Hi Redapple,

No problem at all. I know how hard this situation is.

In my case there was no happy ending like that in terms of reconnection. I saw him briefly at an event I went to and he said he was really happy with his new girlfriend and that I am just stubborn rtf and he is pleased he had moved on. He said he wanted me to be happy which was kind. Although all the chemistry and feelings were still there e.g. even though by this point I hadn’t seem him for many months, seeing him again showed me how much I hadn’t moved on in terms of how I felt. He is now getting married next month and has got the house and dogs and so it wouldn’t surprise me if children were next. I haven’t reached out to him and tbh I know he wouldn’t want to hear from me anyway. I think after how awful I was he deserves happiness and so I am trying my very best to be happy for him from afar.

In terms of lessons learnt I am trying to be more like the person he was as I really admired him e.g. he was confident, trusted himself, honest with himself, kind, optimistic and I am trying to embody those traits more so a positive change can come from it.

I have also tried to be more in touch with how I do feel rather than how I feel I should feel as I think this is what caused me the issue. I felt like I should have feelings different than what I did and was too scared and cowardly to look at myself and how I felt honestly and I lost him from my life. So the lesson from that is to be honest with how I feel, take risks and listen to my heart rather than trying to go with what I feel I should want/feel. I find that kind of thing hard as he was the first person I ever let in fully.

The guilt of treating someone awfully does get to me alot. It’s something I think about most days. For that, I don’ know an easy fix or many solutions but what I have tried is to: try and do good things for others to restore faith in myself as a human, listen to audio tapes by Louise hay and just try and accept I can’t change the past no matter how much I would like to and just try and move forward with positive intent every day. I have also done online therapy and starting face to face therapy.

For me this is hard as I feel like I don’ t deserve to be happy or move forward as I am a bad human being. But I don’t know the answer to that one.

Not sure if these things can/will help you- my point is that whilst I have not magically gained him in my life again. I have tried to see the lessons from this and move forward. I have written about the lessons that are specific to me here but you may have different ones.  I wish you the very best of luck and please be kind to yourself. 🙂