It’s been two years since my boyfriend abruptly put an end to a beautiful relationship that lasted 6 1/2 years. While I have moved on (not entirely though) and have been dating a really wonderful guy for over a year who really loves me a lot, I still can’t seem to get my ex out of my head. I feel like we have this unfinished business and I’m still looking for closure which I believe I will never get. We had been in a long distance relationship since 2008. He is in merchant navy and i was studying in med school then. I belong to an orthodox Indian muslim family and he belongs to a relatively liberal Christian family. His family knew about us and i would spend the holidays with them when he was home. I knew i couldnt confront my parents until i was sure that we were going to end up marrying someday. After two difficult years of appearing for various entrance examinations, I got into a post graduate residency program of 3 years in another city. I was on cloud nine. Everything looked good on both personal and professional fronts I couldn’t have been surer of us. I thought the toughest times were behind us. Finally in Oct 2014 I mustered the courage to break the news to my parents, and just as I had expected, hell broke loose at home. I stayed firm by my decision though. Meanwhile he told his mum that he wanted to marry me too. She was not too thrilled about it. But she wasn’t against us either. After all, she had seen us together all those years.

He came to visit me Jan 2015. We had a really good time but we fought as well. and then the phone calls started dwindling. He was home and he would be too busy to Skype.  I had my hands full with adjusting to a new city and first year of residency, so I believed him when he said he was busy. And suddenly before I could make sense of what was happening, he broke up with me over WhatsApp!

I swear to God I have never felt so broken as I did on that dreadful evening of 22nd Feb 2015. He told me he could see the bleak bigger picture and that us being from different faiths wouldn’t do us good in the long run. I waited for a few months for him to think more clearly lest he panicked and made a hasty decision. I swallowed my pride and contacted him thrice in the course of one year. But I never got the answer to his abrupt change of heart or the closure I so badly needed.

As I mentioned earlier, I did eventually meet the lovely person I am with today, and while I love him dearly, i still can’t get rid of my past. The memories I have of those 6 1/2 years still haunt me and I truly wonder if I cross his mind like he does mine and if he regrets having broken up with me. I have emails of 5 years that we faithfully exchanged every single day when he was on the ship and I still can’t get around to deleting them and I so feel like asking him how he carries on with his life knowing he broke the one person who loved him to bits.

I am a lot better today, but I hope there is a day in my life when I wake up, free of this emptiness in me and look back at my past with no regrets.