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Got back in touch with her and I have sent an apology.

Ojwasguilty

A few weeks back I got back in touch, for the first time in five years, the girl I cut contact without any explanation whatsoever. We were never officially together, instead we had a sort of fling that lasted five years.

So I got in touch without thinking she would respond at all, or at the very least, she would tell me to kindly f*** off.

She responded, and she had a lot of things to say:

- She told me that all the hurt and pain had come back when I got in touch.

- That what I put her through badly affected her and still does.

- That she’s had issues with her relationships and that she’s never quite felt the same again.

- That she thought I hated her.

However she also told me this “I like the idea of us trying something together but I’m afraid of the result”

A week ago I sent her the apology:

(Her name), I'm really sorry to have cut you off in such a way, without explanation, and not being fair and honest to you. I behaved like a coward and an egoist. My behavior towards you was appalling and insensitive. I always doubted your feelings, and at the time, I thought it was the best way for me. I am sorry for all the pain and the hurt that I inflicted on you during all these years of questions and distress. 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. I do not know what you think and feel. (Her name) whatever happens know that I only wish you happiness in your life.

I was a real sack of **** to her. I was selfish and didn’t once think about how cutting her off so abruptly would affect her.

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Calypso Realm

It's not clear what you're asking here OP.

OK, two things-why did you get back in touch with her after all this time and why did you essentially ghost her all those years ago? Unless you have serious intentions of getting back with her (weird after all this time) I think you should have left well enough alone.

Frankly, I'm surprised she responded as I know I wouldn't have!

[Deleted User]

A five year "fling" sounds like a helluva long fling!

Would she have called it a fling or a relationship?

Ojwasguilty

Calypso Realm wrote: »

It's not clear what you're asking here OP.

OK, two things-why did you get back in touch with her after all this time and why did you essentially ghost her all those years ago? Unless you have serious intentions of getting back with her (weird after all this time) I think you should have left well enough alone.

Frankly, I'm surprised she responded as I know I wouldn't have!

I got back in touch because despite all the years of denial, I still have feelings for her and yes I’m serious about wanting us to try again.

I cut contact with her because I kept doubting her feelings and eventually I convinced myself she didn’t like me. At the time I thought it was the best thing for me to do to help me move on and forget about her.

I got into other relationships, which all failed, and it took me time to realise why: I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

I was really surprised she answered. But I was really surprised and quite confused by her telling me she “likes the idea of us trying something together but I’m afraid of the result”.

Ojwasguilty

[Deleted User] wrote: »

A five year "fling" sounds like a helluva long fling!

Would she have called it a fling or a relationship?

We only saw eachother during the holidays. We never made it official, and besides we both accepted that the distance would be too much.

I don’t know what she would have called it.

LegacyUser

How about leave her alone instead of messing with her head. Are you contacting her because other relationships didn't work....much more likely than other relationships not working because of her. Maybe you're just feeding your ego still and so is she with your quote to be fair.

qwerty13

You’ve managed to insert yourself back into her life with the same degree of selfishness that you displayed on leaving her life. You should’ve let your apology stand, and not introduced what you want from her.

Maybe your feelings are 100% genuine, but you would want to be very sure of that before you rekindle anything with her. And have you done anything to examine why you treated her like this in the first place, and whether you have changed enough not to behave like this again?

Ojwasguilty

[Deleted User] wrote: »

A five year "fling" sounds like a helluva long fling!

Would she have called it a fling or a relationship?

We only saw eachother during the holidays. We never made it official, and besides we both accepted that the distance would be too much.

I don’t know what she would have called it.

qwerty13

Hang on, you got back in touch with her 3 weeks ago, and apologised 1 week ago? So you *didn’t* get in touch to apologise for your behaviour - you got in touch with the express aim of restarting things, and only apologised 2 weeks later when she told you how badly your behaviour affected her?!?!

My god OP. I’m not slagging you off when I ask if you’ve learnt any empathy at all. Can you not see how this girl might feel? It was bad enough when i thought it was an apology, combined with you saying what your feelings were. But you just jumped straight back in with what *you* wanted, picking up where you left off 5 years ago - and only apologised 2 weeks later for treating her exceptionally poorly.

You are still behaving in a completely self absorbed manner, and operating as though you can pick up and drop people whenever you feel like it. I’ll ask again - what have you done to address your behaviour?

Ojwasguilty

qwerty13 wrote: »

You’ve managed to insert yourself back into her life with the same degree of selfishness that you displayed on leaving her life. You should’ve let your apology stand, and not introduced what you want from her.

