Hi Lily,

I’m glad you broke up with him. He was not worthy of you! Reading your list, I would break up with him based on “not even pretty” alone! There are so many little things that just add up to him not making sense.

You are looking for confirmation that he was wrong. He can’t or won’t ever give that to you, probably.

Well, I, Inky, on behalf of all women (and men! Ha!) everywhere, now give you confirmation: He was Wrong. You were Right to break up with him.

He’s getting married? Pray for the poor woman.

Best,

Inky

Dear Lily,

You seem to be going through two things right now. First, is that you don’t feel that you have closure when you broke up with your ex. Second, you are lonely in a new city with no friends to have a good emotional and supportive relationship.

First, the break up. So you broke up with your ex for your own reasons and that’s fine. Not all relationships are meant to last. People come and go in your life and hopefully you can learn something from that experience, wish them well and move on. But you seem to be reeling from your decision, questioning the validating of it. Why is that? You didn’t feel safe with him emotionally if you didn’t feel you couldn’t put down your guard with him. And it seems that you didn’t feel it was easy to tell him your wants and needs, if you even expressed your needs at all. And then there’s your feelings of unease regarding his conduct towards you, which didn’t sound all that pleasant. You’ve already decided that his regards toward you was unpleasant so it was better to call it off.

Certainly, you could contact him again and ask him your questions. But whether he give you any answers or an answer that makes sense to YOU and not him, you can’t predict. Rather, you are fixated on this limbo of uncertainty and you seems to see the only way out of it is to contact your ex again. Of course, his actions toward you were rude and you feel it’s an injustice on his part for choosing to treat you this way. So maybe you want justice in some way of him explaining his rude behavior toward you. Yet what if he doesn’t? What if he merely brush it aside his attitude as something that he is and since you couldn’t take it, isn’t it a good thing that you broke up? Or he might even call you weak, not being able to take such comments. So in the end, would you even be satisfied by contacting him? So is the problem really about why he acted the way he acted or the way you are reacting to his actions, by questioning what YOU did to warrant such actions? Because it seems you are looking for an answer for why someone would treat you like that to see if you have flaws to correct before someone else can judge you for it. So it is about your ex or about you?

But you can’t use the behavior of your ex and project that onto other men. There are men who are respectful and kind. But remember, you yourself have to demand that respect when people are acting disrespectful. You can’t expect everyone to act decent just because you know some decent people. There will be jerks and there will be decent people. So if you meet a jerk, walk away. Meet a decent people, get to know them. But you have to learn to stand your ground and say enough.

The second issue of your loneliness should not be a reason to contact an ex to understand why he treated you that way. The loneliness should be a reason to get out and connect with others in an superficial level to decide whether you can be good friends or not. Yet you are hesitant to do so due to the fear of being judged. But you are judging others for judging you so it becomes a conundrum. You want a relationship where both people who are respectful of each other, but you fear that you will meet someone of the opposite so is hesitant to try. Then what will you do? You can’t find any emotional connection unless you get out there, but you are letting your fear hold you back. So what’s the third option?