Dear Reader,

September 30th, 2026

I feel like I need to start an anonymous group. Kind of like AA, but for people who continue to let other people take advantage of them. For people who chase after people who have proven over and over again that they either don’t know how to love them or simply don’t have the ability to.

I don’t know what we would call it. But I know I’d be the first member.

So let me start.

Hi, my name is Kelsey. And I have a problem with loving people who don’t love me back.

I have an addiction to caring too much. Giving too much. Forgiving too much. Letting people take advantage of me even when I know they aren’t good for me. I can see exactly what someone is doing to me and still somehow convince myself that if I love them enough, forgive them enough, help them enough, or give them one more chance, something will finally change.

As much as I want to build this wonderful faith-based relationship with God, I fail at this.

I will be so deep in my faith and so trusting of God. I’ll pray. I’ll read my Bible. I’ll feel like I finally understand that I need to surrender things to Him instead of trying to control the outcome myself.

And then I let someone back into my life because I want to forgive them.

And they hurt me all over again.

It has been a never-ending cycle in my life.

I spent almost twelve years in my first marriage doing exactly that. Allowing myself to be hurt over and over again for the sake of the marriage. Staying because I didn’t want to betray my marriage vows or disappoint God. I had always been told that God hates divorce, and I carried that sentence around like it meant I was supposed to endure whatever happened to me as long as I could still call myself married.

Then I watched myself repeat the same cycle again in my second marriage.

Only this time, somehow, it was worse.

And I have had to remind myself of something that I spent years ignoring. Yes, the Bible speaks about divorce. But God also tells us exactly what He hates.

A lying tongue.

A heart that devises wicked plans.

A false witness.

Someone who sows discord.

Feet eager to run toward evil.

Arrogance.

Pride.

And somehow, so many of those qualities have existed in the people I chose to love.

And then, to my absolute shock, it didn’t end well.

I don’t even know why I’m shocked anymore.

I read these things in the Bible and then look at my own life and realize that I have begged people with those exact qualities to love me.

I have begged people to choose me while their actions were screaming that they wouldn’t.

And I’m not perfect. I will never pretend that I am. I have made mistakes. I have said things out of anger. I have reacted emotionally. I have been broken and messy and difficult at times.

But I don’t sit around planning wickedness against someone.

I don’t intentionally make choices that I know are going to destroy someone I claim to love, over and over again, and then look at them while they are crying and say, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

I don’t take advantage of someone’s kindness.

I don’t look at what someone can do for me and decide that is their value.

I don’t take someone’s money, help, forgiveness, love, generosity, or willingness to sacrifice for me and then screw them once I have gotten what I wanted.

Yet somehow, these are qualities I have tolerated from people I have begged to love me.

And there is another part of this that I don’t think people understand.

People take from me.

They hurt me. They betray me. They lie to me. They use me. They break my trust. They take whatever I am willing to give until I am standing there completely drained.

Then they say they’re sorry.

And somehow, the second the words “I’m sorry” leave their mouth, I am expected to become whole again.

Suddenly I’m supposed to prove that I forgive them.

I’m supposed to trust them again.

I’m supposed to hug them. Kiss them. Be affectionate. Give my body to them. Lay beside them. Let them touch me. Surround myself with them. Open myself back up emotionally and physically to the same person who just made me feel completely unsafe doing those things.

And if I can’t?

Then somehow I become the problem.

My distance becomes the problem.

My sadness becomes the problem.

My inability to trust becomes the problem.

My lack of affection becomes the problem.

My reaction to what was done to me becomes a bigger issue than what was actually done to me.

I’ll be honest.

I’m empty.

I’m hollow.

I have given so much of myself to everybody else that I genuinely feel like I have nothing left to give.

Sometimes I don’t even have enough love left inside of me to give to myself.

I feel sorrow all the time.

And I need people to understand that I did not wake up one morning and choose to become this version of myself.

