As much I still want to club him - I think that this just proves that love and partnership is not so black and white. It's the in the grey where each couple creates their love and create their unique partnership. This was a beautiful close to a successful relationship. Did it end the way we perceive success? No, but it was. Thank you both for sharing.
honestly, the most heartbreaking part is him saying he knows he probably won’t find a better match and still not being able to choose the relationship. love is so much more complicated than just finding the right person
I'm so glad he's okay! I'm also kind of mad on your behalf. He took a lot of your possible childbearing time while he was sick. He knew you loved him that much. He had already let you go - until he needed you. He was so very lucky.
I just found this Substack today. You're such a good writer. My dad likes to say that there are two types of men: potatoes and onions. An onion guy is complicated with many layers and he makes you cry. A potato guy is simpler. He might not be as exciting, you might feel less. That's because he makes you feel calm, not because he's wrong for you. Your ex is the onioniest onion ever. I hope you find a potato who loves all of you.
Beautiful love letter. I wish more friends and lovers could exchange this kind of repair with one another after separation. The chance to say “you changed me forever,” even though you’re no longer together, is a powerful affirmation. Thank you both for sharing this with us.
Wow, hands up for this man doing the work! For real 😊 This is so carefully - and tenderly - written.
This sentence will stay with me: “Why then are we not together? I believe the answer lies in the stories we tell ourselves about partnership and romance.”
It is strange and sad sometimes, how we can love one another and still live in completely different universes 💔
I'm super mad at him too. There should at least be monetary compensation for the opportunity cost of not moving to LA, and time off taken to nurse him back to health during her peak earning/childbearing years!
39 year old woman in nyc and not dating but single. It's one of those it just has to find me at this point type of things. Love stories in this city are as unusual as they come and this one takes the cake.
I love this. You need to put this in the new tork times!
This moved me enormously—especially the line, “it felt easier to let her go than to live up to the commitment she was asking for.”
What struck me is how much insight he already has. He can see the pattern, understand where it may have been learned, recognize the evasion strategies, love you deeply—and still have his response change as the relationship becomes more secure and consequential.
This is very close to where my work lives. Through earlier experience, the nervous system can learn predictions about what closeness, commitment, dependence, or secure love will mean. Then a real relationship crosses that learned boundary and the prediction fires. Suddenly leaving can genuinely feel more available than staying—even when the person consciously wants the relationship.
And this is the part I wish more people knew: those predictions can resolve. Insight can explain the pattern. Resolution changes the response.
I was also so moved by the other side of this story: the enormous love you gave him, and the point at which loving him could no longer require putting your own life on hold.
Both truths can exist at once. He may have loved you profoundly. And you still had to stop sacrificing yourself to what he could not yet choose. I have lived that too.
This was an incredibly moving piece, thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing it with the world, truly what a gift! The analogy about “sipping water” helped me understand why people subconsciously crave tension and passion more than security in relationships. Very well articulated. There’s so many ways I could only begin to imagine processing a relationship like this but props to you of knowing you did everything you could. and maybe (on the bright side) this experience was preparation for what’s yet to come!
Thank you both for sharing. What a great break-up convo/closure, and what a fascinating dilemma - well, maybe it isn’t one. The writer clearly has a certain depth of self knowledge, and I was gonna say how annoying to know why you’re getting in your own way and still not be able to do anything about it.
But then, did the writer ever state they wanted to change their attitude to love and relationship? I read it more like he’s resigned to his current levels of intimacy at arms length. I work with people who want to experience different things and support them practicing new skills, so I fully believe (nay, know!) change and growth is possible. But I also feel for the person who is so defended even a life threatening illness only provides temporary relief.
I’m glad he’s doing better, and you know what, you do you. Be honest with the next ladies you’re dating, and although you may not be able to recreate the same experience again, your next one could also be even closer (if hopefully for different reasons). Rooting for you both!
This is incredibly interesting, thank you for sharing! I have both empathy for what he's dealing with and still a sense of supreme annoyance on your behalf because I can smell the missed potential and that's so heartbreaking for you both.
