If you still love and miss someone a year after a breakup, should you let them know?

[LivingWaterPlease]

Thank you for all your responses... I really do appreciate having you there to help! One thing that I can see though is that some of you have that feeling of regret by not talking when the ex has reached out. I"m wondering if I need to do this to lose that regret if nothing else... although I wonder if it'll be replaced with the regret of however the conversation goes and what I say. Its all very tricky :/ At this point I'm thinking I'll call over the weekend... slightly scares me saying that!

 

To me, that would be an option if he were single, but he's not. You'll never go wrong by practicing the golden rule. I believe this man is married or engaged (trying to recall) so how would you feel if a man you were engaged to (or committed to) got into a conversation with an ex gf to help her process her feelings about their past relationship?

 

Seems to me anything you would talk with him about concerning your past R with him behind her back would be encroaching on the boundaries of their relationship. Otoh, if you were to go visit with them together and talk with him about your past R with him while she's present, seems that would be OK. But, obviously, you most likely wouldn't do that. Hence the reason for the advice to not go behind her back.

Edited September 15, 2017 by LivingWaterPlease

[sportygirl]

Hey LS... we're another year on almost since my last post. I'd love to say my thought a and feelings have changed. Sadly the entirety of this thread is still my world. Despite all the new experiences, I feel as though I'm in day 1 of the breakup. I don't expect anything to cone from this post... just getting my thinking out in the world again. I hope this changes one day... a lifetime like this isn't making the most of life!

[FilterCoffee]

Hey sporty,

 

Just read your posts. I’m pretty sure everyone’s going to disagree with me but why don’t you call him up and tell him how you feel. NC hasn’t worked for 2 years so why don’t you try a different approach? Tell him exactly how you feel but try not to get too emotional (I know it’s going to be tough so just do the best you can). See what he has to say and take it from there.

[HiCrunchy]

Hey LS... we're another year on almost since my last post. I'd love to say my thought a and feelings have changed. Sadly the entirety of this thread is still my world. Despite all the new experiences, I feel as though I'm in day 1 of the breakup. I don't expect anything to cone from this post... just getting my thinking out in the world again. I hope this changes one day... a lifetime like this isn't making the most of life!

 

Oh dear. I feel for you as my experience is the same. Reading your thread is like looking into a mirror of my own life. There are others on this forum dealing with more than 1 year of loving their ex. It has been about a year and half since mine left me and I still love him and think of him all the time.

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/coping/646800-pain-overwhelming

 

You are not alone, there are many people bearing the cross of being in love for someone for years that has decided to exit your life. Please take care of yourself dear.

Edited January 21, 2018 by HiCrunchy

[SevenCity]

Hey sporty,

 

Just read your posts. I’m pretty sure everyone’s going to disagree with me but why don’t you call him up and tell him how you feel. NC hasn’t worked for 2 years so why don’t you try a different approach? Tell him exactly how you feel but try not to get too emotional (I know it’s going to be tough so just do the best you can). See what he has to say and take it from there.

 

I don't necessarily disagree but you have to be prepared for a response you don't want to hear, or worse, the lack of a response.

 

I laid it all out on the table for my ex via a text because she sent my call after 1.5 years to voicemail after 2 rings. Following the advise of my overly romantic female therapist, I told her I still thought about her daily after all this time and wanted to either know if she felt the same and was open to trying or did not (in which case I would live with it). She never responded.

 

I can't imagine after 7 years of being best friends and lovers that any human being wouldn't at least offer some sort of response to allow the other person some measure of peace (I should note she acted far from done when we broke up). Something as simple as "I've moved on" or "I'm sorry no" would have given me enough to realize what we had was gone...forever.

 

That was about a month ago. If anything at least I can say I tried the "Hail Mary" but it didn't really help anything because I was really looking for clarity to her mixed behavior. Even if she is happily with someone else (I know nothing of her now), it would have been nice to put this to rest in my head.

 

I understand she owes me nothing but I was hoping for a sliver of human decency and got nothing.

 

If you are going to call, just be prepared it won't make you feel better. In my case she said she never felt good enough (insecurity was a big issue of hers) so I wanted to be clear AGAIN that wasn't the case. In your case I don't think he feels that way.

 

Forgetting that he is with someone else, it sounds like he knows you still care about him.

 

Unfortunately you (and I) likely won't get over them until we find someone better. I've read stats that you tend to meet someone you connect with that deeply every 2-3 years on average. I know that would do it for me.

[sportygirl]

Thank you for the responses.... I still don't know what to do... although the sensible part of my brain says its a lost cause, it seems so wrong to completely give up on everything. I'm just very lost, and very tired of feeling so lost for so long.

