Many happy returns?

[Toots]

It's about 20 years since I saw xMM. At least 15 anyway. He moved, I moved, I changed my job, my name, pretty much everything since then. Then out of the blue I get an email to an email address I don't use often, it's an old one, but he wouldn't know it it was set up about 5 years after I last saw him. From him.

He asked if it was true that someone we both knew had died recently. I hadn't heard but asked around and found out yes he had. I replied and said so. Just that. Nothing else. Then he started mailing to ask how I was. I said fine and left it at that. But more mail. More and more. Asking contact details and all kinds of things. I haven't replied. I don't know if he's still with his BW and I don't want her going postal again. I don't know where he is in what country even and I'm not interested. It's been 20 years and he's still not moved on? Do they always come back?

[wannabdone]

I don't know if all of them always come back. Seems there are some men that have A's, and have real remorse... others who don't.

 

My xMM will always come back. Creeps.

[Toots]

He is fishing.......which you know that. If you feed him, he will keep throwing out the bait. Since it's been so long, I hope that you have moved on and healed and in a better place. Sounds like your life imploded due to the affair. If I were you, I'd do my best to avoid giving it any of my brain power. It's just wasted energy on your part. I know......you are curious, I would be to, but curiosity killed the cat, remember? And........it's not a sign that he hasn't moved on, he is just looking for what you gave him during the affair and it doesn't necessarily mean that it was love and he has pined for you all these years. Maybe.......but highly doubtful.

 

Nope, not interested. Yes I know he's fishing. I'm not at all curious as I said so. Just wondering why after 20 years he's still interested and hasn't moved on. I moved on already long ago. I ended it. It wasn't my life imploded it was his. That's why he moved. I moved because I changed jobs for a better one and moved on with my life. The A was not a bad experience for me but it's not where I want to be now. I have moved on and was shocked that he still wants contact with me after 20 years. I was wondering if that was normal, is all. I have no intention of replying to his mails as I said. There is nothing in it for me to do so. And no I didn't expect him to love me. I didn't love him. I don't think it is love that makes him still interested. My question was do all MMs do this, not should I reply to his mail.

[East7]

I don't know if he's still with his BW and I don't want her going postal again. I don't know where he is in what country even and I'm not interested. It's been 20 years and he's still not moved on? Do they always come back?

 

Interesting situation and question.

 

TBH, this is something that I have been wondering once in a while: Would I, in 2, 5..X years, take my xMW back if she 100% available for me ?

 

When the A was freshly ended, it was more like "maybe", than it progressed to an adamant NO way !

 

If I sit and write on a paper the Pros and Cons, there would be almost nothing in the Pros and a lot on the Cons side : She had the CHOICE to be with me, she had enough TIME to make that choice, I would have a lot of TRUST ISSUES, and who is to say that we would feel the same way about each-other ?

 

Your xMM had the CHOICE 20 years ago. Now he might be lonely, depressed etc..etc and nostalgic of someone who loved him. It is all about HIM, not you. Where was he during 20 years?

[Toots]

I don't know if all of them always come back. Seems there are some men that have A's, and have real remorse... others who don't.

 

My xMM will always come back. Creeps.

 

I don't know if he had remorse or not. He had consequences and if he stayed with her I'm sure she would have demanded remorse. Or at least the appearance of.

[East7]

And no I didn't expect him to love me. I didn't love him. I don't think it is love that makes him still interested. My question was do all MMs do this, not should I reply to his mail.

 

Sorry I missed this clarification, it changes everything..

 

Then why on earth do you care ? Does it makes any difference that he fishes because his love has rekindled or because it is plain curiosity about you ?

[jwi71]

Nope, not interested. Yes I know he's fishing. I'm not at all curious as I said so. Just wondering why after 20 years he's still interested and hasn't moved on.

 

Has nothing to do with "moving on".

You are the low-hanging fruit.

No more complex than that I think.

[wannabdone]

Sorry I missed this clarification, it changes everything..

 

Then why on earth do you care ? Does it makes any difference that he fishes because his love has rekindled or because it is plain curiosity about you ?

 

 

Maybe there is something in her that feels better that someone who rejected her so many years ago, is now "trying" again. And we all know he's trying something.

 

This can be a slippery slope. As even if your intentions might be to make him feel rejected, you can easily be sucked backed in. I would think.

[MissBee]

I can't say they always come back....

 

But it depends on why you cheated I suppose that determines if you do come back.

