Love Letters We Never Sent…
I’ve always been that girl that writes everything in my notes app or a journal. I have so many thoughts racing all of the time, and due to my ADHD I find it really hard to express how I feel verbally sometimes. It just doesn’t quite come out how i’d like it to, so I put pen to paper or thumbs to screen and I write. Sometimes it’s a stream of consciousness, about what’s happened during my day, how I felt about it. Other times it’s about my past, it’s about how I feel about my relationships with people, what’s going on in the present. I’m exposing myself here by showing you my most private thoughts, and i’m including a few of these along with some other peoples who very kindly sent their thoughts and feelings on love in.
I wanted to do this because it’s so important that we see how people feel. How certain aspects of our lives can impact how we think and navigate the world, whether we live in a cloud of delusion or we’re painfully self aware - I definitely fluctuate between the two!
So here goes;
This is for the things we never said.
The texts we typed and deleted.
The calls we never made.
The conversations we had in our heads, but not out loud.
It’s for the people who never knew how much they meant.
For the ones who hurt us.
For the ones we hurt.
For the almosts, the maybes, the wrong times.
These are the letters we never had the guts to send.
But we felt every word.
Letter 1 - Anonymous - Female/22/ USA
I don’t even know why I’m doing this. Honestly. What’s the point? You’re never gonna see this. You’re never gonna know. You’re just... walking around, completely clueless while I sit here losing my mind over you.
It’s so stupid. I shouldn’t feel this way. I shouldn’t. But I do. I freaking love you. I hate even writing that. It makes me feel pathetic. Weak. Like some moron who caught feelings and doesn’t know what the hell to do with them. I don’t even entertain the idea that you feel the same way because how could you?
You have no idea. No idea what it’s like to be near you and act normal. Joke around. Talk like we’re just... whatever we are. Friends? Not even sure what to call it anymore. I play it cool, like none of it’s eating me alive. Like I don’t want to grab you by the shoulders and just say it. Just scream it. I love you. I’m so stupidly in love with you. But no. I won’t. I can’t. Because the second I do, everything breaks. You’ll look at me different. Or worse — you won’t. You’ll still smile like nothing’s changed, and I’ll know it’s just me. Just me sitting here feeling too much while you feel... what? Nothing? I don’t even know. So yeah. I shove it down. I swallow it. I act fine. I lie. Every freaking day. Because losing you — losing this — that terrifies me more than anything.
That’s it. I love you. I won’t say it. You’ll never know. End of story.
Letter 2 - Anon - Female/ 27/ UK
Fuck, you scare me. It’s fear that i’ve not felt before, i’m used to the constant battle of anxiety or worry, but you unlock a fear in me like nobody else ever has. It’s been 8 months, we’ve had our ups and downs within that and we’ve not even laid eyes on each other in the flesh yet, which is crazy. It’s crazy for so many reasons, that I feel the way I do about you. You’re my first thought when I wake up, you’re my last thought before I go to sleep. I roll over every morning with blurred eyes and reach for my phone, reading your morning text before I’ve even checked the date or time. I will wait for a conversation with you when you finish work, to just hear a snippet of your day. But I am scared of you.
I’m terrified you’re going to rip out my heart one day. You’re going to be my favourite forever or my worst heartbreak.
Letter 3 - Sophie - Female / 35 / UK
You really thought you could just disappear. Just walk the fuck out like none of it ever mattered. No goodbye. No explanation. Not even a half-assed excuse. Just gone. What the fuck is wrong with you? You don’t get to pretend I didn’t exist. You don’t get to crawl into my life, make me trust you, make me care, mess with my head, and then vanish like it was nothing. Like I was nothing you fucking prick.
Do you even realise what you did? Or were you always this heartless? I wasted so much time thinking you were different. Defending you. Believing every lie that fell out of your mouth. God, what a joke. You knew exactly what you were doing. Don’t you dare pretend otherwise. You’ll move onto the next victim with the same fucking excuses you gave me about your ex. I’ll be the villain in the next story, the same old shit you spouted to me about Hannah.
I hope leaving without a word eats you alive. I hope you choke on it. On the silence. On the damage you left behind. You don't deserve to know what it did to me. You don't deserve to know how many nights I stayed awake, pacing, furious, broken, waiting for something — anything — from you, a text, a phone call, waiting for you to walk through the front door. But nothing. Just emptiness.
You are the most spineless, selfish bastard I have ever met. And if you think for one second that I’ll sit here quietly pretending like you didn’t rip something out of me, think again. You should’ve said goodbye. You should’ve looked me in the face like a decent human being. But you didn’t. And that tells me everything I’ll ever need to know about you.
So here’s the goodbye you were too pathetic to give me:
A big fat fuck you, i’m done.
Letter 4 - Anonymous - Female
I still love you, but I don’t want you. I don’t want anyone else to have you either. I think about you all the time, everyday. I’ll hear a song that reminds me of you, the way we used to sing in the car or you’d spin me around in the kitchen. Your hand used to fit perfectly in mine, until one day it didn’t. One day it became someone else’s hand you held, in secret without me knowing. The kitchen no longer felt like our dance floor but our boxing ring, you claimed it meant nothing and it was an accident but I felt that. I felt it so deep inside myself that I knew i’d never come back from it. The way you looked at her, my best friend. The way we sat opposite each other at bars and all laughed together, maybe you laughed a little too hard at her jokes sometimes but I didn’t think that mattered. I just thought you found the joke funnier than I did.
