Hi everyone, I’m a bit new here and found this section only recently. I’m really grateful for the forum. Please know I can be a little introverted tho so pls bear with me - I appreciate it.
I met him in college, that’s when it began, this incredible tender deep I’d never experienced before relationship. I felt so deeply for him, I’d never had someone be so present. Intentional, protective and we just clicked in a way that kept getting deeper.
Then he just stopped calling. We hadn’t had a fight, he stopped reaching out. I assumed he met someone, it wasn’t as deep for him. I saw him later, upset and crying over us, but he did t come back. The next year if he saw me he’d leave, stare sometimes, but if I tried to approach him, he was so cool. It was confusing. We graduated, and that’s where we left it.
I thought @ him over the years, I learned we worked in the same field. Years later (decades) after a really significant loss, his name kept coming up in my mind, heart, with a strong pull to reach out. I also thought hmm, that may look a little nutty, so I waited, pushed it away. But it would not go away. So > 2 yrs after the original pull I sent a casual simple light email, then felt dread of course, 8 mins later a response.
That began an emotional often reactive connection that lasted on & off for several years. He told me about his deep regret for disappearing, that he thinks of it daily, and he feels he left me at the altar. His blames himself harshly. These tender moments would be followed by stiffness, distance, sometimes reacting critically. Very push pull. All that time he’s going in and out of separation (ultimately divorce), drinking, and I was receiving intense treatment for a serious illness, so we’re not in the sturdiest place. It ended with an evening call when he was angry and lashed out saying he never wanted to see me again.
A year later he reached out and we tiptoed into conversation, lovely dinner with tenderness, then a pulling away, bad call and dump. That was January. He told me that since reconnecting it’s driven him crazy, he wants to move on, get beyond this, he’s done.
And that’s where we are. I’ve really worked on triggers, wounds, but I still feel him sometimes, energetically, physically, other times I’d like to shake him out of my head.
I’ve had many dreams of him over the years; the day I reached out, he’d just left his wife & entered recovery. I think we may share similar wounds. And his acting out forced me to address my triggers which stemmed from family wounds. And the tenderness is so touching, and triggering.
I need peace now tho. I can’t do the rollercoaster. And I see now it’s not the need for another conversation, or the need to try harder, or for me to continue to carry the emotional truth of our relationship, but maybe to slow down, follow peace. Sudden ghosting, silence is painful for me, and I’ve been learning that the triggered desire that comes up to mend talk fix is not serving me.
I want him to be okay too, of course, and I’m sure the reactivity isn’t great for him, either.
Thanks for reading 
