felt good in my arms. As I was about to let her go, she held onto me longer, hugging me tighter. It felt like she knew this was our end, even when there was an expectation that we would likely meet again for a longer conversation. It felt like she knew this was our end, even when there was an expectation that we would likely meet again for a longer conversation.

Despite that, I messaged her later to let her know she should expect a private blog that laid out everything – the fractures between us since 2015, especially in 2018 and 2020, when I tried to mend the issues that arose from 2012. Issues she dismissed as nothing, issues she made me feel crazy for even bringing up. But that was always her game. When something didn’t fit the way she wanted to see herself, she rewrote it. Condensed it. Erased it. She twisted history to fit her convenience, reducing years of emotional complexity into a sanitized, revisionist footnote. And I was done playing along.

In November 2024, I gave her the link to the blog. I had spent over 300 hours crafting a private blog for her – one final attempt to lay everything on the table. She kept pushing it off. First, she was too busy. Then, she had work. Then, family obligations, which made me unpublish the blog and create a short, simple letter with 14 terms of engagement because I no longer felt she deserved the effort I poured into it, even though she was the one who was supposed to be fighting for us. Then in January 2025, her child got sick. I was so fucking fed up. Excuse after excuse. Why have four children when she clearly knew during her first child that she was not getting any support from her partner, nor from her family? While I understand she uses her children to fill the empty void of her loveless relationship dynamics with her partner, this is a very unhealthy way of going about it.

We finally met on January 23rd.

She showed up, completely unprepared.

Four Hours of Nothing

Tahliya came to my house for four hours. Four hours of what, exactly? Sitting? Existing? Giving just enough presence to claim she made an effort, while doing absolutely nothing of substance? I wonder what she expected to happen because whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t effort on her part.

Of the 14 terms she agreed to, she barely followed through on five. That isn’t fighting for us – that’s coasting, doing the bare minimum to ease her own conscience while hoping I wouldn’t call her out on it.

Somehow, in her twisted version of our meeting, she assumed I wanted to sit down and rehash our problems. But one of my 14 terms made it clear – it was her responsibility to come prepared with the questions she believed were important. Only then would I reciprocate with my answers. I never needed a sounding board. She should have known that by now – it was never what I required from her. Instead, she chose to half-ass the entire thing. The bare minimum. Show up, say some words, wait for me to make all the effort, and then leave, so she could tell herself she tried.

Except she didn’t try.

She also knew I had bought sexy, form-fitting dresses for her months ago. She knew I had picked out lipstick and lip liner, expecting – at the very least – that she would make an effort. Whether she arrived dressed up or changed here didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was supposed to show something, anything, to prove she was serious. Instead, she showed up with no effort. The reason I didn’t push her to wear them was because I already knew the pattern. The same passive gaslighting. The entire meeting was one long, dull, silent manipulation – an attempt to make me take action while she did nothing.

Then, over the next week, as we spoke over WhatsApp, I waited for her to make the next move – to own the fact that she had put in nothing and that it was her responsibility to fix it. Instead, she gave me a message that sent my blood boiling.

“I was there for four hours and nothing changed.”

What the actual fuck?!

Nothing changed? Nothing changed because she didn’t do anything! She didn’t fight for us, as she said she would. She didn’t show me just how special our special relationship was.

It is not my job to chase after someone who refuses to step forward. It is definitely not my job to fight for someone who won’t even fight for themselves.

And this here, is Tahliya Young in a nutshell – someone who speaks of passion but acts with indifference, who claims devotion yet shies away from commitment, who hints at change but never follows through. A woman trapped in her own contradictions, forever waiting for someone else to take responsibility for the life she refuses to build for herself.

She Will Stay in Her Own Hell

Tahliya wants to be taken. That much is obvious. But to be taken, she needs to give herself first. She needs to earn the kind of dynamic she craves.

And she didn’t.

She failed. That’s the real story. Not some sad, rewritten history where she “tried and nothing changed.” No. She failed herself. And I refuse to carry the weight of that failure.

Now she will continue to live a life in a loveless relationship – a situation of convenience, initially full of dreams and naive fantasies, but gradually and inevitably draining the last remnants of who she once was. The only thing in her life that remains pure, untouched by regret, are her children. They are the only beacon in an ocean of toxic darkness.

But make no mistake – she did not let herself rot for them. She did not sacrifice her own happiness for their sake.

She did it because she is a coward to her own true desires.

And when the loneliness creeps in, when she realizes that the world she built is as hollow as she feels, she will look for someone to blame.

But by then, there will be no one left to blame but herself.