I regret breaking up with an ex 5 years ago

[Nomoreplease2016]

Has this ever happened to any of you? I was too young and naive to think things thoroughly. Huge regret. I won’t lie, this man was definitely the one that got away. I miss him to this day. He was my best friend & I was a 23 year old who got scared of commitment. We had been together 3 years & tbh I really don’t know what came over me. But lo and behold. 5 years on I still think about him all too often & although try to convince myself other wise, i for some reason have a feeling (maybe being delulu) that we will one day reunite. Even if it’s yearsssss away. Does anyone have any advice or any experience/similar stories? TIA

I think you could just get in touch and see how he is and if he is single.

Good luck.

FGS people on this website really think they live in a Jilly Cooper novel. "Contact him" really?

You really hurt this guy, if someone who'd hurt me that badly got in touch five years down the line, opening all those old wounds and telling me they regretted it, know what I'd think? Fucking good. Glad you do. Bye. I certainly wouldn't be open to trying again with someone who'd hurt me so badly and had taken five years to realise it, because I'd never trust them again (and tbh after five years I'd also be well over you as most normal people would, generally being hung up on a relationship from your early 20's is not a healthy thing).

If he's as great as you say he is and presumably now in his late twenties/early thirties, he's likely not single anyway. Let it go and leave him be, you'll come across desperate and pathetic if you contact him now, or end up really hurting yourself when you realise he married the girl who he dated after you out of "loneliness". Real life isn't a romance movie.

You sound really quite arrogant thinking he only dated someone else out of ‘loneliness’ and still hanging on to the fact that a week after you broke up he was begging you to meet up. It has been five years. To put that in to context for you, in less time (four years) I’ve met a man, bought a house together, married him, had a baby and am pregnant with another. Quite frankly if his ex from 2019 was still hung up on him, considering pursuing him and pontificating about his supposed ‘loneliness’ it would be entirely a reflection of her and her ego. I’d imagine the same is true of your ex.

No! Everything happens because you make it happen. There’s no big plan. There’s isn’t some bigger entity controlling us all like puppets, we’re just animals, roaming around trying to make the best of our one life. Don’t let it pass you by waiting for fate or serendipity or whatever to land him back in your lap.

Please leave him alone. Sounds like he had his heart broken, Hopefully he's moved on and forgotten about you. There is nothing worse than an ex who hurts you badly and then pops up years later. If it had been a mutual break up perhaps it would be nice to reconnect, but it doesn't. The best thing you can do now for him is to leave him alone.

we were on good terms when we broke up & after it anytime we did speak, just FYI, because I feel like a criminal on here.

I’m not hanging onto any fact because that isn’t a fact. If you read my post properly I said a week BEFORE he got with this girl he was begging me to meet him still. So please read correctly before coming at me.

If you think I don’t feel bad about this you’re entirely wrong. I’m not arrogant. I’ve lived my life for the past 5 years & as I said, he just keeps popping into my mind. I can’t help that.

Thanks for your message. I had similar thoughts and that’s why I haven’t reached out in the last few years. Just got to thinking how possibly is this person still coming into my head all this time later. He could well be not single, but no he’s not married to that girl out of loneliness - as I said, he left her last year. I have mutual friends we live 30 minutes from one another, are the same age, so I know and hear things around.

How come you dropped out of contact? Presumably if he wanted you in his life, he wouldn't have let that happen?

I mean when and if we ran into one another. So we broke up in late Feb 2019, met up a couple of times as he wanted to see where I was at in the months that followed. My head was all over the place and he respected this & said he would wait. I also told him I wouldn’t take forever and I didn’t want anyone else but just couldn’t pretend to be all 100% with him or life when I wasn’t at the time. A lot of big things happened in my life then that caused this. The end of June he asked me to meet him and I couldn’t. The first week of July I saw pictures of him and his new girl and was told by our mutual friend they were together. One week later. So I left it as I felt that’s his choice and not my place to say anything as I had wanted the break to begin with. Didn’t really go anywhere or do much myself after that for a while. Around Oct he text me becuase he still had a lot of my things as did I, wanted to meet me and told me he sometimes thought about me still. But he cancelled after that and Covid then happened. When everything reopened we saw eachother a couple of times out and about and spoke happily. I then heard they had broken up mid relationship due to issues related to me, don’t know anything else didn’t ask much. They got back together and I reached out unknowingly and he then “ wasn’t allowed “ to speak to me anymore. That was it.

