Ex-husband still angry even though I followed NC rule- Do I reply to his email?

[pineappleprincess]

Hi all, thank you for taking the time to read & hopefully offer me some much needed advice.

My husband & I were married for 9 years and he broke up with me 2 months ago, stating he no longer had any feelings for me & is no longer in love with me. I was completely devastated but told him I respected his decision (I’m a logical person & knew it was no use trying to beg him to change his mind). I moved out & followed all the steps & advice on this website & initiated a period of no contact.

I understood, after thinking on it for a while, that our relationship had become stale because neither of us worked on ourselves as individuals, we couldn’t communicate our hurt feelings to each other so they festered & built up, & I, in particular, lost my individuality & became a very needy person.

I worked very hard on myself & my issues during an 8 week no contact period (because I felt I needed that amount of time). My ex did not contact me at all during that period.

I went to meditation classes (to change my perspective & mindset & re-focus on the positive), joined a gym and got quite fit, worked with a counsellor on my dependency issues, met some great new friends & started going out a lot more (I used to be a homebody), got a new haircut & outfits & went on a few casual dates, and now have a good routine going where I am happy with the things I do daily & the direction my life is going.

I am at the point where I would like to consider getting back together with my ex husband, because I do genuinely love him. After this no contact period I also now know I would be ok if it doesn’t end up happening. I understand what went wrong in the relationship & have genuinely worked very hard on the things he had always complained that he didn’t like about me (& that I didn’t like about myself either).

So, out of the blue my ex contacted me two days ago asking for a short meet up. I had been thinking of contacting him, but since he initiated first I decided that was ok as I was in a good place emotionally. We agreed to meet casually for a quick drink (definitely not a date).

When I arrived I could tell he seemed shocked that I was so different, personality-wise & looks-wise. A few times he tried testing me to see if I had genuinely changed, like the articles said he might, but I remained very calm and collected as I really have become a much more positive, happy person.

He told me, without me asking, that he has been dating a few people & was meeting a woman he really liked for a second date after our drinks, to which I said I had assumed he would be dating & that’s fine because we aren’t together anymore. I talked about the new friends I’ve met & what I’d been up to, and some of the positive changes I had made in my life (because he asked why I seemed so different and what had changed). He told me it showed that I was genuinely doing well & that I looked great. We ended the short get together with a hug & I told him I wished him well. I thought I had left things in a good place where he might be curious and ask for another get together at some stage.

He was smiling & seemed fine when I left, however a few hours later I received a really angry email from him telling me that he felt ‘robbed’ that he had sacrificed so much for me during our relationship & that why hadn’t I ever worked on myself while we were together? (he never worked on himself when we were together either)

He stated he was incredibly angry that in just 2 months I had turned my life around, physically & mentally, & that the woman he saw today was the woman he had ‘fallen in love with’ so long ago. He said I had ‘stolen’ years of unhappiness from him & that ‘you should feel incredibly guilty that I sacrificed my mental, physical & emotional health for you’. At the end of the email he said that ‘I will always love you, which is probably why I am so angry’, but that he doesn’t want to have any contact with me for ‘quite a long time’.

My question is - what did I do wrong?? I worked very hard to become a better person who now has something positive to contribute to a relationship, but instead of him wanting to see more of me he is incredibly angry & now wants to not see me at all.

I’m confused why he is so angry when he was the one that asked for the get-together (after me not contacting him for 8 weeks) and proceeded to tell me he was dating and doing well. Was he angry because I was also doing well and dating?

Will he get over this anger & the hurt he has about what I was like during our relationship, or have I lost him for good?

Also, do I avoid replying to the email? or do I reply to offer an apology for how I was back then and the hurt feelings I caused him? I am worried if I don’t address his hurt feelings he will feel I am avoiding talking about the issues we had and my role in them.

What, if anything, should I do from here regarding no contact? Just wait, give him the space he has asked for & see if he contacts me again? Or give it another month & try the text message contact?

His email made me so sad after all the effort I had gone to to genuinely change my life.

Thank you for any advice anyone can offer.

[patricia12]

If you haven’t already apologized about being lazy and taking him for granted, you could send a short reply now. Say you understand why he’s so angry. Suggest marriage counseling and give him time to think about it.

Neither of you expressed your deeper feelings for each other and it just turned out to be a casual “catch up” type meeting. Perhaps because you didn’t mention trying to work through the marital issues, he thought you didn’t care and then he lashed out in anger. I think you were a little surprised he didn’t mention trying to work on the marriage either. To be honest, I don’t know why you both started dating so soon after the breakup. But alas it seems to have caused a bit of jealousy on both sides.

Nine years together is a long time filled with good and bad memories. If the good out weighed the bad, most likely he would be willing to try to work things out with you. He has some fault in the breakup too and I’m sure he knows what he could have done better. It will probably take time to get over his anger in order to think logically. But you need to let him know you’re willing, before he gets too involved with the other woman.

If he’s not willing, at some point someone needs to file for divorce.
Good luck!

[pineappleprincess]

Thank you for the advice Patricia, it is much appreciated.

