To the Woman Who Loved Him More Than Herself

Dearest tender hearted reader,

You didn’t mean to.

You didn’t set out to become that kind of woman, the one who poured so much of herself into him that she barely noticed she was running dry. But it happened quietly. Slowly. And then all at once.

You told yourself it was love. You meant it to be love. And in many ways, it was.

It’s just that somewhere along the way, you stopped being loved back.

I remember a night.

It was raining, the kind of rain that doesn’t just soak through your coat but reminds you how alone you are. I stood in my kitchen, listening to a voice note he’d sent, telling me he was “trying” and I was “pressuring” and “maybe this is just bad timing.”

I listened to it three times.

I reheated my tea twice.

And I knew.

I knew I was loving him more than I was protecting myself.

But I stayed. I stayed through long silences, half-hearted apologies, and the kind of “almost” affection that leaves you empty. I stayed through his detachment, his avoidance, his gentle erosion of my confidence. I rationalised. I read devotionals about long-suffering and grace. I spoke gently when I wanted to scream. I prayed over a man who didn’t even pray over his own decisions.

I made myself smaller so he wouldn’t feel so confronted.

Less opinionated. Less expressive. Less “intense.”

I told myself, “This is what women do when they love someone, they adapt.”

But no one ever told me that when you adapt too far from yourself, you stop recognising the woman in the mirror.

And maybe that’s what’s happened to you.

Maybe you’ve been sitting in rooms with friends, nodding along, smiling tightly, pretending you’re over it, when really, part of you still aches when you hear his name. Maybe you keep finding versions of him in new men, hoping this time it will feel different. Maybe you miss someone who never actually saw you.

I’m not here to give you a neat little ending. I won’t pretend healing is linear or that you’ll stop loving him just because you’ve logically worked out that he was wrong for you. We’re not robots. And you, especially, you are not a woman who loves halfway.

But I will say this: there is nothing admirable about abandoning yourself.

No crown for the woman who tolerated the most.

No medal for staying silent just to keep the peace.

You were not created to be convenient.

You were not called to bend yourself around someone’s lack of capacity and call it grace.

And here’s the maddening part: he probably didn’t even mean to hurt you.

He was probably just ill-equipped, emotionally stunted, never asked to grow past survival.

But that doesn’t make your pain any less real.

Because the truth is, you gave him access to a version of you that you hadn’t even fully known yet.

You introduced him to your softness before you gave it to yourself.

And still, you survived it.

You are here.

A little wiser. A little more discerning. A little slower to fall.

But not bitter. Please, not bitter.

Bitterness is the bruise you press just to remind yourself it’s still there. Healing is what happens when you let it fade.

So here’s what I want to say to you, sister:

Let it hurt.

Let it humble you.

But don’t let it redefine you.

You are not the woman he walked away from.

You are the woman who chose to stay with herself when he couldn’t meet you there.

And when you do love again, and you will, because your heart is still good, you will do it differently.

Not cautiously. Not guarded. But with a fullness that comes from knowing:

Never again will you love someone more than you love yourself.

With ink-stained fingers and a heart half-stitched,

Calliope Orford