I shouldn’t of looked through your phone, but I know you, I have done for 13 years and when I felt it in my gut, I couldn’t run from it. I funnily enough also knew it would be her, don’t ask me how I knew, I just did. The way you gave her a kiss on the cheek goodbye that lingered too long. The signs were there and oh my god was I oblivious. I never knew what it was like to feel betrayed from more than one person at a time, but your husband and best friend, is something else. I am ashamed and embarrassed, I don’t think those feelings will ever leave me. She is stood next to us in our wedding photos, you dedicated part of your speech to ‘how much of a good friend she has been to both of us’. And yet I still don’t know how long ago this started? Was it before our wedding? After? Was it before our son was born? During?!
You did me so wrong and I can see that now, but I pined for you. I thought i’d found my world in a person, to find out that you could cause me the most amount of pain i’d ever felt.
Letter 5 - Tom - Male / 44 / UK
I still talk to you. I don’t even know if that’s normal, or healthy, or whatever people would call it. But I do. Every day.
I catch myself reaching for my phone like I’m about to text you something dumb. Something small. Like what I made for dinner. Or how the light hit the kitchen window the way you used to like. Then it hits me. Like it always does. You’re not here. And it feels like the air gets ripped right out of my chest every single time.
The kids ask about you. All the time. Some days it’s little things — “Did Mum like this song?” or “What was Mum’s favorite color again?” Other days it’s bigger. Stuff that hits me like a freight train. “Is Mum watching us?” “Does Mum miss us?” I tell them yes. Always yes. Because I have to believe that. I have to.
They’re trying. We all are. I see you in them so much it physically hurts sometimes. The way the youngest scrunches her nose when she’s focused — that’s you. The way our boy laughs, the way he argues when he thinks he’s right — that’s you too. You’re everywhere, and still, you’re gone. And I don’t know how both can be true at the same time, but it is.
I’m trying to hold it together for them. Be the strong one. The steady one. But God, it’s hard. They deserve more than what I can give some days. I catch myself about to ask you, “What should we do? How do we handle this?” before remembering you’re not here to answer.
You were my person. My anchor. The one who made the chaos make sense. And now it’s just... chaos. Loud, heavy, endless. And quiet, too. The worst kind of quiet.
I hope you knew how much I loved you. How much I still do. That doesn’t go away. No one tells you that. Love doesn’t die. It just has nowhere to go now, so it floats around, heavy, sitting in my chest.
I’m angry sometimes. Not at you. Just at life. At the universe. At the cruelty of it all. That you’re not here. That the kids won’t get more of you. That I won’t. I’d give anything for one more stupid fight about what rubbish film to watch. Or one more morning with you half asleep, stealing all the blankets. Anything.
I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t even know if I believe in that. But if you can — just know you were it for me. You’ll always be it. You still are.
I miss you. We miss you. Every damn day.
Love,
Me.
Letter 6 - Anonymous
I wish I knew more. I’m living a narrative that I don’t understand. You keep me steady, hand half held out whilst i’m trying to reach for it and some days you hold it out further, where my fingers will just grip yours, and other days you’ll pull it right back, so i’m scrambling and begging for you. I wish I could understand more, know more, not to feel like i’m waiting, not living. You change on me, fast. One day, you want me and the next you don’t. But I don’t even know if I want you? Do I want you? Or do I just like the chase in you? You awake the anxious attachment within me, that makes me crawl back to you all the time, you pull away and I run towards you, because I need to feel safe. You don’t make me feel safe though… You’re angry and loud, you’re drunk on power. You make me feel like a scared child, but fuck i’m addicted to that feeling.
Letter 7 - Eva - 37/ Spain
I don’t say this enough. Maybe I never really have. But I need you to know this — really know it.
Thank you. For all of it. For loving me the way you do. For showing up, even when I’m distant, distracted, or difficult. For staying patient with me when I shut down or pull away. For sticking with me through the moods, the bad days, the times when I barely know how to show love back the right way.
You love me when I’m hard to love. And God... that means more than I can explain. It’s not just the big things. It’s the little things that get me the most. The stupid little sticky notes you leave on the fridge every morning. Half reminders, half love letters in your messy handwriting. “Don’t forget lunch.” “Good luck today.” “You’ve got this. I love you.” You probably think they’re nothing — but they’re everything. They center me. Remind me what matters.
Or the way you are with los niños.. The way you dote on them. The way you somehow juggle a hundred things but still remember who has practice, who refuses to eat the crust on their sandwich, who had a rough night. You make them feel safe, understood, loved. Watching you mother them, care for them, be who you are — it undoes me. Every single time. And you’ve always been that way. I think about our wedding day — that moment you surprised me with that gesture. You know the one. Everyone else saw it as sweet, romantic. But I knew what it really was. It was you. You loving me in the way you always do — intentional, thoughtful, real. Something you didn’t have to do, but you did anyway, just to make me feel seen. Known. Like I was the luckiest person alive standing there with you. I still think about it more often than you probably realize. I carry that with me. I always will.
You hold so much. You carry this whole familia — me included — with this quiet strength that most people never even notice. You show love in actions. In patience. In every tiny, constant thing. I know I don’t always say it. I know I don’t always show it the way you deserve. But I see it. I see you. Every note. Every gesture. Every quiet sacrifice. And it splits me wide open, in the best way.
Te Amo. I appreciate you. More than I’ll ever figure out how to put into words. But this is me trying.
Thank you for being my home. My safe place. My constant. Thank you for being you.
Mi hogar está donde estás tú, mi amor.