Maybe your feelings are 100% genuine, but you would want to be very sure of that before you rekindle anything with her. And have you done anything to examine why you treated her like this in the first place, and whether you have changed enough not to behave like this again?

It’s not “maybe” these feelings I have are genuine - they are. I am absolutely sure about them.

I never meant to come across as selfish when I got back in touch with her five years after treating her so horrendously.

I was terribly insecure back then. I had doubts about her feelings even though it should have been completely obvious. We both agree it was selfish, but it was what I thought was best for me at the time.

To hear what she had to say to me in her first reply really hurt me, but what was I to expect for what I put her through - I was a big sack of **** to her.

I’m not that insecure prick I was back then. I’ve made all sorts of improvements with my self-esteem.

But it’s not about what I say I’ve changed, it’s about whether I can show her... and I can, but she’ll be the best judge of it.

If she’s open to us trying something, I’ll be 100% open with her and hide nothing from her.

That’s only if.

Ojwasguilty

qwerty13 wrote: »

Hang on, you got back in touch with her 3 weeks ago, and apologised 1 week ago? So you *didn’t* get in touch to apologise for your behaviour - you got in touch with the express aim of restarting things, and only apologised 2 weeks later when she told you how badly your behaviour affected her?!?!

My god OP. I’m not slagging you off when I ask if you’ve learnt any empathy at all. Can you not see how this girl might feel? It was bad enough when i thought it was an apology, combined with you saying what your feelings were. But you just jumped straight back in with what *you* wanted, picking up where you left off 5 years ago - and only apologised 2 weeks later for treating her exceptionally poorly.

You are still behaving in a completely self absorbed manner, and operating as though you can pick up and drop people whenever you feel like it. I’ll ask again - what have you done to address your behaviour?

NO NO NO

First time was to ask if we could meet up. She replied with the text I put first in the OP.

Reason why I would have liked us to meet was to apologise to her in PERSON.

We had a back and forth between, but after she said she didn’t think meeting up would be the best idea (and I respect that), I sent her the apology.

I have not mentioned ONCE anything to do about getting back together or starting over where we were 5 years ago.

[Deleted User]

What's the ask here OP?

qwerty13

And what do you think this is, if not something very much to do with getting back together / restarting where you left off.

“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. I do not know what you think and feel.”

Ojwasguilty

qwerty13 wrote: »

And what do you think this is, if not something very much to do with getting back together / restarting where you left off.

“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. I do not know what you think and feel.”

That I still have feelings for her. I’m being completely honest with her and how I’ve felt all these years.

You’re right, just like she told me, I too would like us to try something together, anew. I know going back to what we had is impossible because I completely betrayed her trust, and I fully understand now why she’s afraid of the result, afraid that I would end up cutting her off again (which is what I believe she meant).

[Deleted User]

Then get back with her but show her you've changed, if that is true. And be happy, and honest, and make her happy. And talk it out.

bitofabind

Good god this is triggering me. All the gobshytes that have behaved like selfish little boys and cut me off only to come back crawling months or years later.

I’ll say 2 things OP.

1. How dare you? You are disguising inherently selfish, thoughtless behaviour under the guise of doing the “right” thing. To ease your own conscience and see if she’s up for giving it a chance again. If you had any real, genuine feelings for the girl, you’d understand that the damage is done and no good can come from inserting yourself back in her life again. You took her trust and her security and vulnerability and shat all over it 5 years ago. There’s no coming back from that, even if she’s too low in self worth to realise it.

2. That’s a lot of words. Words words words, all very empty, from the perspective of someone who has been treated the same, suffered, healed and has the same thrown at me months/years later. Words are meaningless. Most men who fling them at you out of the blue are full of their own sh1t and doing it for the wrong reasons. As outlined above.
After 5 years of silence, you don’t have the right to emotionally vomit all over her and a more confident, secure woman would have stronger boundaries than to fall for them.

My advice would be to have a think about what’s really going on here. Why do you feel the need to insert yourself in her life again? What is your life lacking that you have to drudge up the past like this? Stop with the romantic, love sick puppy stuff, that’s just the story you’re telling yourself. You don’t swerve someone for 5 years if you love and care about them.

Calypso Realm

Out of interest OP, what made you doubt her feelings for you? (Actually, as it happens I know of other guys who've ghosted for a similar reason, so I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here, as i know it can and does occur) Hence the reason I don't always jump to the default conclusion that ghosters always do so because they have lost interest, while accepting of course that most often it is the case!

