The one who got away

[thesadwitch01]

When I was 20 I had a brief, intense relationship with a guy I’ll call J. J was not a very nice guy for many reasons I buried my head in the sand about. After J ended the relationship, he continued to string me along because he knew how desperate I was to get back together. This went on for about a year, and came to a head when he assaulted me. That finally brought me to my senses.

J’s friend T was always very off with me whenever we hung out together. When I split up with J, he softened towards me and for the time J was stringing me along continually warned me to be careful. When J assaulted me, T came to help me. He also ended his friendship with J.

From that point, T and I developed a friendship of sorts. Whenever we saw each other, we would go home together. Each time we slept in the same bed and he would hold me. He never once attempted to kiss me, despite having many opportunities to and we never had sex. I had begun to develop feelings for T by this point. I’m not really sure why I was so passive about this. I never tried to instigate any thing I suppose in case I’d be rejected.

One night we ran into each other a party. He took me outside and told me that he was in love with me and had been since we first met when I had been with J. I told him I had fallen for him too. Yet instead of this being the start of something he became almost furious that I had reciprocated his feelings, and told me that we couldn’t start a relationship. We argued all night about it. In the morning he said something very cruel to me. I left and we didn’t really speak properly again.

For various reasons this all weighed very heavily on me. A few years later I sent him a letter to try and give myself some closure I suppose. By this point we no longer had mutual friends who we were both mutually in touch with so I have no idea if he received it as I don’t know if he was still living where I sent the letter.

I think I am asking for advice is because I still feel stuck in my thinking about him. I went on to to have many relationships in my 20s and 30s which were complicated or bad in their own ways and I’ve made my peace with all of that. I don’t think of any of my former partners really. I’m in a very long term relationship now and a mum.

I feel I should be able to intellectualise what happened with T with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight. I don’t know why I can’t make peace with myself, or understand what it was happened between us. I can’t understand why T would tell me he felt for me so deeply yet reject me so horribly at the same time. I regularly have dreams about him, and usually in these dreams I wake with a sense that I have been forgiven or of calm yet rationally I don’t feel like I need to be forgiven. I don’t believe I am still in love with him, but don’t understand why it still troubles me so much.

Thank you for reading all that if you have got that far. I feel better for having got that off my chest. I guess I'm wondering if other people feel similarly about people in their pasts too.

That’s very sad. It’s a bit baffling. Would you he able to share what he said.

For various reasons the way I felt in my 20s has recently been revisited. I am many decades from 20 now. It’s been very painful. Even as a sensible, robust, happily married menopausal woman with a loving grown up family.

I think 20s relationships/feelings are intense & rejection is just so painful at that age - and hard to move on from. It must be hard to not be able to make sense of such an odd reaction as well.

My most awful and intense 20 something relationship was with someone very avoidant - and I can understand it now as I understand about avoidant attachment and how that makes people behave. It must be very hard when what happened is so bizarre.

This really resonated with me, and like PP I also think avoidant attachment explains a lot of it - why he was able to love you when you were off limits, and maybe also why you were able to fall for him and share a bed without feeling the need to make a move and make it real, and then why he shut things down so unexpectedly right after a moment of emotional closeness, leaving you feel like the rug had been pulled out from under you. Something similar-ish happened to me - the circumstances were not identical, but the emotional pattern was basically as you've described. It left me bereft, and I have also had the dreams where finally there is reconciliation and connection and peace. And then that feeling wears off and I feel unsettled and unhealed again. It's like an unresolved and disenfranchised grief in its way.

The reason I have revisited my twenties recently is because of a close friendship with someone with avoidant attachment. Even a friendship was enough to spin me back there to a reminder of how difficult it was. Not so much thinking about my ex, - I detached from him decades ago - but a reminder of those emotions & how confusing and anxiety inducing I find them. I am not an anxious person at all usually.

coachryanh on Instagram is very good at explaining why it can be so confusing and painful.

Yet instead of this being the start of something he became almost furious that I had reciprocated his feelings, and told me that we couldn’t start a relationship. We argued all night about it. In the morning he said something very cruel to me

I think the details of whatever happened here are probably the reason(s) why you haven’t moved past this or why it still troubles you. Is this a fleeting melancholic feeling you have now and then while indulging in nostalgia, or do you think about it quite regularly? Do you think it’s shaped how you’ve allowed yourself to be treated in relationships since? If so, I think a few therapy sessions would be worth it to let it all out once and for all and to try move past it. After so long of not knowing this person I think it’s possible you’ve built up more of an idea of them and ‘what could have been’. It’s more of a ‘dream’ relationship that has never fully materialised for you, and not actually about him.

It sounds like T was a similar creature to J.J. Just packaged and presented in a different way.

That he got a kick from making you fall for him. Such a cliche that they act like they are into you/say they are and then uturn the second you show interest in them. Thry say they like you to get you to lower your guard and trust them/feel safe enough to like them back. It's common in fwb relationships with narcissistic men. So looks like it's maybe been something similar to that.

Perhaps an element of madonna-whore fallacy too. You were on a pedestal when be saw you as a wounded, pure little dove who needed saving. Until you showed desires. And how dare women have those!

Unless there's more to the story.

Like maybe he felt strung along in unrequited love that he assumed it was? But that still doesn't explain the intense anger or cutting things off imo.

Sounds like a headwrecker. I think you had a lucky escape from him.

You might have built him up as a nice guy in your head before that but, he wasn't. Even though nothing happened he was sharing a bed with his mates ex. At a time when she was vulnerable.

I just wanted to say thank you for all the responses. I've taken something from all of them and they've been really comforting to read. I think there's a lot of truth in all of them and it's really given me a direction to go with my thinking. Thank you so much all of you. You've all been spot on xx

I had something similar ish in my twenties. My rational head told me that the whole situation was him playing with my emotions. I was besotted with this guy and he loved the fact I fed him so many ego kibbles.

But somewhere deep down I also knew that the feelings he declared for me were real and then I’d get confused again.

For years I used this relationship (of sorts) to measure my own worth. I wasn’t good enough for him, this man who clearly liked me so therefore I wasn’t good enough for anyone. He was ‘ashamed’ to develop a relationship with someone like ‘me’. So I must be bad. My internal monologue was relentless.

A funny thing happened recently I sensed someone staring at me with what can only be described as visceral hatred. I was blindsided as I absolutely didn’t know why this person was doing that to me. I started to shake. It was only as I got closer I realised it was him. I got myself out of the situation and was upset for a few hours after. This is 30 years later!!!!

I have zero idea what his problem with me now is!

With age behind me I’ve realised that this was a ‘him’ issue: it had nothing to do with me. HE probably still has issues with his relationships today. I shouldn’t have built my worth based on his problems.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I do understand your need for closure on this emotionally. I do know the cyclical thinking. I’m pleased that some of these responses have helped.

A slightly different perspective having had similar ish experiences:

I recently realised that after a couple of major relationships ended in my past, I had flings with the man in question's best friends. On both occasions it felt as though the best friend had been kind of waiting for the moment. It was briefly intense. But also that ultimately, they valued the friendship with my ex more so it never became more than a fling. Or perhaps that the whole thing was more about the relationship between each of the two men than it was about me; that the best friends were proving something to themselves. "Look I can have that too" kind of thing.

I too used to be rather passive.