Dear CluelessCarrot:

In your apology to her you wrote: “During all these years I thought only of you, the morning when I woke up, throughout the day, the evening you are in my thoughts, in my heart”-

– Following five years of “a sort of a fling”, you cut contact with her/ ghosted her for five years (?) and during those five years you thought about her, only her, morning, evening and throughout each and every day?

anita

Dear CluelessCarrot:

Why do you feel the need to lie to this woman?

anita

Dear CluelessCarrot:

Because your statement to her in the context of what you shared is unbelievable.

anita

CluelessCarrot,

I’m not sure what you are asking of this group here.  You reached out to this woman who you had a “fling” with.  She responded how much you hurt her and how you ruined all subsequent relationships.  She wants to try again but is afraid of getting hurt again.  You sent an apology.

You did not say you wanted to try again as well in your apology.  Is that true?

What has changed within you since that relationship?  How have you matured?   What relationship skills have you acquired/developed since then?

There are no guarantees in any relationship.  I believe she needs to do her own work in order to heal.  It takes more than you being nicer to do that.

Mark

Hi Clueless Carrot,

I think your apology was sincere.

I’ve had experiences where people have abandoned and ignored me and never thought twice about it. No one has ever reached out and apologized.

I think what you did was brave and shows that you’ve grown a lot. It takes humility and introspection to apologize to someone after five years. To me, it shows you have a conscience and a heart.

I believe you when you say that you’ve thought about her for the past 5 years. That is why you’re reaching out.

It seems that she still has feelings for you after all this time based on what she wrote. I really don’t know what to say about this except tread lightly and be very conscious of her feelings. I think you are now. Best of luck.

Hi Clueless Carrot,

I think, in that case, it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell her you’ve thought about her every day, morning and night, because it does come off as a little unbelievable. If I were her, I would be thinking, “why did you not contact me right away then??”  I think, if you do end up clarifying things more with her, I would tell her what you told us here. That your friend brought her up and noticed your reaction to talking about her, asked if you still had strong feelings for her, and that’s when it hit you that you still really cared for her. Then, from that point on, you started thinking about her every day until you finally worked up the nerve to talk to her.  That’s basically what happened, right?  Saying it that way makes it sound more sincere just because she would be thinking “why leave like that in the first place???” if you’d been thinking that from the beginning. 3 years of trying to convince yourself you didn’t have feelings for her and then realizing you actually do makes sense though.  If you do want to work things out with her and if she’s also willing to forgive you, explain it that way and then give her some time. Answer any questions she has as honestly as you can (without being too grandeur about it, because grandeur like “I thought about you every minute of every day” isn’t really believable. It doesn’t sound sincere and sounds like something someone just says because they think that’s what will make the person want them back), and understand and respect that it is going to take some time to rebuild her trust that you won’t ghost her again. Be willing to do that work if she’s worth it to you.

Above all, definitely learn the lesson from this…. if you aren’t sure how someone feels about you, instead of running away for fear of rejection or whatever else you may have been feeling at that time, just ask. You could’ve saved both of you a lot of inner turmoil.