I’ve name changed for this.
I’m having trouble forgetting a man who I’m totally in love with (and who I know is also in love with me), but who I cut contact with nearly a year ago. This is going to be long ...
I ‘met’ him over 3 years ago, sort of through work - he lives in another country, we made contact, and became friends on Facebook. Over the next year, I came to really love his mind - he is so intelligent and funny, and is weird/eccentric in similar ways to me. We would exchange the odd comment/message. But it never occurred to me to wonder whether I fancy him, maybe because of the distance and also the fact that he’s 8 years younger than me (he’s 35), and I was also in a relationship. Then it did occur to me how attractive he was - about 8 months after my previous relationship had ended. Since he lived so far away and I knew I wasn’t going to run into him in the street or anything like that, I decided I had nothing to lose by messaging him to tell him that I fancied him. He replied and it turned out that he felt the same way, and had done for some time. We started to exchange long emails, and 10 days later we met up for the day in a city that is roughly mid way between his country and mine (he was going to be there anyway for work). We had the most amazing time - he was wonderful, we talked and talked, and ended up back at his hotel room, although we didn’t have sex (I wanted to, but he held off - he said in an email the next day that he was fearful of falling for me). I went home that evening, and he came with me to the airport. We continued to write emails and also instant messages, he told me that he loved me, our messages were pretty constant and passionate. He came to visit me for a couple of days about a month later, he met my kids and was really sweet with them (e.g. kept asking me before he arrived what they liked and trying to think of ways to please them and make a good impression - he doesn’t have kids of his own). About a week after he left, he seemed to withdraw from me. He was less passionate in his messages to me, though we would still message for hours. In retrospect, having read up on this and discussed it with male friends, I think he was probably doing that man thing of needing solitude in order to recuperate from strong emotions - but I went a bit paranoid and interrogatory and he was a bit bewildered. After a few days I got a message from him early in the morning where he basically dumped me, giving the most bizarre and implausible reason - he said he had suddenly realised that he wants kids at some point and thinks it would be best not to be involved with someone who already has kids, even though he loves me. I was confused because we had actually talked about this - I had said that I would consider having another child if he wanted that, so he needn’t think that he would have to choose between getting involved with me or having children. He was grateful for that gesture, but clearly seemed like the thought hadn’t even occurred to him before. (I should say that it wasn’t just me talking about big future plans - he did too, in fact he initiated it by talking about one day moving to be with me.) So, anyway, we broke up for this weird reason and didn’t have contact for over 3 months.
After a little over 3 months, during which I missed him intensely and intuitively felt certain that we would get back together because I knew he loved me and his reasons for breaking up just didn’t make sense, he started interacting with me in an indirect way, by ‘liking’ my tweets. For a few days I didn’t do anything, but after that I messaged him saying that I missed him. He said he missed me too. Long story short (ahem, a bit late for that) we resumed regular contact, though not as intense/frequent as before - we weren’t instant messaging, it was more exchanging an email or two each day. He seemed pretty reserved but I didn’t doubt that he loved me - he told me he did, said that he had a connection with me that he didn’t think he’d ever have with anyone else, and he just showed the sort of interest in me that someone who was faking it simply wouldn’t bother with (e.g. not wanting to out myself, but my job involves writing stuff that he is quite interested in, and whenever I would write something new he would ask to see it, read it straight away, and want to talk about it … even though it was often quite dry and heavy-going stuff that a lot of people would get bored with). Basically we kept up that schedule for about 8 months. During that time I expressed a wish to see him again, but he was reluctant - at one point he said that he thought seeing me again would be very intense and emotional (he didn’t say whether that was because of his emotions or mine or both) and that he didn’t think he could cope with that. But anyway, we did meet up - we spent a couple of nights (with my kids) in a city in another country, and then he came back with us for a couple of nights. When he was with me all of his reservation seemed to go away - he talked about moving here (not a direct ‘I’m thinking of moving to be with you, what do you think?’ but more things like, ‘If I were to come and live here, how would we address practical problem X?’), he kept telling me I was perfect, he was extremely affectionate, we talked for hours and hours into the night, he was amazing and engaged with the children, and we had amazing sex. But when he went home again it was back to his somewhat reserved manner. Then, about a month after he’d left, I saw a job advertised in his country, in a city a few hours from his. Given deadlines etc I didn’t have time to broach this with him in the manner I’d like and had to raise it while he was travelling and jetlagged - but I messaged him about it and told him that if he would move to that city to be with us, I’d apply for it. His reaction was a little negative (he told me that his first thought was that it wouldn’t be a good idea) but he said he thought he should have a think about it. He didn’t mention it again until I reminded him, at which point he said that he didn’t want to. He gave reasons only when I pressed him: he didn’t like that city, he was afraid of not being very good at relationships, he wasn’t sure about the big change in lifestyle that would come with living with and being partly responsible for children. Obviously I was disappointed, but given his manner it wasn’t wholly unexpected. I reassured him without trying to persuade him (I didn’t want to make him feel pressured/obliged). So that was that … except, of course, it wasn’t, because then I started thinking about where all this was going, how I’m constantly dissatisfied with things because I’m sort of always waiting for this messaging relationship to develop into something else and it never does. I ended up getting angry with him about something unrelated (unfairly, it turned out), and that brought my emotions to a head … after I calmed down I explained that I was really unhappy with having this relationship that was based on just exchanging emails each day but not really anything else (we’d spoken on skype too, but only once!), and that unless we were going to make plans to be together properly I didn’t think I was able to remain in contact. He said that he couldn’t do that (i.e. be with me ‘properly’), although it was obvious that he didn’t want us to cut off contact. But I did - our last message exchange was nearly a year ago.
Since then I have thought of him pretty much constantly. I know he loves me, and I love him. I find that, in my heart, I know that we’re going to be together again (or at least I did - I’m writing this partly because so much time has elapsed and nothing has happened, and it’s hard to keep hoping). A similar pattern happened again, like the last time we weren’t in contact: 3 months of nothing, then he started liking my tweets. This time I ignored him - if he wants me he will have to use actual language. He kept on doing it, increasingly. After about 4 months of this I hand-made him a gift and sent it to him with a card that said, ‘stop trying to interact with me on twitter and come and live with me instead. I adore you.’ I know he received it. That was in early summer and he never responded … but he did stop interacting with me on twitter, and also (this sounds really stalkerish) I noticed from his instagram that shortly afterwards he visited both of the foreign cities in which he’d met up with me - they are not places he usually visits. A couple of months after sending that package, I sent him a plain card that just said ‘Come and live with me’. That was about 6 weeks ago, and still no word. I know that he’s not a complete arsehole and that he wouldn’t just not reply out of rudeness of lack of concern - he would put me out of my misery if he wanted that. Then there were a couple of tweet likings again - the first I thought could have been an accident, but after the second I blocked him.
My take on this is that he does love me - I really have no doubt of that. And his reluctance to do anything about it arises from a fear of getting more emotionally involved and losing control. There is also the long distance thing, of course - his work doesn’t particularly tie him to one place so he could do that even if he lived with me, but even so he has always lived in the city where he was born so obviously it’s a big step. The way I see things, he loves me but wishes he didn’t, and so his ‘messaging once a day but not seeing each other’ strategy was maybe to give himself small, controlled doses of me (which he wanted and needed) but without committing to me. So going no contact was the right thing to do, I think.
Occasionally I have tried to forget him - a few times I have joined dating sites and tried to give other people a chance, but I am so uninterested in even the ‘objectively’ attractive ones that I feel bad for wasting people’s time, and anyway all it does is hammer home to me that there is only one person I want. I don’t miss male company in general - I’m content(ish) with it being just me and the children (we have no contact with their father), and if nothing happens with the man I love then I think I will just be single - which I say not in a folorn, can’t-live-without-him way, but just as a matter of fact - that’s just how I think things will pan out.
I suppose what I’m interested here is in your reactions to all this. Do I sound mad/deluded? Does it sound like there is any hope for me and this man? There is, after all, nothing material keeping him from me, and I wonder how long someone can keep away from the person they love by sheer willpower/fear of commitment. I keep coming back to the following thought: all I can do is nothing, and whether anything will happen just depends on whether he can live without me.