Sorry for my lack of writing lately. I am (kind of) on vacation visiting family.
I got some interesting emails yesterday from my ex, the Army Guy. We are supposed to have a moratorium on contacting each other while he's away at this training thing (although he already broke it once right before he left and sent me an emotional email goodbye). Apparently he is going to Iraq next June. Despite the fact that we are no longer together and I have essentially moved on, I still care about him and I almost vomited when I got that email.
That was followed by an email in which he said:
And I know it's late now, but there was another reason I broke up with
you. I was afraid to commit. It doesn't help now, we're already split
up. And I'm going to be gone for 90% of the time for the next year, but
I just want you to know that I love you and that I hope you succeed and
that I hope you find happiness.
I knew that he was afraid to commit before, but I guess it's good that he is learning things about himself. But I'm just not really sure how to respond to that. Because, yeah, it is too late. And I'm not going to tell him that I love him because I don't think I do anymore, and even if I did, I'm not going to go down that road again and I'm trying to change the way we interact so that we can be friends.
How would you respond to something like this?
Comments (3)
I think just a "thank you" will suffice. Only because at this rate, you will remain hung up over him and won't properly move on with your life :)
Hey Hopeless Romantic- I saw your post on datingish and you sounded like somebody i could relate to (unfortunately for both of us, haha).
My advice- bc I just went through a somewhat similar situation- is to respond simply saying that you are going to go back to the communication moratorium bc that is the only way both of you will ever get over this. And then don't respond to anything he may send you after that. I know it is hard! I went back and forth for months on this with my ex. But in the end I told him, look, I'm trying to help you by not talking with you. This is our last conversation, ever. It was a tough step but so far it's working.
Same here love, I just told the ex in one solemn email that although I did/do love him. That it was the final email. That I would never email him again or even attempt to have a conversation with him. It wasn't going to do me any good and it certainly wasn't going to do him any good. I saw him exactly four days later, randomly, out of the blue. We looked at each other, I smiled politely and walked on. I never looked back, not once.