What’s the alternative?

Just go and stalk him on social media and find out what he’s up to. I can assure you that no one ever got offended by someone they loved and lost having warm memories of them.

if he is single then ask him out for a drink. He can easily ignore you or rebuff you and then you have your answer.

Yes, exactly. I think if you truly cared about him you wouldn't disrupt his life. Exes popping back up after years can feel unsettling. Don't do this, he doesn't deserve it.

You need to let it go OP, and figure out what's missing in your life that's making you ruminate about an ex from 5 years ago (who you chose to break up with).

You need to create a fulfilling life for yourself in the present so you're not harking back to the past.

If you contact him I doubt its going to go the way you want. If an ex who dumped me contacted me out of the blue five years later I'd be pretty pissed off. Aside from being unfair to him, it makes you look desperate.

Move on, hold your head up high and live your life in the present. There will be someone else out there for you.

You say that you've texted him a few times over the years but he hasn't responded.
There's your answer.

It's time to move on

Totally agree with Sakura and Watchkeys. You walked away and stayed away for reasons which clearly seemed right at the time. Our first love has significance purely from being our first love but most of us do not build a life with our first love and there are good reasons for that.

If you believe he’s single, you could try reaching out. I have some good friends who got back together after about 5 years in similar circumstances. But if he’s not single, of course you should leave him alone. There’s more than one fish in the sea.

“Sakura7 · Today 09:35
Watchkeys · Today 09:26
Perhaps you're bored? How are you doing with creating a fulfilling life for yourself? How's your self esteem?

Fixating on one person from the past suggests that you're sure there's nobody out there for you other than someone you yourself broke up with. There are loads of people out there you'd be compatible with: why are you stuck on this ancient history one?”
“Agree with this too.

When I was in my 20s I remember feeling similar about men from my past who had been more interested in me then I was them. Had a bit of a low point where I was single for ages and feeling a bit down about it and ended up contacting one of these guys and going on a date. It was so awkward, we hadn't seen each other in about 2-3 years and had absolutely nothing in common anymore.

Your gut instinct at the time was telling you that the relationship wasn't right for you. Instead of berating yourself for that years later, focus on meeting people in the here and now.”

I can’t see any reason not to reach out and tell him that you have been thinking about him, have feelings of regret and would like to meet up if he is single at least to chat. He may or may not be interested in meeting and seeing where things go. But even if he’s not interested, or he’s with someone and says no, or you meet and find it doesn’t feel as you both thought it would - at least you will know and stop wondering.

What’s the worst that can happen? He says no and your ego is bruised? So what?

And FYI I am not even a romantic ‘everyone has a “one”’ type of person, I’m pretty practical and just think people should be direct about their feelings.

He always responded to a certain point, and we always text on birthdays etc wishing well. It was after he and his ex broke up due to some argument over me that she deleted me from his phone and some social media & he wasn’t then allowed to contact me again. I didn’t keep texting after that. He followed me again on a couple of social media sites after they broke up but that was it.

Thanks very much! I just feel I should’ve done it sooner and maybe that’s why I’m second guessing it all. As someone said above about how I’m only realising 5 years on the mistake I made, that’s not correct, I’m saying it’s been 5 years since we were together & things ended, and he’s still on my mind at times. A lot of the time. I never truly got over him albeit being me who left him. I would’ve preferred to be the one who was left at this point. But I didn’t only realise now what i lost, I realised that not too long after the breakup but when he was with someone new I gave him the respect and put my feelings aside.

Would you go back to someone who had left you, and realised, only after you got into a new relationship, that they should respect you?

How can you know that they broke up because of you OP? Who told you that and how close are they to your ex?

Breaking confidence would be a shitty thing to do to a friend, but they could also just be speculating or telling you what you want to hear.

Life it too short and you'll always wonder. You don't have to go in all guns ablazing. You could just message him as a catch up.

At least you will know then and you can put it out of your mind for good.

But you say you texted him a few times and he ignored you? Did you text him when he was with his new girlfriend?