I did send him a short reply email a day later apologising for my role in the issues that cause our marriage to falter and the hurt and anger it has obviously caused him (no blaming). I said I hoped one day he could forgive me but that I did not, and could not expect that. I said I will always love him but that I understand the reasons for the break-up and have accepted that. I am not actually expecting a reply, and probably he will stick with no contact if he is that angry still. Maybe that would be better and help him to move past his hurt feelings before I try to contact him again?

To be honest, I didn’t talk about any deeper feelings with him on our short catch up because, in my gut, I just had this feeling it would be a mistake. Within 5 mins of meeting, he was telling me about the dates he had been on and how great the women were, so I felt like expressing feelings for him then would just come across as me sounding needy or jealous.

I wasn’t surprised he had started dating so soon, because he hates being alone. I know that it does mean he has avoided working on the issues he had during the relationship and actually emotionally facing the break-up, and maybe that’s why he’s angry now for the first time? My reaction to him dating is more disappointment, because It makes it seem like he is getting over the break up quite quickly and that I didn’t mean anything to him (even though that may not be true emotionally).

He asked if I was dating so I was honest and said I had been on 2 short casual coffee dates (which is true), but that I wasn’t interested in taking things further because it had made me realise I needed to spend more time working on myself and continuing with the positive changes I was making.

I wasn’t surprised he didn’t mention the marriage much during the catch up. The only time he did was when I first arrived. He gave me a disk and asked me to please copy some files I had for him, and then stated that our honeymoon photos were on the disk and he had looked through them and thought we had both aged well, to which I agreed. Then he started talking about him dating, so it was a bit ‘mixed-messages’ for me and left me unsure how to proceed…

For both of us the ‘good’ times were quite a while ago, so I’m not sure in his mind they would outweigh the more recent times. We let life get in the way (work, housework, chores etc.) and didn’t spend a lot of time connecting and working on the relationship. Just did that thing of going to work, coming home and cooking/watching tv, and then on the weekends were tired and so didn’t do too much other than perhaps go out for a coffee and do chores/yard-work. Sounds exciting I know! I’m sure a lot of marriages get like that though and we had no children.

I’m also not a very lovey-dovey person, much more introverted and analytical, which I’m working on! He liked this in the beginning because I wasn’t emotional or nagging. We just discussed things logically.

In the time we’ve had apart I’ve been thinking whether to re-kindle the relationship or not, because we no longer had much in common that we enjoyed doing together. We did have a lot of values in common though, and things we wanted to do in the future, so I think I’m confused about the importance I should place on hobbies v values in terms of building a strong connection?

I’m also quite enjoying living alone and not having his mess everywhere (he never cleaned and chores were something I had to ask him to do lots, to no avail). This is probably common in a relationship though.

I’m trying my best to sort out whether my feelings for him are strong enough, or whether I am just lonely and therefore should move on. I am aware if I wait too long to start having these open talks with him, it may be too late, but I also don’t want to drive him away by pushing for them, particularly now that he said he doesn’t want to see me for quite a long time. Do you think that means I shouldn’t reach out by phone/text at this point either? I know he has another more serious date planned for 2 days from now (he told me when we last caught up), so I’m wondering if I should follow up before that?

I agree with what others have said about no contact, that it’s such an absolutely confusing ‘roller-coaster’ of emotions, so you are not no longer sure which are real and should be listened to, and which are not. I found meditation helpful for this. I understand now why people definitely need to take a time out to be able to properly evaluate their relationships before trying again.

Thank you so much for your help and advice

[patricia12]

I think you handled the meetup properly, considering what he said in the first 5 minutes. Yes, no contact gives both people a chance to get beyond angry hurt feelings and get to a place where they can better evaluate whether or not it would be a good idea to reunite. He said he didn’t want to see you for awhile, so maybe a call or text would be okay. But because as time goes by, he might get more and more emotionally attached to the other woman, you could let him know (tomorrow) that you would like to try and resolve the marital issues if he is willing, after taking some time to think about it. I don’t think this will drive him away. You’re just expressing your thoughts. And later you two could maybe meet again to give him the disk and discuss what you each will do to improve the relationship.

You wrote: “My reaction to him dating is more disappointment, because It makes it seem like he is getting over the break up quite quickly and that I didn’t mean anything to him” He might be thinking the same thing about you dating… that he didn’t mean anything to you. This is why open honest communication is so important! People have a tendency to conjure up things in their own mind without all the facts which can lead to hurt feelings and misunderstandings.

His anger might be fueled by hurt, disappoint, and feelings of guilt that he didn’t work through the issues prior to the breakup. Yes, life can get in the way of feeling emotionally connected to a spouse and even the feeling that love has faded. But the good news is that in most cases, it can rekindled! You have to decide if you love him enough with all his flaws! If working together on the issues and vowing to change some things in order to please each other, is what you really want. If he was overall a good husband who treated you with respect, I think the relationship can be saved:)

Counselors will tell you to make time for each other. Go out once every week or two on date nights. Most men bond by participating in activities. Do the things you used to do when first dating. Even going out to dinner and a movie or a picnic in the park. Do the things you talked about doing in the future. Go bowling or play miniature golf. Visit family and friends together.

I’m glad meditation is helping you… And yes, this is a confusing time and neither of you should rush back into anything. It takes time for the raw emotions to settle down.