This is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. I think the silver lining here is that Sara has helped you grow as a person, as you did for her. That is beautiful. You both are wonderful human beings for giving each other a chance and being willing to learn from your relationship.
Also strikes a chord with me. When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend years ago, I felt like a fish out of water, having lost not only my lover but my best friend. I had a vague feeling back then (just like you) that I would be unlikely to replace him with someone else. Five years later, and that vague feeling has crystallized into an absolute certainty - not because there are no people who can fill his shoes, but because I do not have the capacity to grow so attached to another human being anymore.
I share that feeling about my ex she left ten months ago. She made such a deep impact on my life I’m pretty sure that no one else could even get close. She never contacted me again after she left, completely broke my heart into bits. In her case it was her that wasn’t capable of accepting the extraordinary love between us, because of acute PTSD from previous experiences.
I’ve written a poem about this on my profile called fragments of a broken love.
I honestly get where he’s coming from, hard as it is to admit. It’s like it isn’t even a choice—and it’s maddening and unfair and crazy-making and tough to be with and even tougher to live with. Beautiful opportunity for repair here that few ever get, and we so rarely get to witness. Thanks for sharing it.
This really moved me. Sometimes God answers our prayers by placing the right person directly in front of us, and we miss the answer because it doesn’t arrive in the form we expected.
The saddest part is that we can recognize love and still be afraid to receive it. We can pray for someone to stay, then spend our lives building walls that make staying impossible.
Your story reminds me that love isn’t always about finding the perfect person. Sometimes it is about becoming the person who is capable of accepting the love that was already there.
And maybe the lesson isn’t that Sara wasn’t the right person. Maybe she was the person who finally showed you what you had been running from—and what you might still learn to embrace.
Sometimes the boat really was sent. We just have to be willing to get in. ❤️
Sara… I think you just healed the broken hearts of half the women in the world with this one lol
Then it has served its purpose in my sharing it ♥️♥️♥️♥️
As much I still want to club him - I think that this just proves that love and partnership is not so black and white. It's the in the grey where each couple creates their love and create their unique partnership. This was a beautiful close to a successful relationship. Did it end the way we perceive success? No, but it was. Thank you both for sharing.
So well said. And not every love story is meant to be a life story. And my god did I want it to be a life story!
honestly, the most heartbreaking part is him saying he knows he probably won’t find a better match and still not being able to choose the relationship. love is so much more complicated than just finding the right person
I'm so glad he's okay! I'm also kind of mad on your behalf. He took a lot of your possible childbearing time while he was sick. He knew you loved him that much. He had already let you go - until he needed you. He was so very lucky.
I just found this Substack today. You're such a good writer. My dad likes to say that there are two types of men: potatoes and onions. An onion guy is complicated with many layers and he makes you cry. A potato guy is simpler. He might not be as exciting, you might feel less. That's because he makes you feel calm, not because he's wrong for you. Your ex is the onioniest onion ever. I hope you find a potato who loves all of you.
Beautiful love letter. I wish more friends and lovers could exchange this kind of repair with one another after separation. The chance to say “you changed me forever,” even though you’re no longer together, is a powerful affirmation. Thank you both for sharing this with us.
Wow, hands up for this man doing the work! For real 😊 This is so carefully - and tenderly - written.
This sentence will stay with me: “Why then are we not together? I believe the answer lies in the stories we tell ourselves about partnership and romance.”
It is strange and sad sometimes, how we can love one another and still live in completely different universes 💔
But thank you for this piece!!
Good riddance to him. What a jerk.
I'm super mad at him too. There should at least be monetary compensation for the opportunity cost of not moving to LA, and time off taken to nurse him back to health during her peak earning/childbearing years!
39 year old woman in nyc and not dating but single. It's one of those it just has to find me at this point type of things. Love stories in this city are as unusual as they come and this one takes the cake.
I love this. You need to put this in the new tork times!
This moved me enormously—especially the line, “it felt easier to let her go than to live up to the commitment she was asking for.”
