Michelle:

I have shared feelings and cried about this to friends – many times over. Unfortunately, my best friends were not in my everyday life during the hardest period of this time as we were living in different cities (and still are).  I was super busy finishing my degree as well as working a lot. So the feelings towards him just came out in clumps and have been building up during the years.

I also believe there is a certain amount of crying you are allowed to do to your friends before they get sick of you. The ones I have cried to in my new city (where he also lives) I don’t know that well, and I was starting to feel like a broken record, especially to the ones that haven’t even met him…  I find it’s been difficult to gather all the different feelings in regards to him and express them in a healthy way – anger, alienation of our common friend group, fear, embarrassment, sadness, you name it. I think partly because we met through our common friends and continued to meet in this constellation after having decided it wasn’t a relationship anymore. I couldn’t feel enough trust to anyone else to tell them because he was my closest confidant (until he wasn’t). Since we didn’t properly end it I still had hope for a long, long time that we would in fact sort it out due to the intense emotions and attraction we/I/he had to each other.

Regarding the ins and outs of the relationship – in the beginning I was the one holding back because I got a very acute sense that although I kind of loved being with him, he would be no good for me because of all the girls that I saw had been in the picture. Mind you, it’s not a huge town, so I guess I decided to cut him some slack and eventually got drawn in and began to give in.. so once I was drawn in, he started hesitating etc etc. And so the rollercoaster began. He was the one chasing me quite intensely at first. I guess that is also part of my anger, why did I even get so vulnerable with someone like that? He did get to be very important to me in the end, but by then it was too late.

Another part of the anger is regarding trust, I never thought he even thought about his ex anymore.. Had I known, I would have gotten myself out of the situation wayyy way way earlier than I did. In fact, there may never have been anything between us. So in the end I feel really stupid falling for someone like this, and everytime I go over to the city he lives in and think I see him my heart beats like crazy. It literally is the same feeling I had years ago. I just pray I can reach a level of calmness and confidence where I am somewhat detached from memories, and a lot happier because of it.