Thank you letters to my exes

Thank you letters to my exes

By: Mallory Kimmel

Dear exes,

Thank you for the lessons, the wisdom, and the heartbreak that taught me boundaries, the qualities I was and was not looking for in a partner, and for all the fun we had together. Our times together have led to my long-term happiness with my current partner and I can now see the qualities that drew me to each one of you all reside in him. I was searching for the one and found parts of him in each of you.

This book addresses a myriad of people I had crushes on, situationships, hookups, and formally declared relationships. I see all of these experiences as a collection of formative experiences in my love life and I’m happy to share the life lessons that came from the sum of my experiences.

With love,

P.S. None of this would have been possible without the love of my family, friends, therapists, life coaches, and self. Together in the container of many crying sessions, uncontrollable laughter, and existential conversations, I’ve partnered with loved ones and time itself, to refine my perspective on how to love, accept what's happened, and cultivate hope for what’s ahead.

*Trigger Warning* In the following pages, I will share some details from my personal experiences with nonconsensual sexual encounters. I am only recounting my experiences as I share my story in the process of searching for love. I have mindfully recounted these facts to share not to harm the reader.

Cooper,

You were my elementary school and middle school crush. I used to pray and wish back then that I’d end up with you. With age and time, I learned that what we want in the moment may not be what we want long term.

Growing up alongside you taught me that perspective, and it frankly has brought much peace through the process of grieving breakups to follow.

Daniel,

You were my first boyfriend and were always so sweet. Sometimes when I look back on a wealth of my relationships I’m happy I chose you as my first boyfriend. You are a kind-hearted person who showed me that in the end, I have always wanted someone who was nice to me. Thank you for helping restore that trust in myself and my choices long after the time we shared.

Peter,

You taught me what a pathological liar was and how someone could so quickly distance me from my friends. You had the eloquence of someone who got people to believe you and in such a short time made my world small. Any variation in opinion became a conflict of interest where you tried to bend me to be exactly like you. I learned the power of breaking up over the phone as a safety measure to honor self-preservation.

Alex,

I learned how scary and exciting it was to touch someone else. I navigated the trauma of non-consensual touch concurrent with hormonal desires. You used to take my hands to touch yourself with them at parties, and most of the time we weren’t alone. I learned how to overcome the shame of the experience so I could confide in others about what happened and then parse out the confusion of feeling privately wanted and publicly ignored in complex ways of relating at a young age.

As years passed I heard that other girls had similar experiences. This made sense to me in retrospect on how you would flirt and ignore another girl at our bus stop. You would grab my butt as I entered the school bus at 6:30 am and not respond when I said hi in the hallway hours later. I found it impossible to even tell my mom I didn’t want to go over to your house anymore. I stared at my closet when I said it completely shaking the whole time. I never once said why.

Jarrett,

Your name was one I had heard for years. An iconic name who attended the same k-12 schools; and on an overnight school trip when they turned out the lights on a porch to see the stars you fingered me completely out of the blue. I was so shocked by the unwelcome touch I sat paralyzed completely frozen and aware of all those around us. I was young, maybe fourteen or fifteen at the time, and took it as your attempt at showing affection – only to return to the school football game the next night and see you with the girl you had kept long term but never gave the title of dating. I felt used. Overcome with feeling completely dejected I looked around the stadium and parking lot only to feel spat out from the world and made to feel stupid. My brain didn’t know how to compute all the stimuli I had experienced in the last 48 hours. Whenever I see this girl or think of her, I always feel so guilty. I am overcome with the long-term compulsion to confess what happened to absolve myself from the guilt of a thing I didn’t do but was done to me. I don’t say anything to protect her feelings.

Blake,

I was so overcome with your sense of humor, our inside jokes and your bushy eyebrows. Your indecisive tendencies spanned from not helping pick anything in the grocery store for dinner to your complete ambivalence on whether we should start a romantic relationship.

I should have seen it then that your ambivalence was message enough.

Instead, I clung to the idea of how much better our friendship would be if we took it to the next level. We didn’t ever kiss but I wanted to. I thought you were giving me mixed signals back then, but frankly you consistently were just a wonderful friend with the title of a boyfriend and nothing else.

This became a pattern of mine and remained a habit for another ten years.

Devoting my time and affection to someone who made themselves unavailable to me, and later accepting the affection of someone I liked less to emotionally rebound from the disappointment and rejection of the one I really wanted.

Tommy,

In our time together there were many love triangles. In the end I felt that confusion to be too off-putting and ended things because I want the circumstances of any relationship I’m in to be clear.

