I was in a 2.5 year relationship with a guy 15 years older than me. We both had been through divorces. I had only been married 3.5 years, no kids, and my relationship with my ex husband was pretty toxic from the start so I was glad to be out. My ex boyfriend had been married almost 19 years and had 3 kids, didn’t want his divorce and was very shaken by it. His ex wife blamed the divorce on him being verbally/physically/sexually abusive (which there may have been a level of this) but she cheated on him and is now married to the guy she cheated with.
We had a great relationship, I felt like I was able to be vulnerable in emotion and be who I was with him. We laughed a lot, traveled well together, would meet up most days of the week even if it was just for lunch between work hours. Up until a few months before breaking it off he would talk about the future and “having more kids”. I always looked forward to being with him; we had many similar viewpoints and interests.
There were red flags such as I felt like his to-do list was long and came first before me (I was squeezed in or helped him with it), he was becoming a bit more critical of me and my interests, and there was 2 times in the end I felt like he was trying to push me to do things sexually I didn’t want to do even though I was saying no.
And as time went on between us, he still would talk about the situation with the ex a lot, with much anger. I would say a good 75% of the time we spent, his situation with ex would come up, sometimes a small comment jab, sometimes a full blown discussion. I would tell him that I didn’t like talking about this all the time, especially if we were on a date. He seemed to be somewhat mindful of this as time went on, but it still came up more than it should have.
I become more anxious and depressed over the last 6-8 mo due to some health problems (turned out to be minor things), moving into a new house of my own with some issues, financial anxiety, and a new, more stressful job, with no family nearby and a hard time finding friends that would regularly hang out with me.
I ended up becoming more needy of him in retrospect and less confident in myself. I hit a point where I asked him if he saw this turning into marriage in the future (we would talk about it offhandedly but I wanted a direct answer of what he was thinking). He said yes but not with all the anxiety/pessimism I had. I told him he needed to resolve his anger with ex-wife situation as well before we moved to marriage.
After a tough period this summer, stressful life changes for him and for me, he ended up breaking it off because he “didn’t think I loved him well enough” and he couldn’t handle the fact that “I wasn’t an oasis for him”. He said “he would rather be alone the rest of his life than be in turmoil.” As he was breaking up with me, he said lately he has been having dreams of memories of his ex and the kids. He wanted to know that I still loved him though. I had all the emotions and did the crazy texting, calling him until he picked up several times, essentially begging him to come back. He only ever reached out to me once after the breakup, the rest of it was me reaching out. One time he saw me at the pool and approached me telling me all about his new job excitedly, what was going on in his life. I reached out to him and asked him for a more firm idea of whether this was a temporary time apart or more permanent in his mind, and he told me he had no plans on asking me out on a date but was miffed that I needed a hard answer. I asked his best friend if he thought the door was closed on us, he said he didn’t think so, just that I play it cool.
I saw him the other week at church and went to the service he usually doesn’t go to, but he was there, he bolted out of there to avoid talking to me, I passed him at a stoplight and waved, he just had a blank look on his face.
I am on 3 weeks of no contact, have been on several dates, been going to counseling, working on myself, learning tennis, trying to come out of the sadness of this still. My plan was to send a notecard in the mail at 30+ days. Friends/family have told me to not contact him, especially due to his reaction at church last week, they say he must be done and over and has issues of his own to work through, this would be too early.
Any thoughts on whether this is too early to send a letter (similar to one in the guide)? Let him contact me only? Does he seem like he is too far gone with his problems and past?