What struck me is how much insight he already has. He can see the pattern, understand where it may have been learned, recognize the evasion strategies, love you deeply—and still have his response change as the relationship becomes more secure and consequential.
This is very close to where my work lives. Through earlier experience, the nervous system can learn predictions about what closeness, commitment, dependence, or secure love will mean. Then a real relationship crosses that learned boundary and the prediction fires. Suddenly leaving can genuinely feel more available than staying—even when the person consciously wants the relationship.
And this is the part I wish more people knew: those predictions can resolve. Insight can explain the pattern. Resolution changes the response.
I was also so moved by the other side of this story: the enormous love you gave him, and the point at which loving him could no longer require putting your own life on hold.
Both truths can exist at once. He may have loved you profoundly. And you still had to stop sacrificing yourself to what he could not yet choose. I have lived that too.
This was an incredibly moving piece, thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing it with the world, truly what a gift! The analogy about “sipping water” helped me understand why people subconsciously crave tension and passion more than security in relationships. Very well articulated. There’s so many ways I could only begin to imagine processing a relationship like this but props to you of knowing you did everything you could. and maybe (on the bright side) this experience was preparation for what’s yet to come!
Thank you both for sharing. What a great break-up convo/closure, and what a fascinating dilemma - well, maybe it isn’t one. The writer clearly has a certain depth of self knowledge, and I was gonna say how annoying to know why you’re getting in your own way and still not be able to do anything about it.
But then, did the writer ever state they wanted to change their attitude to love and relationship? I read it more like he’s resigned to his current levels of intimacy at arms length. I work with people who want to experience different things and support them practicing new skills, so I fully believe (nay, know!) change and growth is possible. But I also feel for the person who is so defended even a life threatening illness only provides temporary relief.
I’m glad he’s doing better, and you know what, you do you. Be honest with the next ladies you’re dating, and although you may not be able to recreate the same experience again, your next one could also be even closer (if hopefully for different reasons). Rooting for you both!
This is incredibly interesting, thank you for sharing! I have both empathy for what he's dealing with and still a sense of supreme annoyance on your behalf because I can smell the missed potential and that's so heartbreaking for you both.
This is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. I think the silver lining here is that Sara has helped you grow as a person, as you did for her. That is beautiful. You both are wonderful human beings for giving each other a chance and being willing to learn from your relationship.
Also strikes a chord with me. When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend years ago, I felt like a fish out of water, having lost not only my lover but my best friend. I had a vague feeling back then (just like you) that I would be unlikely to replace him with someone else. Five years later, and that vague feeling has crystallized into an absolute certainty - not because there are no people who can fill his shoes, but because I do not have the capacity to grow so attached to another human being anymore.
I wish you both well, wherever you are.
I share that feeling about my ex she left ten months ago. She made such a deep impact on my life I’m pretty sure that no one else could even get close. She never contacted me again after she left, completely broke my heart into bits. In her case it was her that wasn’t capable of accepting the extraordinary love between us, because of acute PTSD from previous experiences.
I’ve written a poem about this on my profile called fragments of a broken love.
I honestly get where he’s coming from, hard as it is to admit. It’s like it isn’t even a choice—and it’s maddening and unfair and crazy-making and tough to be with and even tougher to live with. Beautiful opportunity for repair here that few ever get, and we so rarely get to witness. Thanks for sharing it.
This really moved me. Sometimes God answers our prayers by placing the right person directly in front of us, and we miss the answer because it doesn’t arrive in the form we expected.
The saddest part is that we can recognize love and still be afraid to receive it. We can pray for someone to stay, then spend our lives building walls that make staying impossible.
Your story reminds me that love isn’t always about finding the perfect person. Sometimes it is about becoming the person who is capable of accepting the love that was already there.
And maybe the lesson isn’t that Sara wasn’t the right person. Maybe she was the person who finally showed you what you had been running from—and what you might still learn to embrace.
Sometimes the boat really was sent. We just have to be willing to get in. ❤️
Relationships are complex; I stand by Sara.
May your path forward be towards souls who are capable of receiving your love fully and cherishing your heart completely.
Keep the clarity of that intention crystal clear.
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