I met Nic when I was 19. We’re from the same hometown and I was home for a summer before moving away and we met and fell in love quickly. I had never met anyone whom I was so intrigued by. He was so incredibly different than anyone I had known. We were crazy about each other but I had to move away. We kept in touch over the years. Whenever I would come home we would reconnect and the love was always there. He was that person I thought about no matter where I was or who I was with. He was just a bright spot. When I was 24 I lived in Europe for six months. During this time we began chatting via skype which turned into an everyday occurrence for about 4 months. We would talk and laugh for hours. We would listen to music and watch movies together. It was quite nice. Our love grew during this time. It was the first time that we truly got to know each other. When I came back from Europe I moved in with my parents because I was broke. He lived close and we starting dating exclusively. My parents never really liked us together because he was so quirky. My parents are very conservative christian and prefer us to date mainstream kind of people. Nic is everything but mainstream. This is what I loved about him. No matter how much they tried, they couldn’t keep us apart. Our love continued to grow. It all happened very quickly and naturally. At the time I was practicing the same religion as my parents and Nic actually converted to this religion as well. He knew it would make things easier with my parents and all. This just sped up the nature of our relationship even more as he knew I wouldn’t live with him until we were married due to religious standards. A couple months after he converted he asked me to marry him. I was beyond ecstatic. I had been proposed to 3 times before this and had never wanted to marry any of them. But with Nic it was different. He was the man I pictured raising a family with and sharing a future with. It felt really perfect. And my parents were pleased that he converted and was taking all the steps that they saw necessary. It was about a month after this that he called me and told me we needed to speak. I met him that night and his face was red and swollen. He was so upset. He told me that he had learned some things about our religion and that he just couldn’t do it. It something he didn’t truly agree with and he just couldn’t commit to living his life for this strict religion. He was so sorry and so worried about what this meant for us. Of course this made me sad but at the time I kind of thought it would just pass. We decided to postpone the wedding because it just didn’t feel right with all the crisis of faith stuff going on. I did feel upset that he couldn’t just change his mind back to how it was before. To me it felt like he was being selfish by denouncing the religion. We stayed together because we were so in love. We continued to have so many great times together and enjoy each other. Deep down I couldn’t get over the fact that we had cancelled our wedding due to the fact that he chose not to follow the religion anymore. I felt like it was all his fault and I couldn’t forgive him. I would look at him and I was so in love and just wanted to hug him forever but also wanted to scream at him for ruining everything. This went on for about 9 months until it got too negative. I felt like I had perfectly constructed this reality that worked for me and my parents and that he had completely messed that plan up. I was so angry all the time. I was not nice to him. I eventually left him and moved across country. This was a year ago. I haven’t seen him since. This past year has been really hard. I feel like I took ten steps backwards. I was very depressed. It did give me the opportunity to sort through everything that happened though and really examine myself and my relationship with my family and the religion I was raised in. This was necessary to do completely on my own. I was able to find peace through new ideas and philosophies and eventually realized that maybe the religion I was raised in isn’t actually the best path for me. I couldn’t have come to this realization with him in the picture. Lot’s of things changed in the past year but the one thing that remained was the deep love I feel for this man. I really opened myself up to the possibilities of others and tried dating but something was always off. A week ago I made a decision to reach out to Nic. I figured there was a reason I’ve thought about him everyday since the last time I saw him. Also I really needed to say sorry for the way I treated him back when everything was going down. I emailed him and told him exactly how I felt. I didn’t expect to hear back from him for a little but he emailed me the very next day. He said he has the exact same feelings everyday. He said his love hasn’t changed one bit for me. He did say that he has changed as he is really working through some stuff from his childhood that he’s never dealt with. I can’t explain the joy I felt inside as I was reading his letter. I try not to attach myself to strongly to these things but I couldn’t help it. My heart was so full. I really feel like I’ve found my place in this crazy world when we’re together. He’s in a very intense film program right now and I’ve just started school across the country so we both agree that now isn’t the time to make plans and see each other but that within the next year or so we’ll start to make plans.

So that’s my story and heres my question now: Am I wasting my time filling my mind with the hopes of getting back together with Nic? Should I be open to the future possibility of us or should I be working on getting over it? I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing for the past year and it didn’t even come close to working. I don’t really believe in destiny or “the one” but with him it just feels that way. I don’t know if I’m just listening to much to emotions instead of logic. All I know is it does feel like I gave up the best/realest thing I’ve ever had in my life and I don’t think I’ll ever find anything that comes close to it.

• This topic was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by Suzanne Baker.