Nollan,

You showed me a new depth to myself and my capacity to care for someone. I learned the difference between a crush and the depth of emotion that constitutes a romantic relationship. I felt the sting of being unwanted while simultaneously being pursued as a friend and I navigated a lot of tricky feelings in this relationship. I look back and see how much I put your wants and needs before mine hoping to be seen as someone who was always there for you. It taught me to not hang around pining for someone anymore. I did not give you the satisfaction of showing you my jealousy even when baited and I learned that I found that trait a deal breaker. You taught me how to walk away.

Stevie,

You were a backslide to serve as the anecdote for the pain of Nollan’s absence from my life. I enjoyed your intelligence and ability to debate theoretical discussions at a young age. Few people wanted to engage in this capacity at the time, and that made you rare in some cases.

I learned how much I hated pretentiousness and classism in our time together. I also learned that lowering my standards to feel the sensation of love actually felt so incredibly bad in my body and that the desire to feel wanted will lead me astray. I also saw when push came to shove you blamed me for things that were not my fault to avoid any projection of issues being reflective of your shortcomings. That experience forever stays with me as qualities I will always intentionally avoid in future partnerships.

Jeremy,

I thought you were so hot it showed me an underlying fear that people might wonder why you were with me. This was the only time I ever felt this way. This also became comical for me once I grew to know you more. A kleptomaniac, with a history and future of cheating in committed relationships.

We met at accepted students day and texted all summer with anticipation towards the start of college. We only kissed twice. The first night of college was the first, and the next day you didn’t text me. I saw you walking back to campus holding another girl’s hand telling me and a group of people that the keg was kicked. This crushed me, but I dodged a bullet. I appreciated the second time we kissed when you pinned me against a fence making out with me and humping me so hard I got a five-inch bruise from the wooden fence on my spine. The bruise lasted longer than the span of us talking with one another. You were more like the shirtless guys on the front of a birthday card. The idea was hot, but the reality fell flat.

Kai,

You were such a classic DMV boy at college. I thought you could have been the slice of home to help me feel found at school. In truth you told me that you knew you’d like to be with me but it was first semester freshman year and that you wanted to, “go out and slay bitches, even if I come back empty handed”. This phrase exemplified your immaturity and although we spent nearly the rest of college hating each other, I developed a lot of respect for you once I saw you in a relationship. I enjoyed our time creating a flirty friendship after graduation and supporting each other as we overcame heartbreak. You were never fully transparent with me. I wish you well, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone I know date you.

😉

Bobby,

I learned the most about myself in our relationship. I learned how to be in a long-term committed partnership and experience a whole new depth of love for someone. I felt so over joyed with for the first time not feeling trapped in a relationship or controlled. That ongoing narrative was pervasive for me for so long and that all changed with you. I was so proud to be your girlfriend and I thought we were going to be together forever. Together we had so much fun, sharing honestly and supporting one another in ways that I struggled to find for years. The good aspects of our relationship always grounded my reasoning for staying and for fighting for us. As the musical artist Russ sings, “I am a lover, not a fighter, but I fight for what I love” helped characterize my ceaseless effort to make our relationship work. I experienced the most exquisite of emotional pain in this relationship which I chose to see as a barometer for how I experience feelings in future relationships. Where I feel even a shadow of that feeling I had with you, I know things need to change to ensure I don’t find myself back in a dynamic of pouring myself out to endlessly love and serve someone at the expense of myself. I also learned that once a relationship ends, it can start again but the dynamics of hurt and love continually scar the heart at my expense and is not the example of love I want to lead for myself and especially not my future children. My unborn children have also inadvertently saved me time and time again. Wanting what is best for them has been the process of learning self-love and holding the same agency for myself.

I learned in the end that although you were not controlling you were an emotional sadist and I valued loyalty over myself and suffered to learn the lesson that has since prompted the question, loyal to what? This question, although vague, taught me to look at the treatment I have received and the level of care afforded to me to evaluate if I should honor loyalty and question if they’ve earned it.

Max,

You were a genuinely kind person. It felt good to know and trust I was with someone who was not out to hurt me. Although in many cases I backslid to a controlling partner unable to appreciate my beauty publicly without insecurity which always caused fights. I did fight for myself but over time I did embrace more modest clothing to avoid fights and truly insecurities are the responsibility of the person with them to learn to overcome individually.

Partners can support them, but by no means is it my burden to share, fight, and overcome with you. Nor was the projection of your belief that “men like women only if you give them a reason to” fair as it was an innate fallacy based upon your own belief that you wouldn’t like someone unless they gave you a reason to through some sort of invitation. These projections, fallacies, insecurities, and expectations made it so that being single although scary was more alluring to be free to be myself again without the dynamics constantly reassuring you. You taught me that where I gained in the sense that we had the same political ideologies and shared favorite pastimes, I lost in terms of once again assuming the role of carrying the burden, weight and pain of my partner and I didn’t want to do that again.

