I am pretty sure I’m being ridiculous and maybe even having some sort of mental breakdown type moment but I really can’t admit any of this to anyone so here I come to Mumsnet for someone to hopefully talk sense into me or help me see things more clearly/help me out of the obsessive cycle I have found myself in.
Life has not been great for a long time now. Relationship is awful, at times if I’m totally honest abusive (hence why I can’t confide any of this in real life friends). Totally trapped by a combination of having two young children one of whom has SEN and is extremely full on, a mortgage which OH has already threatened to stop paying if I end the relationship to basically ensure we both “lose it all”, I have no family to help me with any of this and am just about keeping my head above water with it all.
When I think back to previous relationships the only regret I have is not binning them off sooner as none of them treated me particularly well. With the exception of one, someone i haven't seen in almost 20yrs and who I have always wondered about over the years and have regretted how I treated him. Sheer nosiness initially made me look for him on social media where he has absolutely zero profiles or presence on anyone else's profile, I found a couple of his family's profiles but nothing much on there other than I ascertained he had a son 13 years ago, no actual photos of him etc so in my thoughts he has always remained the 23yr old man I knew and loved.
As life got unhappier my thoughts returned to him and the urge to know more about him grew, if I’m honest it gives me comfort sometimes on my darkest days to fantasise that I might find him and we rekindle things, I do recognise I’m being absolutely ridiculous but I couldn’t put him out of my head and started to think I really need to see something to show me that he’s not who I've built him up in my head to be, has now also aged/isn’t the same person etc so eventually my digging went a little deeper and I found him on an electoral roll that he was until recently living in a one bedroom flat which to me says he is no longer with his son’s mother. After years of absolutely not a single photo etc on Facebook from anyone who knows him, and I’m ashamed to admit I have spent hours trawling through profiles to try desperately to find him, I completely unexpectedly saw a photo of him yesterday. 20yrs older, but him. Definitely him, with a guy I remember him hanging about with when I knew him. I cried when I saw it after all this time wondering about him. This has totally thrown me. Why have I now seen this photo by chance? After years of wondering about him and actively searching for him? Does this mean something?
I’m going to be brutally honest and say the rational part of me knows my own life has become so miserable that I’m becoming obsessive about what I perceive to be my lost chance of happiness etc and am acting a bit nuts. Even if I were to miraculously track
him down somehow, WTF am I actually going to do? Stake out his home? Then leap out of the car at the first sign of movement and apprehend him, hoping he will be overjoyed to see me and we will…..do what? Leave my horrible OH and totally uproot my kids? Hope OH doesn’t actually commit mortgage abuse? obviously none of this can ever actually happen but I feel this sad, desperate urge to just see him. To feel how I felt when I was with him again. To feel like there is someone out there who is right for me. It’s all crazy and I know I need to stop this constant obsessive thinking about someone who I haven’t seen in the best part of 20yrs and who probably has never given me a second thought and would be horrified if he thought I had actually been obsessing about him like this (obviously I’d never actually admit any of this to him or anyone I know in real life)
I guess what I’m asking is how do I stop
this? How do I stop the constant regret I feel and longing for another chance at life? How do I stop acting so deranged? I know
I'm not behaving normally.