Ex reached out after 2 months of no contact with a very polite message and a gift. What's his point?

[OrangeFairytales]

4 months ago, on this very sub I shared my painful relationship with a very self-centered man, whom I had been dating for 10 months. A few months later, in October, I was the one who ended the relationship, but it was mutual. He agreed and again played the incompatibility card. Immediately after that, we went no contact.

But a few days ago I received this text from him via WhatsApp, exactly on our 2 month breakup anniversary. Please help me understand what he was trying to accomplish here and why he did that. I am copying his text below:
"Hi. Wow, so much time has passed. Two months. Me being me, I spent more than a month traveling, and after returning I got involved in protests. Over these months there was everything, pain, sadness, resentment, loneliness, and looking back. But in calm reflection, I still think that we did not make a mistake. As I have told you before, you are a very kind, lovely woman. I felt that during our last conversation, you were hurting. And it made me very sad and painful to hurt you. I think we both tried very honestly and searched for shared happiness. It seems that it remained beyond what we were able to reach.
I want once again to thank you for many very beautiful moments this year. For all the communication. For the closeness. And for many other things, which I believe you already know. With the holidays approaching, I want to wish you cozy holidays. I hope that along with the coziness and calm that you will certainly create for yourself, you will also find happy moments with your family during the holidays.
I want to wish you that the coming year will be better for you, that the irritations will fade away, and that the next steps will come together successfully in work, travel, home, and friendships.
For the holidays, I would like to give you a book that I ordered from Amazon and hope will reach you in the coming days. I hope the package does not get lost on the way. The book, which I discovered while traveling, felt very you to me. Maybe you know it, maybe you even already have it, or maybe when you receive it you will not find anything new in it, because to me it really is so you. Or maybe there will still be something new, and I hope it will make you happy.
This gift is not a message, not a hidden meaning. It just felt very appropriate to me, and I wanted to give you something for the holidays. If you decide not to accept it, I think it would be easy to pass it on to someone else or donate it.
Once again, thank you. I wish you happy holidays, and simply, happiness."

He clearly does not want to try again, at least according to me. He acknowledges it was a good decision. But it triggered me so much. Again, he was extremely polite here, like in our entire relationship, said the right things but was emotionless, without really connecting or relating. And a gift? A book that is so me? For the record, he did not even give me anything for my birthday, but now a gift after a breakup to thank me for my time? What the fuck? Why this? Is this his closure? Is he trying to stay the good guy in his own eyes and preserve his reputation?

What would you respond? Would you at all? I feel like I am healing. I do not want him back, but if I do not respond, I will keep thinking about this for a while. If I do, he may want to start talking, and I do not want to open those wounds. Then the book arrives and hits me again with memories. Doh.
Please tell me what you think of all this.

Absolutely. Most important, we need to trust our intuition more. Although in my case, we also wasn't hiding anything about himself. He was brutally honest and blunt, and told didn't lie about his personality at all. It was me who was trying to be empathic towards him when I should have simply left because it wasn't what I was looking for.

Can you honestly say, hand on heart, that you'd have been as empathic towards him, if he was a bus driver?

He wouldn't be a great father, I think... That was one of the reasons why I decided to break it off, among others of course.

Probably not. I perceived him as very smart and then automatically more self-aware (now I understand that these 2 don't necessarily have a positive correlation). The thing is that even he was very honest with me, I thought he was also very humble at the time and underestimates himself. I still struggle to understand how some people have such a low empathy. I know they exist, I know I was very close to one, but I still struggle to understand because it's absolutely not how I operate...

He hasn't achieved his professional and financial success by being humble and underestimating himself.

I think you wanted to think that about him or else you are a poor judge of character. I don't want to be mean (he's been mean enough to last you a lifetime) but perhaps you are young and lucky enough not to have come across men like this before?

I'm 40, but I've never come across such a man before who'd claim themselves that they are low in empathy, better than the crowd and so on. I don't think he is malicious, but he for sure doesn't have an emotional capacity to be in any kind of a healthy reciprocal relationship. Emotional reciprocity is missing, curiosity about the other’s inner world is non-existent. There is no ability to tolerate disagreement without withdrawal, as he did many times with me. He also tends to see a partner not as a full subject, but rather an accessory. I know his childhood trauma, loss of his father, his mother leaving him, etc. That activated my empathy towards him.

First time I have thought about the fifty shades of grey movies in years.

I understand why, however, the intimacy part was really bad.