 

My exAP also came back....up to the same tricks. That's when I realized the truth. In all that time I GREW. I learned...I saw things differently, I was at a different stage in my life, etc. He had not. He was hoping I was the same person, willing to do the same things, as he sure was! But I ended all our communication. Initially, I still believed he was a great guy who made a mistake, but who was otherwise genuine and had learned, hence I decided we can be friends/communicate once in a while, why not. I then realized he did not want friendship and was not genuine, but was still in a relationship and still trying to respark with me. I then felt sad for him because I knew then that it was not that I was special or that it was some love connection but he could not help himself and was just being sleazy. even years later, he still was, even though now, I was no longer a willing accomplice. Which made the whole thing seem even more pathetic....and I started to imagine how back then, younger and dumber, I thought it was all cute and romantic and now it was like *womp womp womp* really??!!

 

So yea....I think if you are someone stuck in a certain mentality or have never dealt with your issues, you're more likely to fish around your old "stomping grounds" (eww sounds kinda crass ) when you're bored in your life. But I don't think every MM is like this. I do think some may genuinely feel regretful and may genuinely have reconciled and are not interested in hunting down their APs for chitchat or an ego stroke or to restart the A. 20 years is indeed a long time though! He probably just has very poor boundaries...as so many of these situations amount to. That is, maybe his intention was not malicious, but he could not leave it at finding what he wanted but had to press for more. Although, I wonder, did he know NO ONE ELSE who would know this information besides you?! But in any case who knows why, the good thing is that you're not interested.

Edited April 4, 2012 by MissBee

[findingnemo]

They do come back sometimes. But I wouldn't call what your xMM is doing "coming back". More like fishing. Many like fishing. It's a sport, you know.

 

To come back means, IMO, to get a D and when done search for the one you love. If this is the case, then yes they sometimes come back.

[MissBee]

Interesting situation and question.

 

TBH, this is something that I have been wondering once in a while: Would I, in 2, 5..X years, take my xMW back if she 100% available for me ?

 

When the A was freshly ended, it was more like "maybe", than it progressed to an adamant NO way !

 

If I sit and write on a paper the Pros and Cons, there would be almost nothing in the Pros and a lot on the Cons side : She had the CHOICE to be with me, she had enough TIME to make that choice, I would have a lot of TRUST ISSUES, and who is to say that we would feel the same way about each-other ?

Your xMM had the CHOICE 20 years ago. Now he might be lonely, depressed etc..etc and nostalgic of someone who loved him. It is all about HIM, not you. Where was he during 20 years?

 

 

Ditto...I think a lot of times our first instinct when something like this occurs is to make it about us, but many times, it is not, it's about that person and their feelings. And a lot of times loneliness, depression, tough times etc make people nostalgic for a time that was good or enjoyable or comforting. It's just like the high school sweetheart trap, made easier by social networking, where people seem to be in droves reconnecting with "old love".....and 3/4 of the stories do not seem organic at all but quite contrived. This person usually is not happy with their life or marriage and consciously or subconsciously put themselves in a position to reach out to old loves and if the stars are aligned...i.e. that old love is single or unhappy too then the whole process can start of developing an inappropriate relationship that takes you away from your regular life and your problems, and you can more easily believe this is the one that got away and it was actually them you were to marry etc. And sorry lol, but most times this simply is not true...and in the cases I've heard of where old loves reconnect, it usually is not while they are still married to another and cheating, but something a lot more organic and unharmful.

 

I think if you are genuinely happy in your own life when an old HS sweetheart pops up or if you're happily married or in a relationship, most likely you will chit chat in a cordial way and leave it at that! They then will most likely get the vibe that if they are looking for more, you sure won't be interested. So it's a 2-way street, because as soon as you seem like you would be willing, then the communication gets turned up, there is more frequent contact and more talk of "old times" and even futures then it goes into a whirlwind from there. But at the end of the day, the point is: it usually starts with them and not because they genuinely wanted to see how you were doing and wanted to catch up with no strings attached.

Edited April 4, 2012 by MissBee

[Toots]

Your xMM had the CHOICE 20 years ago. Now he might be lonely, depressed etc..etc and nostalgic of someone who loved him. It is all about HIM, not you. Where was he during 20 years?

 

He did not have the choice. I ended the A when we started to work together. I think he would have preferred it not to end then. I think it was because he was still interested back then that he got careless and his BW discovered that there had been an A. I suppose he had a choice of being kicked out and having nowhere to go or staying with her. But I was not a choice. I had ended things with him long before that.

[Toots]

Sorry I missed this clarification, it changes everything..

 

Then why on earth do you care ? Does it makes any difference that he fishes because his love has rekindled or because it is plain curiosity about you ?

 

I do not think there was any love to rekindle. I think he was a very damaged person who was using the A to get something that was missing in his M and his life. Perhaps he has been getting it somewhere else in the meantime I don't know. It is of no real interest to me. It does not make any difference to me what his motivation was. It would not change what I think of him or how I would respond to him. I was just interested whether this was common or not.

[Toots]

Has nothing to do with "moving on".

You are the low-hanging fruit.

No more complex than that I think.

