Are my feelings unreasonable ?

[Brokenbrass]

I got very close to a colleague over a number of years . Lines got blurred and boundaries got crossed . He passed personal comments daily and started to send messages regularly outside of working hours . I ignored some contact, replies to other messages. I thanked him for compliments. Then he ramped things up, comments getting a tad inappropriate and messaging every single evening and weekends .
I spoke to him and told him that I wasn’t comfortable with it all and that we needed to dial it back a little to remain friends . He did for a period of time but he ramped it up again. I spoke to him again , he improved .
He then met his now partner. He spoke disrespectfully of her, tried to seek advice about her/ them etc, did not treat her well etc. He continued to try to cross the line but once I would call him out on it , he was fine.
Fast forward to now where we have had very little contact. This has worked very well
For me.however I recently received a message from him suggesting that we cut back on contact and that he will
Always be grateful for my friendship and helping him out during bad times . Wtf!!!
My initial thoughts were that he was taking the piss !I explained that I agreed completely and had felt that way for a long time . Am I being completely unreasonable to think he’s a cheeky fucker or am I missing something here ?

@dudsville . What does that mean?

Yes I could have blocked or ignored him
But I work with him. It is not that easy as I dont want it to be awkward

But can’t you see, that ship has long since sailed? It’s too late to go back.

What do you mean? Sorry I don’t understand .. too late to go back to what?

Back to this being the kind of relationship you’d have with someone who’s just a friend from work. You won’t block him because you don’t want it to be awkward. It already is awkward; it has been for a long time. You can’t rewind to a time when it wasn’t.

Is it that you don’t really want to end this situation after all?

Thanks. I want to go to wrk and sit at my desk and have casual colleague working relationship with him as I do with the other colleagues .I don’t want anything more . Thanks for clarifying .