Two weeks ago I turned thirty, and on my birthday I set fire to the remains of my ex. Don’t worry, I’m not a lunatic, and he’s still alive. I fuelled a roaring log burner with all the memories and things he gave to me over the duration of our relentless on-off relationship. It was more than a symbolic cleansing — it was a reckoning. Because looking back, I see now how much I tolerated. How much I excused. How much I didn't see for what it truly was: manipulation dressed as romance. Gaslighting cloaked in charm.
I burned the letter titled “200 Reasons I Know You’re the One,” the one he gave me on my 18th birthday. Pages and pages of declarations — how I smile, how forgiving I am, my bum (multiple times). He signed it off saying I’d get an updated copy when we turned 80. At the time, it felt like something sacred, a promise of forever. But over the years, those reasons faded. They stopped showing up in his actions. One by one, they unravelled until I was left gripping a list of memories that no longer matched the reality. I clung to that letter like it could bring us back, even as the distance between us grew too wide to ignore.
I ignited the memories of being his secret. Of the way he convinced me his family would love me, but somehow I never quite made it that far. At first, sneaking around felt thrilling — like something out of a movie. But now, it just makes me feel small, dirty, and unwanted. Even when I visited him at university, I wasn’t a girlfriend — I was a shadow. Hidden from the world in case someone from our hometown spotted us. We were adults, yet I was treated like a shameful secret, locked away in his room, only allowed to exist around the people he shared student accommodation with. Love shouldn’t feel like hiding. And yet, that’s where I lived — in the margins of his life.
Yet despite all of this, I still got on the train. Over and over again. I paid — out of my own pocket — to travel the 178 miles to see him most weekends, tickets costing around £60 a time. My bank account drained, my weekends vanished, and my social life faded while I sat on trains chasing a love that never once came to find me. I kept every one of those train tickets, like they meant something — tiny paper proofs of my effort, my commitment, my blind hope. And when I lit the fire, I burned them all. Nearly £2,300 worth of journeys up in smoke — a number I’ve rounded to include the trips home at the end of each term, when I’d possibly see him too. All that time, all that money, all that waiting — and he never once made the journey to me. Sometimes I wonder if I’d be better off now if I hadn’t wasted so much. But maybe, just maybe, that fire didn’t just burn the past. Maybe it cleared the way for something better.
I doused the reminders of the accusations — every cruel word, every projection he threw at me like a weapon. Toward the end, he’d constantly accuse me of cheating, even when there was nothing but loyalty from my side. I remember the night my phone died on a night out and he spiralled, convinced I’d slept with someone else. We weren’t even together at that point, but he said he’d been “thinking about getting back together” — until I’d apparently betrayed him. Funny, because as soon as university ended, he jumped into a new relationship without hesitation, while I was left broken and single, trying to make sense of the wreckage. But karma has a poetic way of spinning the wheel. She cheated on him — with her ex — and they got back together, leaving him behind. For a long time, I thought I was the one who lost. Now I see I was the one who got free.
Not long after I finished university, I took a chance and moved to the city where he had studied. But this time, it wasn’t for him. It wasn’t about fixing anything or finding my way back to what we had. It was for me. I’d spent so many weekends travelling there that I fell in love with the city itself — the streets, the buzz, the feeling of freedom it gave me. It became my fresh start. My new beginning. But during those first few years, the past wouldn’t quite let me go. Every time he came back to visit his old friends, I’d get the drunk messages — the “I miss you” texts, the desperate pleas to see me. One night, I gave in. I saw him. And I felt... nothing. Life had moved on. I had moved on. But the damage lingered. Because of him, I struggled to trust in new relationships. I fell hard, believed every word too literally, couldn’t read the signs when things were off. I’d been broken by a little boy who never knew how to care for his belongings — and I was one of them.
Even the tiny IKEA pencils went up in flames — each one marked with the date of our visits, like souvenirs of a life we never built. We used to get lost around the mazes, hand in hand, wandering through showrooms and dreaming aloud about our future. Imagining the living room, the bedroom, the nursery. Talking about how many kids we might have, where we’d travel, and everything in between. Back then, it felt like we were building something real. But now I see we were just playing house in a world made of flat-packs and fantasy. All those dreams were written in pencil — easy to sketch, even easier to erase.
Over the years, even while I was in a committed relationship, he kept reappearing — like clockwork. Little messages, dropped into my inbox out of nowhere. Sometimes just to talk. Other times to ask if I still had the old photos and videos we used to share (if you know, you know). I never sent them. He’d go on about how much he missed the past, how good we were together. And every time, he’d remind me how surprised he was that I wasn’t “married and knocked up yet” — as if my worth was measured in those milestones. Each time he reached out, it reopened the wound a little deeper. And through it all, I wasn’t alone — I was in a relationship, trying to move forward, trying to build something healthy. But he lingered like smoke, refusing to clear.
Eventually, I found out he hadn’t been alone either. He was in a relationship — and then engaged. The final straw came when he sent the same tired message again, only to suddenly block me. Later, I discovered it was because he’d gotten married. I stumbled upon an account he hadn’t blocked me on and, for once, I called him out — asked why he’d hidden her, why he’d strung me along for so long. His response? That it was my fault she’d been kept a secret — because I “didn’t seem eager for us to be friends.” Then, he blocked me again.
And just when I thought that was the end — peace, finally — he unblocked me minutes later to tell me they were expecting a baby. One last twist of the knife. One final power move. Then, blocked again. A narcissist’s encore.
So while the relationship itself only lasted a few years, he haunted the last twelve of my life. And I truly believe that's why I've struggled to fix myself. His shadow lingered in every corner, every doubt, every broken connection. But while the memories may never fully fade, I didn’t just burn the past in that fire — I eradicated it. I set light to the relationship and the pain it carried. I threw the old version of myself into the flames and prayed she’d never return.
It shouldn’t have taken me until thirty to reach this realisation — but here I am, finally turning the page. This is a new chapter. And while the past turned to ash and ember, ready to be swept away, I spent the evening of my birthday soaking in the peace of the Welsh countryside, in a hot tub warmed by the very fire that freed me.
HERS
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