 

I am not low-hanging or fruit. I am nothing in his life nor he in mine. When I dumped him years ago he knew that. If he wants fruit he must find another tree.

[Toots]

Maybe there is something in her that feels better that someone who rejected her so many years ago, is now "trying" again. And we all know he's trying something.

 

This can be a slippery slope. As even if your intentions might be to make him feel rejected, you can easily be sucked backed in. I would think.

 

He did not reject me. I ended things with him. It certainly does not make me feel any better or any worse that he is trying again. I did not think I would ever hear from him again and certainly did not ever hope that I would.

 

I do not intend to "make him feel rejected". I don't bear him any ill will to want to harm him. Nor to make him feel any better. There is no chance of getting "sucked back in". There was nothing to be sucked in to. It was something that was interesting for me for a while many years ago until it wasn't any more and I ended it and moved on.

[Toots]

I can't say they always come back....

 

But it depends on why you cheated I suppose that determines if you do come back.

 

My exAP also came back....up to the same tricks. That's when I realized the truth. In all that time I GREW. I learned...I saw things differently, I was at a different stage in my life, etc. He had not. He was hoping I was the same person, willing to do the same things, as he sure was! But I ended all our communication. Initially, I still believed he was a great guy who made a mistake, but who was otherwise genuine and had learned, hence I decided we can be friends/communicate once in a while, why not. I then realized he did not want friendship and was not genuine, but was still in a relationship and still trying to respark with me. I then felt sad for him because I knew then that it was not that I was special or that it was some love connection but he could not help himself and was just being sleazy. even years later, he still was, even though now, I was no longer a willing accomplice. Which made the whole thing seem even more pathetic....and I started to imagine how back then, younger and dumber, I thought it was all cute and romantic and now it was like *womp womp womp* really??!!

 

So yea....I think if you are someone stuck in a certain mentality or have never dealt with your issues, you're more likely to fish around your old "stomping grounds" (eww sounds kinda crass ) when you're bored in your life. But I don't think every MM is like this. I do think some may genuinely feel regretful and may genuinely have reconciled and are not interested in hunting down their APs for chitchat or an ego stroke or to restart the A. 20 years is indeed a long time though! He probably just has very poor boundaries...as so many of these situations amount to. That is, maybe his intention was not malicious, but he could not leave it at finding what he wanted but had to press for more. Although, I wonder, did he know NO ONE ELSE who would know this information besides you?! But in any case who knows why, the good thing is that you're not interested.

 

He does have poor boundaries. And also issues that run very deep and he is not the sort of person who would go for counselling because of his position. I don't know if he did feel remorse or if he just did what he needed to do so that she did not kick him out when she found out about the A. I don't know if he has behaved himself in his M over the last 20 years of whether he has not. Chances are though that he still has the same issues he had before and so he will probably have been doing something to try to fill the gap for himself. He tried religion and he tried work and he tried an A (with me) so he may have tried something very different or he may have gone back to something he had tried before. I don't know and am not interested enough to want to find out.

 

I don't think he knows anyone else who would know about the person who died. I don't want to give too much information but it was not someone who would move in his circles and it was someone he met through me. We participated in an activity with this person and even after the A ended we still used to participate together as colleagues and none of his friends or other people he knew would know this person. Only me and my friends that he met through me. I had lost touch with all of those people too which was why I did not know about him dying and had to ask around to find out. So I wasn't surprised he asked me about it as who else would he ask? But I suppose I was surprised he was even interested to find out for sure and I was surprised that he went to all the trouble of tracking me down to find out. I would not have bothered. It was a long time ago and not a big deal.

[Toots]

They do come back sometimes. But I wouldn't call what your xMM is doing "coming back". More like fishing. Many like fishing. It's a sport, you know.

 

To come back means, IMO, to get a D and when done search for the one you love. If this is the case, then yes they sometimes come back.

 

How could it be "coming back" if it was love? There was no love before. You can't come back to some place you've never been. All he had to come back to was the A or maybe he hoped he could come back to the A and maybe he'd forgotten that when I ended it I closed that door and it wasn't there to come back to anyway.

 

I suspect that when it is love it does not take them 20 years to "come back". If you love someone would you move away and not try to look for them for 20 years? I think that is not love but nostalgia.

[Toots]

Ditto...I think a lot of times our first instinct when something like this occurs is to make it about us, but many times, it is not, it's about that person and their feelings. And a lot of times loneliness, depression, tough times etc make people nostalgic for a time that was good or enjoyable or comforting. It's just like the high school sweetheart trap, made easier by social networking, where people seem to be in droves reconnecting with "old love".....and 3/4 of the stories do not seem organic at all but quite contrived. This person usually is not happy with their life or marriage and consciously or subconsciously put themselves in a position to reach out to old loves and if the stars are aligned...i.e. that old love is single or unhappy too then the whole process can start of developing an inappropriate relationship that takes you away from your regular life and your problems, and you can more easily believe this is the one that got away and it was actually them you were to marry etc. And sorry lol, but most times this simply is not true...and in the cases I've heard of where old loves reconnect, it usually is not while they are still married to another and cheating, but something a lot more organic and unharmful.