So when you ceased contact, did she ever try to contact you? How old were you both at the time?

bucketybuck

Ojwasguilty wrote: »

I was a real sack of **** to her. I was selfish and didn’t once think about how cutting her off so abruptly would affect her.

And 5 years later you didn't once think about how inserting yourself back into her life so abruptly would affect her. You are still selfish.

If this is real then you caused her a world of mental anguish. Whats the chances that you are now just lining her up for more of the same?

Ojwasguilty

Calypso Realm wrote: »

Out of interest OP, what made you doubt her feelings for you? (Actually, as it happens I know of other guys who've ghosted for a similar reason, so I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here, as i know it can and does occur) Hence the reason I don't always jump to the default conclusion that ghosters always do so because they have lost interest, while accepting of course that most often it is the case!

So when you ceased contact, did she ever try to contact you? How old were you both at the time?

At the time, I was 19 and she was 18.

I cut contact two weeks after we went to her prom together, and I can remember her sending me several messages becoming increasingly more worried because I wasn’t answering, until I blocked her.

We saw eachother the following summer, and she was trying to talk to me, hanging back around me, but I was so focused on forgetting her and moving on with my life, that I ignored her.

I think the moment I believed (at the time) she didn’t like me back is when I told her that I loved her. This was after the prom on the way back to her grandparent’s. I had been building up to that point over the four years, and it was then that I had decided to tell her. I was completely heart broken because I didn’t hear anything back from her - neither that she did or that she didn’t love me back. She just sent me a message after I had gotten back to the hostel letting me know she had a great evening and was so grateful that I had come with her, and a music video titled “I love you” by Woodkid.

I thought I was being played, I thought I had completely misjudged her feelings, I felt embarrassed and angry with myself for opening my heart and soul to her. Until she asked me if I wanted to come join her and her friend for coffee. When she went to the loo, her friend, who I had only just met, had told me “You have no idea how much she talks about you”. That should have told me everything I needed to know.

However, my insecurities and doubts kept creeping up. I just thought, despite how horribly selfish it was, that cutting contact was the best way to go for me.

Ojwasguilty

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Then get back with her but show her you've changed, if that is true. And be happy, and honest, and make her happy. And talk it out.

That’s what I would really like, but I don’t know whether she feels or wants the same.

blairbear

Wait, so she sent you a song called "I love you", and you interpreted that as her playing you?!?

LegacyUser

Ojwasguilty wrote: »

That’s what I would really like, but I don’t know whether she feels or wants the same.

Why don't you just ask her?

Why not be honest with her rather than all this farting around with declarations of 'it was always you yadda yadda' but not actually letting her know what you're looking for from her?

Ask her.

She's the only one who can tell you anything.

Ojwasguilty

blairbear wrote: »

Wait, so she sent you a song called "I love you", and you interpreted that as her playing you?!?

No. When she didn’t react when I told her that I was in love with her. She didn’t say anything. I interpreted that as she didn’t love me back.

I had planned the moment and the place for months and months. It had been years since I had realised I had fallen for her. I was absolutely heartbroken. I didn’t think too much of what song she sent me afterwards.

bottlebrush

Your relationship sounded like two young lovers on a holiday romance for five years - during the holidays only.

What I would be concerned about if you got back together now you are both five years older and start a real relationship is that you would discover that she is not the person you had built up in your head and finish it again with her. Indeed you might not be the person she had built you up to be and she might end it but at least in that case it would be closure for her.

You need to think long and hard before you risk breaking her heart again.

Ojwasguilty

bottlebrush wrote: »

Your relationship sounded like two young lovers on a holiday romance for five years - during the holidays only.

What I would be concerned about if you got back together now you are both five years older and start a real relationship is that you would discover that she is not the person you had built up in your head and finish it again with her. Indeed you might not be the person she had built you up to be and she might end it but at least in that case it would be closure for her.

You need to think long and hard before you risk breaking her heart again.

I understand, thanks.

Do you think that’s what she would like too, to try something together?

I do not want to break her heart again.

bottlebrush

Ojwasguilty wrote: »

I understand, thanks.

Do you think that’s what she would like too, to try something together?

I do not want to break her heart again.