Kishan,

With you, I learned that quick fun should not last. I originally wanted to not overthink the next person as having to meet all my relationship standards. I wanted fresh and new fun. This was only three months after the final breakup, ending the five-year on-and-off dating saga with Bobby. You appeared to be intriguing as a thirty-something-year-old man from New York City who had studied geology. We bonded over being two attractive people willing to talk extensively about rocks over drinks.

You in time became more bizarre to me. We tried to have a contrived long-term thing, yet it became too weird to continue when you shared the former vacation itinerary you did with your ex-girlfriend with me so I could go on vacation and have the same experiences. It felt as if you wanted to fit me into your former memories. You tried to build our start off of a past relationship, which quickly showed me how off-center you were. I just wanted a fun experience to give myself hope about rejoining the dating scene.

Vincent,

Together we shared a strong physical and spiritual connection which felt truly liberating transcending together. Your ability to talk slow and have deep conversations during pillow talk made it feel unmatched up until this point. Although this relationship taught me that a good pep talk is nice, and having a positive hype man feels good, it differs from someone who really roots for you. Our relationship was one of just me hitting you up and you being unwilling to meet up 9/10 times, which only made me feel confused as to what we were doing. And although you seemed so self aware you lacked the sheer ability to address how you were feeling and where it put us. Always fronting some sort of psuedo relationship that would prompt me to initiate a more substantial connection only to be rejected and lick my wounds and come back. I also acknowledge this became a perpetual dynamic we both enacted to each other. In truth some aspects of our relationship far exceeded our expectations, but the remaining aspects were too much to ignore. Too much professional competition was palpable in this connection and although I would be the plug for you, you never tried to pull me up as you ascended. You even sent me a box of my things to hurt me.

The calculated action to hurt me told me it was over because accepting pain and harm like that was no longer for me.

Quentin,

French, cute and fun! Your arrogance and desire to tell me I looked too good and mess up my hair to make it better or criticize my makeup was not a good look. We had fun but you were far too active for me. Mountain biking, surfing, skiing all the time, I sometimes just like to sit. Anyways, you were a slice of home as you made meals from Europe that only my mother had made for me. Experiencing this truly engaged me more in an exploration of my identity. We were not well matched and temporarily trying to enjoy ourselves as we feared heartbreak again and settled for a temporary lukewarm connection mainly rooted in mutual attraction.

Nathaniel,

You helped me stretch my concept of dating with a large age range in a relationship. I will never forget my sister’s boyfriend asked the question jokingly of who was president when you were born, and it gave me a new way of witnessing age and time.

You were a living ideal for me. I remember the first time I met you, you described the process of making a custom rocking chair for the woman who mothered your son to nurse your child. These exhibited qualities of making furnishings for your partner and family really resonated with me as qualities of my ideal husband. I learned a year later that you were single and began having deep existential conversations about life, what we wanted from it, what it took to get there, and all the things we hoped to do if all the obstacles in life were less present. I was almost equally as shocked when we got together as you were freaked out about the concept of dating due to company policy after we’d already breached it. In the end I didn’t like the idea of someone living in another state from their child and I wanted different circumstances for myself. I also wanted someone who would not leave me on read and wait months to circle back to clear up the confusion.

To this day I’m grateful for this relationship as I believe normalizing the age gap here allowed me to see my current partner as a viable romantic partner worth pursuing.

Michael,

I think this is your name. I deleted you from Hinge and hoped to never see you again. I liked you and missed sleeping and cuddling with a warm body.

My clear declaration of not wanting to have sex but being willing to fool around quickly turned into fear-inspired panic when you kept trying to enter me. You were big and handsome but your size and my tight complicated outfit made it where I didn’t think I could safely leave nor leave quickly clothed. I never thought of that as an important safety precaution, to dress in an outfit that if it came off it could quickly go back on for a fast exit plan.

This experience was a lot about learning how to distance myself from someone who could not take no for an answer. And worst of all, you laughed in my face at the fact that I said no and it still happened. You are a person that makes me thankful that the blocking feature exists.

Tim,

Going on the first of three dates should have been enough. You lied about your height, and although I don’t care about that, the level of dishonesty was one of the first things that turned me off. You complained about the fact that black coffee refills weren’t free on our first date and didn’t offer to pay for anything on the second two dates. I saw you only for the third time because I left my Rayban sunglasses in your bag after our second date.

You are one of many cheap men I have dated and I continually find it an ugly quality.