 

I think if you are genuinely happy in your own life when an old HS sweetheart pops up or if you're happily married or in a relationship, most likely you will chit chat in a cordial way and leave it at that! They then will most likely get the vibe that if they are looking for more, you sure won't be interested. So it's a 2-way street, because as soon as you seem like you would be willing, then the communication gets turned up, there is more frequent contact and more talk of "old times" and even futures then it goes into a whirlwind from there. But at the end of the day, the point is: it usually starts with them and not because they genuinely wanted to see how you were doing and wanted to catch up with no strings attached.

 

Yes this is what I was thinking. Not about love but about old wounds that have not healed and feeling nostalgic. Or maybe he has discovered he has a terminal disease and wants all of the people who maybe meant something to him at vulnerable times in his life to gather around some virtual sick bed and stroke his fevered brow, IDK. Maybe he wants "closure". His personal motivations are not particularly interesting to me because I am reasonably sure he will still be the man I knew him to be and he is someone from my past not my future. But 20 years seems a long time to me and I wondered how usual that was for someone to do that especially for a "relationship" that we both recognised for what it was at the time.

[East7]

But at the end of the day, the point is: it usually starts with them and not because they genuinely wanted to see how you were doing and wanted to catch up with no strings attached.

 

I wish I could read this sentence when my xMW decided to pop-up in my life. I would have saved myself lots of pain and delusions.

 

No strings attached for sure, they never come back with the intention to start a new relationship. They intend to keep the one they have, you are more likely just plain curiosity, chit-chatting, nostalgia about the good old times when routine and husband/wife are too boring..

 

My exAP also came back....up to the same tricks. That's when I realized the truth. In all that time I GREW. I learned...I saw things differently, I was at a different stage in my life, etc. He had not. He was hoping I was the same person, willing to do the same things, as he sure was!

 

Congrats for this. I think the single APs are more susceptible to grow, learn and move on rather than the MP who stay married and reproduce the same isses and patterns.

 

For most of fOM/fOW it takes a long time to heal from an A but they come out as more mature persons and are better prepared with relationship skills.

Edited April 5, 2012 by East7

[Emme]

Toots from what you stated I can guess what's happening. The recent death that has occurred is what's triggering the reconnect. When tragedy happens people start reflecting on things and people they care about. Both of you might have let each other go but that doesn't mean you stop caring about the person. I am not sure if you guys share a friend in common... If you don't he might be thinking if either of you passed how would you find out. I am just guessing because that's what I think about. I won't know when/if my friend dies unless his mother calls me. Would she even call me if she knows what's happened. Both you went down that dead end road and grieved already. He's decided to reverse. It's up to you to stand firm and never respond if you have grieved. He's dead to you and its over.

 

Now if he's just fishing to fish... he's years late but still on schedule. Summer's around the corner... men are out of hibernation. Time to get ready for summer fun.

[Toots]

I ran into a former colleague who worked with us back then. He looked old and frail and very lonely. His wife has Alzheimers and I think he needed someone to talk to. In conversation he asked if I'd had any contact with MM since those days. I mentioned the contact out of the blue, about the acquaintance who had died, and said I hadn't followed up on it beyond confirming that the acquaintance had died. The colleague said xMM had retired and was considering coming back to this country and maybe he wanted my "blessing" that it was OK for him to do that in case we ran into each other. I said it wasn't my place to give or deny blessings and he needed to make his own decisions and take responsibility for them. It is a very long time to be carrying a cross.

[anika99]

I've had a few exes look me up many years later, claiming to have never gotten over me and wishing to see me again. It's bullsh*t. They were just lonely, hadn't grown as people emotionally or mentally and they figured that since I put up with their crap once I might do it again. Nobody ever said that but that's my theory and the one ex I did become re-involved with kind of proved it for me. He was exactly the same as he had been years ago and he was so very offended that I stood up for myself and refused to let him walk all over me the way he had years earlier.

 

 

I think a lot of men look up an ex when they become single or are going through a rough time. They are just being lazy. They don't want to be alone but they don't want to go to the trouble of working on their issues or take the time to court a new woman. Much easier to recycle an ex.

[Chasing_mya]

He fished and you bit. He needed something to use to lure you back in and you replied. Is there a way that you can block his email account? Nothing good will come of this. He hasn't changed and is back to his same old ways. He was probably bored or reminiscing on some old times that you both shared. None of that is relevant now and he's just trying to pass the time and checking if you'll give it to him. Block him if possible and don't entertain his shenanigans....so not worth your time or energy.