It sounds like that but between the lines is spelling out that if you do get back together this time it will be for keeps - what else would be a different result?
But you can't guarantee that can you? Or do you see a life together with her where you would spend your days proving to her she can trust you and reassuring her you won't walk out again. She has listed the negative effects your walking out on her has caused - if these are not resolved by now she would be highly insecure if the relationship was rekindled.
I think the ball is ultimately in her court as the greatest emotional risk will be hers but you are in no position to make guarantees. As I said in a previous post this was a holiday romance which has to be tested in the real world.

tara73

sorry to be blunt OP, but you come across as completely immature.

I guarantee you, if this woman decides to get together with you it will all be a complete mess because of all that happened and your, as written, immature and strange motives.

I don't think any relationship with a woman will work out for you, I think you need to work on your personnnel development, be it in therapy or with a personal coach.

Gerianam

OP, you are too self centered I am afraid. It is all about you. Way too much drama...sending songs and so forth. Relationships build on maturity and mutual respect and love are not like what you have outlined above. Leave the girl alone and grow up.

Mr. Incognito

Dear Lord

There is a lot of bitter projecting on this thread.

You are what 24?

This happens when you are young. You are allowed to make mistakes and the only real crime is not learning from them.

I lost the love of my life who I dated for 8 years or so because I was too immature to get it together. In the end I had to leave her go and she married someone else. She contacted me since to say that she was sorry it hadnt worked out but I'm mature now to realise that she looks at me with rose tinted glasses and that real relationships arent the good times we remember.

Real relationships take work, and committment and trust.

If you are willing to put all of that in, including a move to be with her if the distance is still an issue then I would suggest the following.

1. Call her. Don't text or email or send hyper romantic crap. Ring her. Tell her you have feelings for her and you would like to give it a try. Tell her you were an immature asshat and that you are willing to make that sacrifice.

2. If you find yourself drifting. And you will then tell her. Talk to her. Listen to her and see if you can build an emotionally stable relationship.

Words are cheap. You need to back them up with a tangible plan.

My plan was counselling, addiction treatment, outreach calls, sponsorship and a 12 step programme. I had to put a lot of work into myself before I was ready to be available to anyone else. Even then I will never be free of my demons. I just have to stop letting them hurt anyone else.

If she says no you have to be willing to walk away and respect that. Becuase ultimately you dont get to say how this will go.

Best of luck with it buddy. I hope it works out.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

There's every chance the two of ye basically don't know each other any more, given your ages and the time span. What is it that draws you to this girl so much, what do you feel you have to offer her, and how can you be at all certain since you've had no contact with each other for the most recent 20% of your lives?

OP what was the impetus behind you reaching out to her specifically now, and what stopped you before? There was some internal or external change or tipping point, what was it?

All this "all these years, I've only thought of you day and night", how true is that? Have you actually been solidly pining for five years and again, if so, why didn't you reach out before now? Have you had many other relationships or much of a sex life?

I'm noticing a bit of a people pleasing streak even within this thread, and you clearly have this built up in your head as a really romantic, dramatic thing. I can just so easily see you telling her, and yourself, everything you both want to hear and then when you've been in the actual reality (rather than this fantasy world you're now in) for however long, it all gets too much and off you fcuk again

wiggle16

Ojwasguilty wrote: »

Do you think that’s what she would like too, to try something together?

I do not want to break her heart again.

OP, how is anyone else to answer that question? No one here is going to "give you permission" to get involved with this girl again.

She's a big girl and she can make her own decisions, granted, but I agree with others here, I think you are being pretty self-involved to an extent.

You texted her out of the blue to see what would come of it. She got back to you and the long and short of it is that she would go out with you again... but is afraid it wouldn't end well. That last bit has thrown you, and you seem, effectively, to want to be told it's okay to disregard it. That's what this comes down to.

I think you are looking to be told that it's okay to do the wrong thing if it's what the other person wants, that if she gets hurt out of this then that's not your doing. Yes, if she takes you back and gets hurt she only has herself to blame - but you are also responsible for your own behaviour. You're responsible for making sure you're not messing with people's heads.

If you're looking to be told that if she wants to get back with you then you can take that as carte blanche to get back with her regardless of whether or not you're doing the right thing... then no one here is going to tell you that.

I don't think you would have started this thread if you were actually in love with her. You might have feelings for her but it's been 5 years. You started this thread because you have a conscience - listen to it!!!

Ojwasguilty wrote: »

I do not want to break her heart again.

Then don't. Leave her alone. I don't mean to come down like a tonne of bricks on you but you belong in one another's pasts. Leave it there.