An Open Letter To My Boyfriend
By: Rachel C.
Tags: PTSD, Letters, Relationships, Love, Self Help

Photo by Tirza van Dijk on Unsplash

Dear My Love,

I don’t even know how to put into words where my love begins for you. It’s funny that in the year that I promised myself that I wouldn’t get into a relationship, you found me.

I will never forget the indescribable feeling that stirred in my heart when I first met you. It was like…comfort at first sight. Even though we had never met before, I felt like I knew you. There was an odd sense of familiarity with you and I couldn’t place why. Looking back on it now, I can safely say that it was the beginning of us falling in love.

Thank you for being so accepting of my past and who I am now. I get so emotional when I even think about you because I am so damn grateful to have found someone who lifted my face when I felt too broken to even look at you. You calmly smiled and said, “Rachel, I don’t have this perception of you that you didn’t have a past before we ever met. I love and accept you for the way that you are now. I fell in love with this Rachel, not another version of you.”

Thank you. After previously having been in a relationship where I was cheated on and gaslighted to the point of questioning my own moral judgements, it meant the world to me that you not only validated how I felt, but also reassured me that you weren’t going anywhere.

Thank you, David. Thank you for letting me wake up to long paragraphs on why you love me and thank you for getting me random flowers because you know I love them. Thank you for your endless patience when I express my fears to you, and thank you for remembering all the small things I tell you.

That is why it’s so important to me that we say, “I choose you,” to each other. I love it when we say that to each other because it goes beyond love, because it means that we make an active choice every day to love each other, especially when it’s hard. When you say that to me, I feel special. When you say that to me, I feel the effort of you choosing to love me day by day.

Also, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that I have projected so many of my past traumas onto you, and I am so thankful to have a man who takes it with stride. I’m tearing up as I write this because I often feel really bad for expressing insecurities or fears to you that you never gave me a reason to have. I feel terrible that the anger and PTSD I was given from a guy from my past has left a broken Rachel who is hard to love, in the hands of a man who has given me absolutely nothing to worry about.

But that is exactly why I will never, and have never, taken you for granted. Because even despite knowing all the parts of myself that make me who I am today, you choose me. You accept me. You love me.

And I will spend the rest of my life thanking you for that.

You show me so much love that I have started to love myself too. All the parts of myself that I would grimace at when I looked at myself in the mirror have suddenly become something beautiful. You are the man who made me realize that I have never truly been in love before you.

Thank you for rewriting the perception I had of myself and for being a continually amazing boyfriend.

I love you.

Love,

Rachel C.