Gabe,

You were hot. But talking about childhood masturbation on a first date and eating with your hands was a clear and obvious no. I agreed to a second date hoping you were better than that, but cancelled plans before the second date after you told me you were going to a happy hour beforehand.

You then showed me how fundamentally petty you were— you Venmo requested me multiple times for your movie ticket (not mine, but yours) and told me off. You should have thanked me for promoting you to see the award-winning international film, Parasite.

Kevin,

I let myself see your life circumstances as you were the victim of life which helped me ignore the potential physical danger I could have been in. You worked in construction and were raised in Pennsylvania. At the time, the only men I had dated long term had a similar upbringing, so you felt knowable and familiar in this way. Your ability to build a house was alluring to me and gave you promise in my eyes. When I found out you and your friend drugged your friend’s girlfriend I no longer felt safe with you and I learned then that disdain for your significant other’s friends should be a sign that you’re not with the right people. If you dread hanging out with them, they aren’t your people. Also don’t ever work for someone you date.

Bradley,

It was uncanny how much you and Max were alike in the sense that I was bored and happy to have someone nice to share my boredom with. Life was not moving as I had hoped during this time. Working at a brewery after grad school, dealing with sexism there, and being bored of my own life, you posed as a fun distraction to try and introduce something to make things more interesting, but in truth, I loved how calm and settled you were.

Skateboarding to work, drinking coffee on your front porch, having jam sessions with friends, and bringing home free beer to have friends come over seemed like you led a life at my dream pace. Your lack of ambition on the other hand was not for me. Again I was perplexed about how I was still dating guys who lived with other men in a house with dirty cat litter boxes, changing LED lights, and the smell of sweaty balls. Soon I was trying to dull out the discomfort of being there and watching the dumb TV you all watched with substances to make it tolerable. I found YouTube videos talking about astrology, tarot, and spirituality and I really wanted to get away from wasting my time by having more time with myself. I all along wanted someone long-term, but I had felt so shut out of all my wants and needs at that time that I went for a local comfort crutch. You taught me a new love for Rockville and showed me a special kind of stillness.

All these experiences taught me how to avoid the traits I was not looking for and showed me I wanted someone who would be a good father, a devotional lover, and a nurturer of me and my inner spirit. I always wanted someone who could make things with their hands so that we could build a life together as a team.

Although different, my exes embodied qualities I wanted in a partner, whether loyal, kind, creative, calm, grounding, supportive, etc. The sum of these qualities that drew me to them was in essence the person I was looking for.

Now looking back I see the process of dating mimics the story by P.D. Eastman, Are You My Mother? It should come as no surprise that this book was a childhood favorite of mine. The book centers on the journey of a lost bird searching the world for its mother. Dating in this case was a search for a partner, someone who held the same song in their heart as me and also felt like family.

In pursuit of a significant other, I was both hopeful and curious each time I met someone who possessed the qualities that matched the familiar blurry vision I had of my dream partner. Much like the bird, I was invariably asking them and myself the question, Are you the one?

The people I met through this lens of infinite possibility were [mostly] wonderful in part, although my dating experiences were not void of red flags. I have been processing my guilt around not always having the self-awareness for my safety and better interest with respect to red flags. I find forgiveness through relating what I learned firsthand and what the children's book has taught me in retrospect.

We are souls who may remember our partner from a past life, or see phantom visions of who we want in the future. These visions in our mind's eye connect us with people who possess some of these qualities. In time, we sharpen our awareness around perceiving a series of desired traits.

When we locate these traits in another and connect with them, the sensation is exciting and rich with the promise of a possible soulmate. The

recognition of a new person as the potential solution to a long-term dream is the high of having your dreams come true. So it is understandable to want to deny or reject the reality of red flags [before we know the pain of what that brings] because we believe at that moment, we have found what we were looking for and to see the red flags is to endanger that hope.

The bird in the storybook approaches many different individuals who were not its mother. Although the bird may have developed more fear of not finding her through the duration of the story, it never identified with the guilt of entertaining the wrong individual or asking the question too many times.

Guilt should not linger or hold us hostage for our choices in the past. I found that seeing this story as the process of dating made sense of my intuitive and even sometimes nonsensical actions. The story became an opportunity to reframe my perspective in something familiar and offer myself personal forgiveness for not allowing myself to see all the red flags.

And to my credit, many other people did not make this list due to my cultivated discernment.

So I guess it’s not a matter of guilt, but a matter of us going person to person led by our intuitive awareness to learn the necessary lessons. All of the flawed choices, and selection of harmful people were not evidence of having a poor picker. By following the clues in my heart and learning from my physical reality, I learned how to navigate the world more safely. All the while learning how to sustain a healthy and happy relationship both on purpose and by accident.