Hi John,

I can see you’re in a lot of pain.

After the ugly breakup when she told you never to contact her or her friends/family again, her harsh words got through to you, and you respected her wishes. She got on with her life and met a new guy; you got on with your life and met a new girl. Then, after a few months, you found a personal item of hers and sent it to her with a letter apologizing for your behavior in the relationship and asking for clarification regarding why the relationship ended. It seems her angry feelings toward you had softened and she responded that during the relationship you had changed and it brought up some red flags for her. The two of you continued texting each other with some light flirting, she even initiated some of the texts messages. She sent you a selfie, said she missed your kids/dog (but didn’t say she missed you), showed a little jealousy (or you interpreted it as jealousy) when you told her you’d been seeing someone, and she even told you that no one has ever cared for her like you have. All of this got your hopes up — WAY up. You became obsessed with getting her back. You continued to text her, but then she stopped initiating any texting and even began texting you less and less. This drove you crazy. At one point you asked her if she would meet with you and she responded that she didn’t think it was a good idea and to “have a great rest of the week”. To me, that statement means that not only does she not want to meet with you, but she also doesn’t want to text with you, but it seems that you didn’t interpret it that way. You sent her a bday card that she received before her birthday, and you also sent her a very deep and meaningful text message on her birthday (5 days ago). She responded via text message with something like “you are incredibly sweet. Thank you” with a heart emoji, but then that was it, nothing since then.

So, as I read more and more from you, my thoughts about the situation have evolved. I think she genuinely cares about you and thinks you’re a good guy and probably felt some guilt for her harsh words to you at the end of the relationship,  and after a few months of your respecting her wishes of not contacting her, she was happy to hear from you because it gave her an opportunity to relieve her guilty conscience. I think that deep down she knew that her ending the relationship the way she did devastated you to your core and it bothered her for those months you had no contact. I believe that the light flirting, etc., within your text messaging was her attempt to lighten things up between the two of you so that she would feel better about what happened, but nothing more. You’ve interpreted this current silence from her as either 1) she’s done with the whole thing, or 2) she has feelings for you but is confused.  (I already told you in earlier posts that I don’t think it’s #2.) So you’ve decided that you are going to wait a few days and then text her again, and based on her response you will decide if you are going to send her a letter that you’ve already written that tells her that you’ve changed and want her back, and at the end of the letter you ask her (again) to meet with you.

I believe that you are misinterpreting what is going on and that it’s your inability to accept what is actually happening that is making this situation worse and creating your continued suffering. If it were me, I wouldn’t text her again or send her the letter, but I believe you will do both. At this point, I think you appear desperate to her and that the time may come when she’ll resort to using harsh words with you again to get you to back off, just like she did when you two broke up. I hope that my above analysis of the situation is totally wrong and that the letter brings her back to you, but I don’t believe it will happen. I hope that if she tells you to move on, that you will, and that you won’t contact her again. You deserve to be happy. You can be happy without her. If she doesn’t want you back, I hope you’ll choose to be happy without her.

B