My Boyfriend Left Me and Now I Have to Watch Him Live a Better Life

Last Tuesday I received the most heartbreaking news. My longtime boyfriend of almost 11 years who did not know he was my boyfriend, Henrik Lundqvist, is leaving New York for good. Lundqvist, the beloved goalie of the New York Rangers hockey team as well as a goalie for the Swedish National Team and also my boyfriend, has signed a one-year deal to play for the Washington Capitals in Washington, D.C., a wasteland. I didn’t know how to feel at first but thought I would eventually make peace with it, assuming that at the tender age of 38, he would end up retiring immediately after leaving the Rangers. But then he did that thing that exes do: found a way to stay in my life without giving me the love or attention I need.

Like all bad breakups, it’s not just one person’s fault. There were so many little things leading up to this moment that I should have seen coming. I think I knew things were going south in 2014 when I had a brief affair with my short king, Martin St. Louis, who played a season with the Rangers. Henrik and I just weren’t clicking at the time and I needed a distraction. But when Marty retired, I took it as a sign that I needed to reaffirm my relationship with the sexiest hockey player in the entire NHL. For a while we were fine. But he started slipping. Playing less, missing easy blocks, devoting more time to his other businesses and his wife and family. The writing was on the wall.

The Rangers, who every year claim to be in the middle of a team rebuild, bought out the rest of Henrik’s contract and there was nothing left to be said between us. After all, I was a Rangers fan and he was no longer on the team. We couldn’t make our relationship work.

But to sign with the Capitals, a team that plays in the same division as the Rangers and has a way better chance of winning a Stanley Cup is just a hockey stick to my heart. How could he do this to me? How could he betray our love as if all those years of me saying don’t worry honey there’s always next season meant nothing!? Love is supposed to be forever, or at least until retirement. I can never forgive this. I was once a woman in love. Now I am an empty husk.