I didn’t choose to feel worthless.

I didn’t choose to stop trusting.

I didn’t choose to feel hollow.

I didn’t choose to question whether anyone could genuinely love me without eventually hurting me.

Those feelings came from somewhere.

They came from being hurt by people who claimed to love me. Being hurt and then blamed for being hurt. Being betrayed and then told my reaction was the real problem. Being broken down and then watching the person who did it convince themselves that somehow I was the evil one because that version of the story was easier for them to live with.

There is something incredibly painful about watching someone hurt you and then rewrite the story until they become the victim of your reaction to what they did.

And eventually, after enough years of that, you start questioning yourself too.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m so stupid.

I wonder why I keep doing this.

I wonder why I can read God’s Word and see everything sitting right in front of me and still struggle to apply it to my own life.

I wish I could write something across my heart, my soul, my forehead—whatever it takes—to force myself to understand that what I feel like I deserve and what I actually deserve are not the same thing.

Because I feel worthless.

I feel like I’m not good at anything.

I feel unlovable.

I feel like nobody actually wants to be around me.

I feel like the only reason someone would keep me in their life is because I can do something for them.

And those feelings are very real.

But that doesn’t make them true.

They are trauma scars left by people who committed horrible acts against me. They are beliefs that were embedded into my head through words, actions, rejection, betrayal, humiliation, abandonment, and being repeatedly shown that somebody else’s wants mattered more than my feelings.

And if I’m being completely honest, some people continue to reinforce those feelings.

I wish I could write down what I actually deserve somewhere permanent enough that eventually I would believe it.

I deserve people who continuously pick me.

People who show up for me.

People who don’t take advantage of me.

People who don’t use me for what I can give them or what I can do for them.

I deserve people who show up simply because they want to be in my presence.

People who pursue me because they actually enjoy who I am.

People who see something in me that I clearly struggle to see in myself.

Because somewhere underneath all of this hurt, I know there is a light in me.

I just keep handing it to people who put it out.

And maybe y’all are tired of hearing about how I feel about myself.

Maybe you’re tired of reading about my trauma. My faith. My struggles. The things I’m trying to work through. How I don’t feel worthy enough to do anything, become anything, or be loved by anyone.

But every time I think that, I have to remind myself of something.

You might be tired of hearing me say it.

Imagine how tired I am of feeling it.

Imagine living inside of a mind that constantly tells you that you are nothing more than what you can do for somebody else.

Imagine constantly wondering whether someone loves you or just loves what you provide.

Imagine giving and giving and giving until one day you look inside yourself and realize there is almost nothing left.

That’s where I am.

I’m tired.

I’m empty.

I’m sad.

And I’m tired of pretending those feelings disappear just because someone who hurt me says they’re sorry.

An apology does not instantly rebuild trust.

An apology does not erase betrayal.

An apology does not give someone immediate access to my heart, my body, my affection, or the parts of me they helped break.

I don’t know how long it will take me to stop believing that my worth is measured by how much I can give someone.

I don’t know how long it will take before I look at myself and see what the people who genuinely love me apparently see.

I just know I don’t want to spend the rest of my life begging people to love me while they keep teaching me to hate myself.

So, hi.

My name is Kelsey.

And I have a problem with loving people who don’t love me back.

And God, I am so tired of it.

And so I’m praying out loud for everyone to hear—or, in this case, read. I’m praying out loud so that when my prayers are answered, my testimony will be that much more powerful.

God, please help me see what You love about me so that I can learn to love myself. Please help me become who You want me to be. Please help me hear Your voice and understand that I don’t deserve to be treated the way I’m being treated by people in my life. God, please remove the people who continue to hurt me without shame, regret, or guilt. I pray that You remove their access to me and my children. I pray for happiness, God. I pray for peace. I pray for real love. And I pray that You give me a purpose. In Jesus name, Amen.

Love always,

Kelsey