[Fair]

Like everybody it telling you, he could change a lot, and the person you loved is gone, he could be totally different by now.

 

No one changes that much in a whole lifetime, let alone a year!

 

But that's not the point. If he dumped you... he probably wouldn't welcome hearing from you.

[SevenCity]

Any update sporty? Did you end up reaching out?

 

It’s funny how sometimes you think things can go right back to how they were, yet other times you think of the sheer ridiculousness of the idea.

 

Well, hope you are doing better in any case.

[Mac0908]

Sporty how old are you? Seems like you need a little tough loving.

 

Breakups 101 - The DUMPER must always be the one to reach out, NOT the dumpee. This man took off. His loss. If he wanted to rekindle, he would have reached back out. Do you have no self respect at all? You have not gone complete NC and it has been toxic to you, as I've noticed by reading this entire thread. Until you go 100% NC you will continue to suffer. (i.e. not facebook stalking is huge)

 

If you reach out to him, I'd say there's a 2% chance this will work out. That means you're looking at a 98% chance of more heartache. Do you really want those odds? I don't think you can handle that right now so I'd cut the idea out of your head and study up on how to move on in a real way. You NEED to look in the mirror and be strong and FINALLY take hold of your life here. This relationship is over and as hard as it is for you to finally accept that, its reality.

 

We've all been there, including myself. Its hard. But at this stage what you're doing is not healthy IMO.

[grays]

Im so sad for you, Sporty. You do need to move on, and I'm wondering if thats impossible now because you still have some tiny glimmer of hope that he'll call (that calling once a year business is the perfect way to keep you trapped in this!) and want to be with you. I think as long as there's hope you are stuck. And since he's given you a tiny shred of hope, you need to kill the hope by honestly and whole-heartedly deciding you don't want to be with him.

 

If it were me, the way I'd get there is to really think hard about what he did to you. Would you hurt anyone like that? Would you hurt someone you loved like that? Was there anyway he could have broken up with you without hurting you that badly (answer is yes, sounds like he didn't really give you any idea of why and didn't give you any chance to understand or talk it through)? In my world, if someone is making me truly unhappy, they just have to go. Couples have hard moments here and there, so it's a bit of a judgement call when enough is enough. But certainly if I see a pattern of them doing **** that they know is gonna hurt me, they are out. If you think long and hard about just how willing he was to make you profoundly unhappy, you've got to see that you absolutely can't be with him. Really, squash that tiny glimmer of hope.

[d0nnivain]

sportygirl

 

I'm going to be the big wet blanket. You dated a guy for 18 months almost 4 years ago (in late 2015 you posted that he broke up with you 6 months earlier). Yet, you are still upset & missing him.

 

You can reach out if you like. Maybe this latest rejection will be the impetus you need to move forward. I highly doubt your lost love hasn't moved on.

 

I'm very concerned about you that you haven't healed. You say that even after all this time, it still feels like day 1. You have hung on to something twice as long as it existed. That is not healthy. If you haven't already been, please consider getting into therapy.

[HiCrunchy]

Sporty girl, I won't cast stones from glass houses.

I hope u are feeling better today.

[Popsicle]

Hi sportygirl. I am just now becoming acquainted with this this thread and the backstory. From what I understand, it's been since 2015 that you broke up. I once had an ex come back after 3 years of having no contact. Unfortunately, I had moved on and was dating someone else, but I still to this day think about that and am baffled why he waited so long. He dumped me, by the way. Was he in pain all that time, missing me and trying to get to the point where he'd worked through all his issues before he came back? Or did he dump me because he thought he could do better, then realized he couldn't do better so he came back? I tend to lean towards the former based on what he said. I think he was working through his problems and it just took that long. Are you familiar with John Gray's work? He's the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" guy. I don't care for some of his stuff but he does talk about how some men have to pull away when they are getting too close to a woman to figure out what they really want and to work through problems. He calls it the Rubber band effect or something like that. I could see how it could take a long time to do this and how some might not ever get to that point, even though they want to. Life is hard, you know? Based on this, I think you just have to let him go and do his thing and not bother him. In the meantime, you have to move on too as best you can and see other people.

Edited March 14, 2018 by Popsicle

[toomanyquestions123]

I hope your did not reach out. I tried to reach out my ex and got 0 response and it hurt me even more. But what worries me is that you still did not move on after several years of breaking up. Its been 10 months for me and i feel im getting better each day, i even am ready to date and maybe fall in love again, i just need to find the right one still. Please stay strong and go complete NC.