I asked a question on here two weeks ago for the first time on here, and everyone was knowledgeable and kind! So I have another question for you all.
Just to give you some background, I dated this guy for 7 months. He knew I developed feelings for him very quickly and cared about him a lot, and seemed to use that to his advantage. I know that nobody should ever tolerate a relationship like this for as long as I did, or ever, but I was naive and just trying to please him. I gave him nothing but kindness.
To start, we only saw each other once a month. Not because we were long distance, we lived TEN minutes from each other, across town. He claimed that he was always busy, working 60+ hours a week at a restaurant to allegedly support his mom, sister, aunt, and grandma, which I was silly enough to believe at the time. Other than that, we only communicated through text, and I would say 80-90% of the time, it was me practically begging him to talk to me, resulting in me being ignored. But if I asked if there was something we needed to discuss, he would all of a sudden pretend to be really caring and act like nothing was wrong. But then he’d revert to what he was doing before. He was always full of lies, and whenever I would confront him about anything, he would blatantly ignore me or play me off as if I misunderstood everything. He was always flirting with other girls on Facebook, saying things like “I love you” and “I have all the time in the world for you if you want to hang out” (whenever I would confront him about it, he would say they were just friends). He always had time to hang out with his guy friends and his supposed “girl” friends. But there was never time for me. He wouldn’t even come to my high school graduation because his job “wouldn’t let him have that day off” although he had been aware of the date at least 3 months in advance.
Two days after my graduation, he came over to my house at night and he dumped me and it ended quite terribly. His excuses were very generic (“It’s not you, it’s me” “You deserve better” “You’re too good for me” “You’re smarter than me and I feel dumb”) and it all seemed so fabricated. I was hurt for the longest, not because he broke up with me, but because he couldn’t just tell the truth. After the break up, knowing that I was still distraught, he would initiate conversations with me every now and then, and after I answer the question of how I’m doing (which was never anything negative), the conversation would abruptly end and I would be left alone again.
As time went on, I manage to find out pieces of the truth. Turns out one of the girls that he flirted with, he was trying to pursue since she seemed so interested, and eventually hooked up with her while we were dating. She went along with it for a while then told him she wasn’t interested, and was moving in with her boyfriend and preparing to have her first child. He would just keep constantly trying to pursue other women (even though he’d end up getting rejected) just to stroke his ego and to make me feel terrible about myself. While I didn’t want to talk to him in efforts to heal, he would text me every few weeks/months, just to taunt me. He then joined the military, would come home on his breaks and wear his uniform everywhere just to have girls flock to him, knowing that I live in the town, where I worked, and places I liked to frequent. When his exodus/breaks were over and he had to leave, he would send me messages like “Good luck with school” “You deserve the best in life!” Every time I felt that I was completely over him, he would initiate contact with me and make his presence known. Even last year, he got my phone number from someone and wanted to talk, asking how I was doing and wanted updates on my life. Trying to be decent, I told him that I got a new job (doesn’t know where, thank goodness), doing great in school, etc. When I returned the question, he said he was “okay” and tried to make me feel sorry for him with whatever issues he had. Again, the conversation abruptly ended, but that time, I felt relieved that he stopped.
Fast forward two years later, he now lives on another continent, and I am doing great things with my life attending a prestigious university and working in a pharmacy, getting closer to my dream job. I am very much over him and do not desire anything of him. I log into my Facebook account and it’s a message from him. He said that he still he was “still 100% sorry for what he did” and he hasn’t fully forgiven himself, he owes me the most sincerest of apologies because it’s what I deserve and that he hopes and wishes the best for me. He went on to say that I was one of the smartest and brightest people he knew and that if I needed anything or any favors from him to *please* let him know and that he’d do whatever it took. At the end of this drawn-out message, he says “I know you could do whatever you want in life.” After reading it, all I could think was, something’s up. Either he’s lonely, or he’s bored. I felt no emotion, aside from amusement. I simply clicked “mark as unread” and went on about my life. I felt that for once I needed to respect myself and stand my ground when it came to him. If he was trying to give me some sort of closure, I didn’t need it, and he was two years late for an apology. This was 3 days ago.
The next day, a mutual friend that I have not talked to in quite some time sends me a message (again, on Facebook) asking how I was doing. We are friends and we get along great, but the timing seemed odd, so I have not responded to him either. Seeing as though my silence has him irate, he posts a status saying that he was Chuck from the movie Good Luck Chuck.
I still have not responded, as I don’t know how or if I should. I had spent more than I should have begging and pleading for him to interact with me, and I was constantly let down. But now, it seems the tables have turned, and it feels kind of good, to be honest, although a terrible thing to say.
Am I wrong for thinking this way, or for not responding? How would you handle an ex boyfriend or girlfriend contacting you out of the blue, two years later?
