Teenage Sweetheart back after 20 years and horrible

[FirstHeartbreak20yearson]

I've used AI to shorten this as it was way too long.

When I started university I was very naive, with no relationship or sexual experience. I fell deeply in love with an older student who ghosted me after a brief situationship. Because it was a small campus, we saw each other constantly and he would walk past me without acknowledgement. I never knew why, and it devastated me.

Twenty years later, out of the blue, he contacted me saying he’d been thinking about me. I told him I was happily married with children, but was open to being friendly and forgiving the past. I assumed he might be interesting to reconnect with.

However, he showed no real interest in my life, was evasive about his own, and focused instead on songs and poems he’d written about me. He then began making sexual comments about our past and suggested meeting in a hotel. When I shut this down, he replied with "Shut up and show me your c." I told him if he wanted to see a c he should look in a mirror, and that he had nothing at all that would tempt me to go near him. He then said, "You earn because you get sp*ed in a few times, I earn writing which is my passion." I don't know what this means, I have a good job and I'm not a sex worker.

There were a few more horrible messages which are too disgusting to type out, and I have obviously blocked him (and know I should have done sooner) but I feel quite shaken and confused by the experience. I'm not sure what I'm after by posting, it's just such a strange situation and has knocked me quite a bit. I’ve now blocked him, but the experience has left me shaken and confused. My husband knows and agrees the man is awful, but I don't know why I'm feeling sad after barely thinking about him in years.

All silly nonsense
just block on every avenue and move on

Just block him. Easy done. Forget about the waste of space.

I've done that but I'm not sure why it's affected me like it has. I almost feel like I've been living a lie for all this time thinking that he was this amazing person and wondering what I did wrong- how can my judgement of character be so far off?

What a class A twat. I think you're so shook up because you've grown up a lot since uni and you are shocked that someone from your past has behaved so badly.
I think he was fishing for a quick shag and was going through his contacts. Let yourself feel whatever you like for today, then pick yourself up. Look at your life, you have an ace husband, family and friends. An amazing life. Leave the sad little toad where he belongs, in your rear view mirror.

If he ghosted you after a brief relationship I wouldn’t even have given him the time of day 20 years on, especially if you’re happily married. Ignore and move on. Sounds like he was always a twat, so nothing has changed.

He’s a dick, lots of people are unfortunately. You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s a block and move on situation.
Your value in the world is not determined by the opinions of strangers, you do not need him (or anyone else for that matter!) to like you to be worthy

How can you think he was an amazing person when he dumped you, ghosted you and ignored you?! That’s not an amazing person.

We were "best friends" for the best part of a year when we both ended up single at the same time so we did know each other for a while. But I'm left wondering, did he treat me like this then and was I really such a total doormat as to put up with it? In which case, what other memories from my past are completely warped?

It sounds like he was horrible then and is still horrible. I can see why you’d be shaken because the comments are nasty and unnecessary, but I think it says more about him than you so you just need to put it behind you.

He was a knob then, he's a knob now.

Thank your lucky stars be ghosted you back then. Lucky escape.

You're upset because he's dragged all of your abandoned teenage feelings of the past, to the present. You're allowed to feel hurt, but he's really not worth it.

And also, what a sad little man.

No, you're completely right but I was 17 and I'd never been in love before. I just thought it was my fault and I'd somehow messed everything up. I guess I'd not really gone back to look at the situation with the benefit of hindsight but the more I thought about it the more angry I felt. Then when he got aggressive I realised that I would have laughed off those comments once upon a time and it sent me into a bit of a tailspin thinking about all the shit I've put up with over the years, not just from him but men in general, and feeling almost disgusted at myself for allowing it and not standing up for myself before. I think he's speaking to me like that because he has no respect for me, but then why would you when clearly I had no respect for myself when he knew me? This probably all sounds garbled but to summarise I feel like his behaviour is a reflection on my own standards and it's shaken my view of who I was/am.

He was a bad man when you met as a young person you were just blinded by naivety and how short the relationship was. Now he’s still that bad person. Not a surprise.

He’s also sexist as I imagine his comment about work was implying that your husband supported you as you had his children. So he’s stuck in 1950.

19 years. I guess I've changed a lot as a person but I was completely wrong about myself and him then so I could also be completely wrong about myself now.

You’re much older now. Your brain is fully developed. All 20 year olds make mistakes due to lack of experience and innocence and the assumption that people are good.

You aren’t the same naive young woman.

It says in the OP that it’s 20 years later now.

I was 17 so officially a child although I definitely did not see myself as vulnerable. Thank you, you've definitely helped me reframe this. I think I also feel a bit of embarrassment for how people must have perceived me then, as a total doormat, but I really don't think I am anymore.

It's not drastic, it's just got me thinking and ruminating in a negative way.

It's a bit like when you have a childhood memory and then an older relative tells you that you've got it completely wrong and you realise that something that you held as a core truth never happened or happened completely differently to how you thought it did- you just feel a bit rocked and wonder what else you've got wrong.

See - 17! That’s SO young! Can you imagine looking at a 17 year old now and expecting them to have it all figured out?

Can you imagine expecting them to have keen ‘bad man’ sensors or the ability to conduct mature sexual relationships when they have 0 experience to fall back on? No, we know that many 17 year olds are hormone-driven innocents with wide eyes for handsome older men who ply them with pretty words and know how to manipulate.

In our 30s, those same men are laid bare to us for the grotty pigs they are. Hence why some of them aim for vulnerable younger women still who will fall for their lies. And hence why it didn’t fly with you.

You also have to remember that some bad men do get worse with age.

As they start to become less relevant, less cool, they hit the age where they’re expected to be successful or have a good job or a family and they…. Still don’t have a good job, a wife, a family, their coolness is fading, their hairline is receding, they never became a famous writer like they dreamed!

They start to get more bitter and nasty and misogynistic sometimes. So it could be he wasn’t like that 19 years ago.