Emailed my ex after a year of NC

[WhatsYourDamage]

I had a bad break up over 2 years ago, I'm talking bad to the point of police involvement. no abuse but just a BAD situation and everyone's family was involved and everyone knew about it, bad break up.

 

It has been over a year since any communication, and in the midst of having a more recent relationship fall apart i found myself reading over old emails where for the first time i realized my fault in the break up...that means for years i blamed this man completely for everything and did not see what I did wrong. but i finally saw it, and i had this urge to apologize, i flirted with the thought for a month...i wrote and backspaced emails at least 20 times since the thought entered my mind & then i finally sent it yesterday. i know him enough to know he has read it already....but he hasnt responded.

 

it hasnt been 24 hours and your worst ex writing a long apology this long after could take a while to respond to but I more feel like he's never going to.

 

 

I dont feel bad about sending it necessarily i just kind of feel like maybe i shouldnt have...I dont want him back or anything, i know he has a gf, i dont really want anything from him, I just wanted to express that to him & maybe have peace since we have been enemies.

 

I know he doesnt want me back either so it wasnt a breadcrumb...but i'm thinking maybe the email was selfish to even send....having doubts.

 

has anyone ever reached out to an ex after a year or more & had them not respond?

[agawam25]

I've reached out to an ex after a death in her family (a close member committed suicide). At first she was willing to communicate, but later she'd just leave me 'seens' on Messenger. I didn't want to reconcile, but given the nature of the situation, I wanted both of us to have a chance to talk with someone familiar about what had happened. Still no clue as to why she'd do that, because we were on okay terms prior to the event. My therapist on the other hand thought that she was still hurt from our breakup (which was more than a year and a half ago) and that I wasn't to contact her again until she had something to say, which didn't really happen to this day. So... I don't know if this helps, but perhaps he's still hurting and it's a trust issue first and foremost.

 

At some point, though, he might take your email at face value and write back. I think you did something decent in writing it. Admitting one's fault seems to be the hardest thing to do these days...

[SevenCity]

Yes, I reached out to my ex after 1.5 years. My circumstances were different. We did not have a bad breakup (except emotionally) and she kept saying maybe we would get back together.

 

At the advice of my therapist, I let her know how much she still meant to me. She never responded.

 

In my estimation, people won't respond because:

 

1) they don't care

2) they are still angry/hurt

 

I've had reason to apologize to some of my exes, but I chose not to as I was doing it to make myself feel better and it had the possibility of hurting them.

[LivingWaterPlease]

Yes, I wrote a beautiful but brief letter to an ex, not trying to rekindle the relationship but trying to make peace. He didn't respond which didn't surprise me knowing his track record with behavior over the years.

 

I felt good about what I had done since I'd prayed about it for months before doing it and one of my children suggested out of the blue that one of us (he or I) do it.

[bluecastle]

I don't think you should feel bad sending the letter, but you need to accept that you did it primarily for you, not for him, and there might be a touch of selfishness in that. You realized what you'd done to contribute to the break up and wanted to feel less guilty so you could fully move on, and now you've done that.

 

His lack of reply is probably fueled my a stew of issues: wherever he is today (in a relationship), whatever he still feels for you (anger, apathy, confusion), perhaps even the slight annoyance that you're reaching out in order to feel better rather than make him feel better or take the truly vulnerable move of expressing lingering feelings for him.

 

I've had a few relationships, but one in particular, where I knew how much pain I'd caused someone. The further I got from that relationship, the clearer I saw how terrible my actions were, and frankly I hated knowing that I must reside in her mind as Mr. Terrible. But I just kind of accepted that that's how it had to be, and my mission was to work on not being Mr. Terrible down the line: to myself and, by extension, to others. And I did that—atoning, I guess you could say, with myself and with others by being more decent.

 

The crazy part is that ex and I kind of organically got back in touch recently. It was all ten years ago, but in ways still fresh in both our minds, from different angles. At last, we've been able to talk about things and, strangely, there's still a spark between us that we're now exploring very, very slowly.

 

I mentioned all this because