You Oughta Know: The Letters to Our Exes We Won’t Send

For everyone who found Alanis Morissette’s “Unsent” to be a deeply impactful work, and for those of us who haven’t heard it yet (the only two groups), we took our our pens and our unresolved issues to write these letters to our exes that they’ll never get to read, but you will.

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22 Comments

  1. All of these together is the sweetest thing I’ve ever read. It feels like a cohesive story somehow? I might just be overly emotional from not having spent enough time with my queer friends lately.

  2. You all almost made me cry. Thank you for the honesty and the sincerity and just everything here.

  3. I wasn’t emotionally ready for this today but maybe there is no day when I would have been! y’all’s exes were so lucky ๐Ÿ˜ญ

  4. I guess I’m reading these over again to press on some bruises for funsies? idk

    Carolyn’s is just a total gut punch. And Valerie Anne!!! I went through something VERY similar (Flew! Across! the Atlantic! Took a bus across the UK, twinkles in my eyes! To be met at the bus station in Scotland with the person in question and.. their still-girlfriend), and had almost managed to wipe that memory out until I read yours.

  5. I don’t have that many exes…but I have a lot of feelings I could write about. I identify a lot of Valerie’s letter. I too have a couple people in my life that even though we were never officially anything, I think they sould count as exes. Ex-loves at least, I guess.

  6. @Malic I feel so seen, because that list basically includes everything I said to my ex when I dumped her, and definitely includes everything that I talked to my friends about. Thank you.

    • @Anna & Malic – agreed! I broke up with my ex for similar reasons, and screenshot this list so when I need a reminder of what I deserve…itโ€™s there. Oof.

  7. These were beautiful and heartbreaking so I thought Iโ€™d leave my own footprints on the interwebs.

    Hey dude,

    We were wrong for each other in so many ways. Despite all of our flaws and oppositional contrasts we clung together like the last two humans on earth despite the fact we never should have tried.

    And trying hurt you, although it hasnโ€™t really hurt me, even if it has hurt my wallet, because we were lost in a reckless young love built entirely on codependency and really great sex.

    Iโ€™m dating a new girl now and I know it hurts you and I donโ€™t care. She has a blue eyes and a crooked smile and one day I want to marry her.

    Thank you for the things you taught me, and for all of the conflict that gave me the chance to keep teaching myself. You need therapy, boo. Unchecked PTSD will never build a good foundation.

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