When I was young, I was certain I knew what love is. I believed in fairytales, believed that the right guy was waiting for me out there and would come and find me. I was naive and inexperienced. Unfortunately, as I grew older, I had come to find that the reality of the dating world is much different. My childish outlook on love led me to enter into dysfunctional relationships. I would give it my all and sacrifice pieces of myself to make it work.

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I didn’t think that a relationship could fail. I refused to give up on a relationship. I thought that if I’m in a relationship, that it must work. I thought that it should be easy. I thought that if something in the relationship wasn’t working – then I must be the problem. I blamed myself for every fraction and took on the blame and responsibility for everything. In no way should this be the way to conduct a relationship. By acting the way I did, I made my relationships, in which both sides should carry the joint weight, one-sided. I took on everything that went wrong, all the heavy load, while my partner got away with everything. All of this changed, however, when I met you.

From the very beginning, our relationship was unlike any other relationship I ever had. You were (and still are) such an amazing partner. You were collaborative and reciprocated the effort and the work that I put into the relationship. You didn’t stand by and let me take on everything myself but helped me carry the weight. You showed me how dysfunctional my past relationships were, how my perception of a partner and a relationship was wrong and damaged. You showed me how to love. And, for that, I can’t thank you enough. You prove to me every day what a reliable partner you are. And, that maybe, the fairytales didn’t get it wrong after all.