Dear Austin:

I thought about your thread after my reply to you yesterday. I figure my reply to you was not complete and I would like to complete it now, quoting you and commenting on the quotes:

1. “I got bored after a year of dating and started finding insignificant problems and made an excuse to break up because I thought that I wanted something else”- I believe you need to look at what it is that bored you in the relationship with her, what was the significance in the problems you mentioned. Look at the relationships you had with women after her, in the past four years: did you get bored as well? What problems did you find in those relationships?

2. “.. her crying and begging me to stay with her for months…a month ago to see how she was doing and she said she was doing fine, but she said she was still hurting from our breakup 4 years later.”- Clearly, she is very vulnerable t you. It is your responsibility, by examining what I suggested in #1 and what I will suggest further, to minimize the chances that she gets hurt further.

3. “my family urged me to not change my mind”- did they change their minds about her since four years ago? What were their objections, how valid did you believe their objections were… are they still valid? And how affected are you by your family’s input about her/ the women in your life?

4. “She made me promise before we officially broke up that I would come back to her if I found I loved her again, and to be honest, I think I genuinely do”- you promised that you will go back to her if you found you loved her again.

Better define “loved her”. You have been experiencing the feeling that you love her, but it is very important to look at what I suggested above so to make sure that you are able and willing to carry on consistent loving behavior toward her, that it is not only a feeling that will end up in boredom and killing-again of a resurrected relationship.

5. “I was a complete butthole and broke up with a perfect woman, I just haven’t told her my feelings because I’m afraid of hurting her further”- she was not “a perfect woman”. How do I know? I know because no human is perfect. If you believe she was or is perfect, that is a problem because when we believe what is not true, we don’t behave effectively.

Being “afraid of hurting her further” is understandable. Examining the above, here on your thread or elsewhere, is the responsible thing for you to do before attempting to resurrect a relationship with her.

anita