Dear Ex Boyfriend.

Dear ex boyfriend,

4 years ago, you dumped me in front of all our friends. You didn't take me aside and tell me, you simply walked up to me and told me it was over. No regret, no care for how I would feel, no sense of the damage that you had done. I remember when you asked me out and our friend Karl told me you'd been nervous about asking me out ... all that was shattered in a moment and I realised you'd never really loved me the way I loved you, not even for a moment. 

Since then, you have done your best to make me feel like nothing. You have belittled everything from my relationship to my plans for my career to my choices for my wedding, and then you apologise to me and we go back to being friends. I never know where I stand with you, and I never really want to. I wish you would grow up and mature enough to realise that I am over you and have been since you left me. I don't care if you still have feelings for me, I don't care if you want to be with me again, and I don't care if you don't want to be with me because you are not the centre of my world.

You and your girlfriend have been together for nearly 2 years now, and whilst I'm happy for you, I don't need to know how "amazing" your sex life is. There is a lot more to life than sex, as Jonathan and I have proved over the 2 years and 4 months that we have been together. You keep telling me that you and Anna go on holidays together every year, as if I'm going to be jealous of you - dude, if you want to fritter away your money on holidays that you don't need, that's great! Just remember that I'm planning for my future with my fiancé and need to save up for my wedding, my first marital home and my first mortgage, rather than getting drunk and going on holidays with someone who I have said I'm not that interested in marrying! 

My relationship with Jonathan is based on trust, love, honesty and friendship. Yours is based on cheating and desperation because you know you'll never get anyone better than her - it's true you're an average-looking man, but you won't win any prizes for your looks. I don't care if you and Anna get married and have twelve kids or split up and never talk to each other again - I am happy with Jonathan and I don't want to be with you ever again. Just because Jonathan and I have rocky patches - like every other couple, might I add! - does not mean that I am jealous of you and Anna (far from it!). I do sometimes wish that my relationship were simpler, but my Asperger's Syndrome and depression does not make that possible, so we work around things as much as we can because that's what life is about.

The other thing that riles me is that you permanently tell me about how you feel like "part of the family" at Anna's, and how "amazing" and "perfect" your relationship is. Frankly, it's infantile, pathetic and I don't want to know about it - the only reason you tell me is because you know that I have difficulties with Jonathan's family and you play on it. Jonathan's family and I are very different, and we do have our problems, but those are for us to sort out between ourselves and, even if I tell you about it, it doesn't give you the right to start playing on it and making me feel worse about the whole situation. That behaviour belongs to the playground in a primary school, and frankly it's unfitting for a man of your age.

I have remained friends with you for the sake of civility because I don't believe in having bad blood between myself and other people. However, I am sick and tired of you abusing our friendship and making me feel like you just want to be friends with me so that you can make me feel rubbish about myself. I had enough of that in my secondary schools and I don't need to hear it from a boy that I went out with 4 years ago. You were a decent boyfriend, you were a decent person and I like you, but this is beyond a joke and I'm fed up with it. I do not deserve this from someone like you - you have no right to judge me when your own behaviour isn't exactly angelic!

To sum you up, you are a person who wants to make others feel bad. You are insecure because you cheated on Anna with your ex girlfriend and you want to take it out on other people who are happier than you. You see me with my wedding plans, my fiancé, my life plans and my exciting, happy future and you feel bad because you want that life. You want to be as happy as me and you know that you messed it up with Anna and were lucky that she took you back if I'm honest because many women would have told you to pack your bags and leave. So when you see me talking about my life with Jonathan and the plans that I'm making for my future, you can't handle it. You want me to feel bad so that you can feel better, and that's bullying.

So to end this letter, I'm sorry that you feel jealous of me. I'm sorry that you can't handle my happiness, and I'm sorry that you had to make me feel like rubbish just to make yourself feel better. I have told you time and time again that you make me feel awful, and you refuse to do anything about it. This is not my fault and it never will be - I can't do anything about the way I am, except improve areas that I know need improving. With you, however, I see no room for my improvement. I have treated you as you have behaved - if you are rude to me, I call you out on it. If you are nice to me, I reciprocate. You are not the man I thought you were, you are not the friend I thought you were, and frankly I do not need your negativity in my life.

Sincerely,

Your very happy ex-girlfriend.