It sounds like he wants to stroke his ego by you admitting you've been broken hearted the last couple of months.
I wouldn't reply and if you do I'd reply "who's this?"
Definitely dodged a bullet.

Thumbs up it, and block the self indulgent TWAT.

I have to admit I was doing quite well, but receiving that message and being now at my parents place for Christmas (they live nearby my ex) brought me some unwanted memories. Just hoping to survive coming days...

Oh come on OP, he was no loss at all!

He was selfish in bed, he is unable to show an interest in you as a person as long as you have met his criteria to even be classed as suitable for a date - then you are just an accessory to compliment his own self!

Your needs were not important and I’m struggling to see what you are missing about this man. Despite what you say I bet he’d be more than willing to meet up with you.

You say he is happy to burn bridges but realistically he is very insecure and was always predicting the failure of your union - however he framed it in such a way that caused you anxiety whereas in reality it was he who was afraid of being hurt and I think he was testing you to see if you said oh I don’t agree with your assessment type thing.

Anyway I think this man is bothering you more than you originally let on.

I think he is well, well guarded against giving love and definitely receiving it.

The fact you said he had suffered trauma is not necessarily important at this age and stage as he has had plenty time to address his issues. Well it seems like anyone would be too afraid to point them out quite frankly!

One important thing to note though is that you are not a psychiatrist and you can’t change this guy on your own will alone.

There is many women who think they can do so, they think they can help, that he will change etc. It can happen of course but where there’s no will. There’s no way!

Get yourself on Tinder! And avoid the complex guys!

There are some men who 'expose' their faults in order to make you think "He's telling me this? He must be a very honest person to admit to such faults so it can't be as bad as all that".

They use this dubious 'honesty' to deceive us into thinking they're trustworthy. And trustworthy = 'a good person' in our society. This 'honest confession' confuses us and makes us doubt our perception of them. We start to trust them despite our misgivings. So we hang around hoping they'll change through 'the love of a good woman'. Oh, I don't know if I'm explaining this quite correctly. Suffice it to say that his was a calculated tactic to keep you.

Yeah what a lot of rubbish! Think you dodged a bullet there! Block and bin the book! Move on and never look back…..

What you have written has made my blood run cold. He sounds like a Pychopath.
No way would I allow someone like this to handcuff me, he sounds deranged.

As others have said Block and run for the hills

You said you were first wooed by him due to his intellectual conversation- why not join a book club in the new year, something like that?

I have some intellectual friends, and colleagues at work. For example we sometimes do the cryptic crossword at lunchtimes.

I do get how you'd miss that kind of thing if you don't know many people who enjoy intellectual chat - but, blimey, you don't need to be handcuffed and endure bad sex for a bit of intellectual conversation...!

My XH used to pull this kind of stunt on my birthday/Christmas, some kind of stupid message when we were no longer any part of each others lives. He was utterly self absorbed. As my sister said 'he can't leave you alone can he, can;t stand the dea of you having a good time without him and wants to push himself into your thoughts on your birthday/Christmas.'

I ignored all his messages and blocked. He hasn't attempted to be in touch since. My advice - don't respond, donate the book and block him.

”The holidays” gives it away. An American synonym for Christmas which seems to have become entrenched.

When I was in my very early 20s, I was in a long distance relationship with a woman I'd met travelling. We had a great time, and then carried on the relationship when we got back to our respective countries. Later in the year she came to stay with me for a couple of months. It went ok, but not well enough for me to think there was any serious legs in the relationship, so about a month afterwards, I ended it. The video call did not go well, while I'm quite good at saying what I mean in text, I'm shit over the phone or in person. She god very upset and things ended badly

This niggled at me for months, as I had cared about her a great deal and didn't want to see her unhappy. So one night I decided to send her an email. I could tell her how much she meant to me, that I hoped she was happy, I could apologise for my part in why things didn't go terrifically while she was staying.

I got a three word reply back. "That really hurt". In that moment I realised that I'd fucked up. I'd only sent that email because I wanted to get some stuff off my chest. Because I didn't want to feel bad about things, and because I didn't want her to remember me badly. So I'd sent a message that was entirely likely to hurt her, for my own benefit.

In short, I was a bell end. My only slight saving grace was that I'd realised I was a bell end at 22.

@OrangeFairytales . Your ex is in his 40s, and apparently is yet to realise he's a bell end. Please don't waste any more energy on him.

