Hello,

You’ve been through a lot of life struggles, and I can only imagine the pain that always lingers somewhere in the background. Loving someone, loosing that, and being reminded of that person by constantly being around her presence, seems to always keep the pain fresh. All these other women, maybe they didn’t have chance cause she was few meters behind them. Or maybe you choose them in a way that they never had a chance, cause in your mind, she was the one (that got away).

It seems to me that you were always trying to distance yourself from the possibility of more pain and more drama in your life, and the paradox is that running from it, you also got closer. Maybe these 12 years your pain became part of you, and if nothing else it is a pain you know well. The one constant in a life full of challenges. Cause you know that she will be in the same bar, same neighborhood even in the next 12 years. You’ll be there, too. If you change nothing, nothing will change. You must know this.. Ask yourself deep inside? Do you want things to change, and if you do, how? Are you comfortable to go ‘cold turkey’ on this, not visit the same bar again, spend some time away maybe, to gain the distance you need to get over her? Or do you want to give this another try cause there are obviously still some sparks there between you two (you must realize that she wanted something more than friends)?

You wrote ‘I’m fine with that. Indifference is worse.’ Seems like you want her to notice you, you want her to feel things too, you want her close. But not too close. Just close enough so you deal with a pain you are accustomed to. Possibility of change that might lead to new type of pain is something that you are not ready to gamble with. And even a possibility of a dream come true can be scary often…

It’s hard to make profile of a person and get insight just by a written post (even when it’s long and wonderfully written like yours..).. but also I would like to ask, if you consider yourself as a proud person, sometimes to the extent that the ego might get in your way? Maybe she is like that (too) ? The first time you broke up, whatever the reason was, did someone try to apologize, or you both held to your side of the story firmly?

12 years is long, too long… 🙂 What i try to say is that you had a brief relationship with her, and a long relationship with the situation that followed. You need to figure out how do you want your ‘status quo’ with the situation to proceed.. I know that the easy way is to forget her somehow and get rid of the pain, without putting yourself through additional pain and making drastic changes in your life. But things obviously won’t work out that way.

I am not sure I helped a lot, though I sincerely sympathize with everything you went through, and i admire you strength through all these life situations.. At least i hope you got some new angles to look at this.

I would like to close this post with a thought from Paulo Coelho

“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.”

Best of luck!!