Hi, I really need some advice before possibly putting my foot in it. It’s a long story but I’ll try to keep it as short as I can.
Basically I’ve known this guy for forty years now. We met when we were in our early twenties, we are now in our early sixties. We did have a relationship when we met but it ended. I was married before I met him and I remarried some time after we split up.
He got in touch with me years later, sent a letter to me at my parents’ address which is all he knew at that time, just said he’d like to keep in touch. I was married and he was in a relationship with someone but there was no harm in writing to each other so that was OK. Then my marriage broke up and he offered to meet me to talk. There was still an attraction between us but he was still with someone though he wasn’t happy with her. We started to see each other but he said it couldn’t go any further while he was with his girlfriend which I understood. But then a couple of years later his relationship ended and I thought that once he had had time to get over that he would want to persue something with me as he often said he’d still got feelings for me.
However, this didn’t happen. He kept saying he wasn’t ready for another relationship. This continued until I met someone myself. I decided to go out with him because nothing was progressing with my long standing friend. He was quite put out by this. I told myself that it was his fault for not making a move with me when he had the chance.
Then my relationship ended ten years later. My friend was still on the scene all the time, telling me he still had feelings for me but I was now with someone. Things plodded on until one day he told me he was going away with the Territorial Army which he was with at the time. The next thing there was a post on his Facebook, he was tagged in by this woman and it seems that he was going away with her. When I confronted him about it he admitted that he was in a relationship and but hadn’t told me because he knew I would go mad. I told him I felt cheated because he’d always told me he wasn’t ready for a relationship with me. He said that I had pushed him away by meeting someone else myself.
He has been seeing this woman for ten years now, still keeps saying he has feelings for me but can’t get close to me. The thing is I do have vaginismus which is a sexual problem and I tend to wonder if he can’t get close to me because of this. We still meet up for a meal now and then and I used to let him come back to my flat for a coffee afterwards but I now stopped it and just ask him to drop me off outside. He is upset about this. This woman who he is seeing knows nothing about me as far I know. He offered to take me away but it was at a time when she was away with her friends so I refused to go under those circumstances.
Now I think he has fallen out with me as last week we were exchanging texts and he mentioned again about me pushing him away in the past so I said it’s been forty years and nothing has happened so not to blame me. He then opened up and told me that he blames himself and it was a long understanding message but when I replied to try and understand he accused me of being sarcastic and I haven’t heard from him since. I feel like telling him to get lost but its’ not as if he’s someone I’ve just met whose messing about and being elusive, I have known him for a very long time and I don’t want to end up sending a message that will put the cowbosh on it altogether. What can I do?