Keep the message for later on when you are in a better space and need a laugh

Love, you've gone down a real rabbit hole over him the last few days, haven't you? He's clambered rent free back into your head and he's now making a mess. Don't let him fuck up your Christmas.

This is a spot-on observation. The sad truth is that even though honesty is a bare minimum in a relationship, there are many men out there who can't even offer that. They are filled with fakeness and lies. When I realized my ex was genuinely honest and reliable, never really lying to me and telling me things exactly as they were, I automatically assumed he was relationship material and also knew how to connect emotionally and intimately, including in terms of physical intimacy. However, that's not necessarily the case. Not all honest men have the emotional capacity for a relationship, and his emotional capacity was extremely limited. This explains the many admiration-based and convenience-based situationships in his life. Yet, he also never lied about those, he honestly told me that either those women adored his accomplishments, which he was obsessed with, or they were simply conveniently around when he wanted intimacy.

I'm currently reading a book called "Emotional Intimacy," and I really don’t think he was calculating anything, nor do I believe he is malicious on purpose. I think his capacity to relate to others is extremely low, and although he is somewhat aware of this, but he truly doesn’t feel how others experience emotions. He intellectually grasps it because he's smart, but he can’t connect on an emotional level, which leads to disastrous outcome.

You're right. He was really, really guarded when it came to giving or receiving love on so many levels. Emotionally, he couldn't open up and simply be present, sit with his feelings, experience them, and show them to me. Physically, his body was so tense that I remember him telling me he had only one erogenous spot, which was amusing. I could kiss his chest, belly, ear, or neck, and he wouldn't react. Probably based on his own sensations, or the lack of them, he didn't understand that I wanted more than that one position and hand job. Whenever I offered anything else, everything was “not his style.” The only exception was his strange fantasy involving handcuffs while watching the news or driving around, which we never acted on because it felt too weird to me. He never kissed me anywhere other than my lips and nipples because he couldn't understand how anyone could experience that as something pleasant. Even our kisses, when we greeted each other or said goodbye or anywhere in between, felt forced to me. Although he wanted to kiss, they were probably the weirdest kisses I’ve ever experienced. 0 passion and somewhat fearful. At the beginning, I thought we were new to each other, so it would likely feel more comfortable soon, but that never happened.

To be very honest with you, I'm not grieving that man. I intellectually, realistically, and even emotionally understand that it wasn't working. My anxiety skyrocketed because I was going against myself, as I know now. However, I had a divorce 5 years ago, and in between, I didn't have anyone, despite some dates that never turned into anything serious. So when I started talking to my ex and seeing him for the first time before the first red flags appeared, I really hoped this might be it. I'm grieving this fantasy that has crashed because I was trying to convince myself that change was possible. That was very naïve thinking.

Ah, and speaking of Tinder, I opened it a week ago and saw him there, active. His profile popped up first. This is also how I met him. In that very moment, I understood it's too early for me to be on Tinder. I'm still not emotionally available as I'm healing from this relationship (not him), and unlike him, I don't want to use other people out of convenience to fill some voids. I sincerely hope to start dating soon, but I want to do it honestly, see men objectively (my general attitude towards men isn't great right now), and not use them to boost my self-esteem or fight loneliness. I am working on my self-esteem in therapy, and my beloved friends are helping with my loneliness. In other words, I want to become emotionally available myself first so that I won't be bleeding on people who've never done anything to me. But I'm hoping to be able to open up soon :)

Thanks for your support, by the way. Have a very Merry Christmas!

I also didn't allow him to handcuff me and watch the news or drive around. It sounded too weird to me. I do think, however, that BDSM elements can be fun and pleasant if, and only if, both partners fully trust each other, engage playfully and passionately, and genuinely care about each other’s feelings, experience and pleasure. Not simply because one person likes control and visual stimulation while watching the news. Yes, it was a weird fantasy.

I wasn’t okay with being handcuffed while watching the news or driving around. It just felt way too weird for me. That said, I do think BDSM stuff can actually be fun and nice, but only when both people really trust each other, are playful and into each other, and genuinely care about how the other person feels and what they enjoy. Not just because someone is into control and visual stimulation while watching the news. Yeah, that fantasy was pretty strange.

Joining a club sounds like a good idea, though. Thanks for suggesting! I already have plenty of people I can have deep, interesting conversations with, and I work with very smart people too, so it’s not like I’m missing that in my life. But honestly, super intellectual people tend to be really complex and often pretty hard to be in relationships with. A lot of them struggle emotionally, so I’m hoping to find some kind of balance in 2026, heh.