I spoke to my first gf 10 years after the breakup, this is how it went. What should I do?

[fazersausy]

Long story so please bear with me.

I was with my first love for 3 and a bit years, we met in late 2010 before we broke up 10 years ago in early 2014. We were young and in our early 20s back then, things just fizzled out.

I've always thought about her but eventually we went our separate ways, she got in to a relationship with another guy after me for a few years but eventually he ended up cheating on her, this was around 2017.

After her breakup in 2017 I confessed my feelings for her but we didn't go anywhere with it as she was still healing so I told her I need to cut her off at the point because I told her I was struggling to be just friends with her, to which she said that she was heartbroken that's it come to us parting ways. But we wished each other well and went our separate ways. I was really at my lowest at that point but have come a really long way since in terms of having a successful career and have improved a lot financially and mentally.

At the start of 2019, she did add me on social media but she didn't say anything to me so a few days later I ended up deleting her because I realised I still wasn't over her, I regretted deleting her afterwards.

At the end of 2019 I heard that she was engaged, she ended up getting married but then I heard she got divorced around over 2 years ago. A few monthds ago I found out that the reason for her divorce was because her husband cheated on her and was abusive towards her. They got divorced around early 2022. Her ex husband is already engaged and due to get married again this summer.

As for me I did get in to another relationship with someone else but I was also cheated on so I have been single for a few years now, I have been evolving in my career and proud of how far I've come and have recently started a new chapter in my career. I considered getting in touch with her last year but I noticed that she had cut off a lot of people from her social media so I wasnt too sure how she'd react to me adding her, I thought she'd reject me seen as she's cutting off a lot of people. 

So around 3 months ago I took the plunge seen as I had nothing to lose and sent her a request on instagram, and she had accepted and also followed me back. She's been viewing my stories and a month ago I posted a life quote on my story which she liked, I haven't spoke to her yet. I posted a few pictures of myself which she hasn't liked but A few weeks ago I posted a quote on my story that said 'be the reason for someone's pain to turn into a smile', she liked that quote and also another one that I posted last week. It was my birthday a few days ago and she liked a birthday story that I posted on instagram. 

I'm assuming she is single but not entirely sure.
 I added her 3 months ago but now she has deleted me, I was confused because she only liked one of my stories few days prior. I would have liked to see if there was future for us but don't think she's interested now, i have messaged her after she deleted me saying 'Hi, hope your well. I probably should have said something a long time ago but I didn't, my fault. I've been praying for you, today I realise I've been deleted anyways I hope your keeping happy and healthy'. She replied saying 'Hey I'm good thanks hope you are too, that is kind of you, I didn't expect this kind of message'. 

I didn't really know what to say back to her, I still don't understand why she deleted me even though days before she was showing an interest in my stories before and now she's deleted me. I just replied saying 'that's good. Sorry for catching you off guard with it, I wanted to reach out to you earlier. I'm glad your doing well though' and then she has replied back saying 'can I ask why?'  I replied back saying 'It's been on my mind for a while to get back in touch with you, I didn't add you for no reason. But we don't need to if it's not something your comfortable with'. She then sent a long message as follows: 'You don’t make me feel uncomfortable. I have thought about you over the years and wished you well.

I removed you because you have my ex and his family on your instagram and I removed everyone who has any contact with them. You will have heard that I was married there for a short period of time but it was hell and now I’m out of it I don’t want them knowing anything about my life, so I removed everyone who has any link with them. I didn’t realise till that day that you did. It was nothing to do with you personally.' . 

Im not actually friends with her ex husband as he is just someone that lives nearby to me and we have never spoken so I replied with this: 'I'm sorry that you had to go through that, I hope your okay and I pray god brings you ease. I wouldn't exactly say I have anything to do with them personally though, only thing I know about them is that they're from my area too. It makes sense now and it's understandable why you did that.'

She replied back again saying 'I'm great, God is the best of planners and it was the best thing for me. Even so, I removed everyone who had us both so sorry about that' and to which I replied 'That's fair enough, I'm glad to hear your doing well though and that your at peace now. That's what matters most'. She then asked 'how have you been, what's new with you?' I replied saying 'I'm not too bad thanks, life's changed a lot since we last spoke so there's quite a lot that's new lol'. after that we were speaking generally about the holiday that I'm currently on and what to do as she has been here before too and she also asked how long I'm there for and she asked who ive gone with and how long im on holiday for, it was in general a short and civilised conversation and the conversation happened whilst i was still deleted.

Towards the end of the conversation she said 'well i hope you have a lovely time 😊' and i replied with thank you and asked her when she was on holiday here, she replied saying that she went last November and the year before so then i replied saying 'oh nice, its good to go often. Need to make it a yearly thing' She ended the conversation 11 nights ago by liking that last message i sent, I don't know if she plans to message me again, What are the chances that she'll message me even if we don't follow each other on instagram anymore. I am slightly anxious that she won't message me after this due to her deleting me because her ex is on my Instagram.

Was thinking of just giving her space for a few more days, then deleting her ex and requesting her back in around in a few days bear in mind she deleted me 2 weeks ago and we havent spoken in 11 days. In the meantime i have been removing a lot of meaningless connections from my instagram and i will be removing her ex and his family too, i have also noticed that her number of following has also decreased as she has also been cutting down on the number of connections she has. I blame myself for this situation because I had the opportunity to delete her ex and his family a few months ago as I don't even speak to them, had I done that then she wouldn't have deleted me. Does this conversation mean anything and what am i supposed to do now? Give me a long and detailed answer

[flitzanu]

i don't see anything in that conversation that shows she wants to get back together with you.

if you are wondering "what might happen" then you need to take your chance.  if you want to get with her, you need to ask her on a date or come out and say it, no amount of deleting and adding on instagram amounts to anything.

*for frame of reference, my ex from over 20 years ago messaged me on instagram, and we were back together 3 days later.  it isn't difficult if both of you want this to happen, and it should be happening quickly.

Edited May 21 by flitzanu
addendum

[basil67]

Last time you wrote, I suggested you ask her out for coffee.  Did you that?   Thing is, liking posts on social media means absolutely nothing.  Unless someone does a really lame or awful post, I tend to put a ❤️ on ALL of my friend's IG stories.  

That said, if she'd wanted to stay in touch, she would have explained the problem about her ex being on your contacts and offered a different way of connecting....like giving you her phone number.   However, she simply deleted you without a word. 

As an aside, why did still you have her abusive ex on your IG contacts anyway?  By the sounds of it, you're not friends and he hurt someone you care about....

[ExpatInItaly]

On 5/17/2024 at 3:58 PM, fazersausy said:

Does this conversation mean anything and what am i supposed to do now?

I''m not going to give you a long and detailed answer, because it's simply not necessarry. Short answers to the above questions? Not really, and nothing. 

She was just catching up with you and seeing how life it. That's it. She doesn't have other intentions and her silence since the last message means she isn't interested in keeping up a dialogue. You didn''t do anything wrong. There's just nothing here to work with anymore. 

It's time for you to let go of the idea of reconciling with her. She's moved on, man.  

[Gebidozo]

On 5/17/2024 at 9:58 PM, fazersausy said:

Does this conversation mean anything and what am i supposed to do now? Give me a long and detailed answer

No long answer needed, I’ll give you two short answers to your two questions:

1) If you want to know what that conversation meant you should ask that girl, not us.

2) You are supposed to set up a date with her and make it clear that you want to be together with her again.