An ex, who dumped me years ago for a reason about which he lied (b/c he didn’t want to hurt me ) has just walked back into my life seeking some sort of reconciliation, claiming that he has realized that he has made a biggest mistake of his life when he broke up with me. I have moved on and I really would like not to have to deal with this were it not for our mutual friends (actually they are mostly his friends but I do want to maintain good open relations with them because some of them are really good people), who now have seemed to adopt a role of peacemakers. They are telling me that when they go drinking with him, he gets drunk and talks about me all night, and it is getting to them. So they want me to talk to him. So, right now, I am in a rather delicate position because I really don’t know how to best handle this situation. He really wants to talk to me and I really do not want to (The way I see it, I do not owe him anything and neither does he owe me anything, anymore). I know that he feels bad and he wants me to hear him out. But to me, it’s also like being kicked in the nuts twice, once by being rejected and again by being asked to alleviate his guilt (I know he wants me to forgive him so that he can feel better - so basically, the way I see it, he is trying to use me again, years later).
I really don’t know what to say to him. If I agree to talk to him, I will probably just sit there and listen to him with a blank face. Is he looking for sympathy? Pity? Understanding? Do I owe it to him? Should I give it to him so that he goes away and doesn’t bother me anymore? In any case, I have to say something (neutral?) but I need to do so delicately, neither by making him feel worse, nor by leading him on. How should I respond to this?
If you think he is simply looking for forgiveness, then maybe you should give it to him.
Reconciliation is another thing.
You should let him know that you understand why he did what he did (and that you do not blame or hate him for it, if that’s what you feel).
If he is looking for a second relationship though, you’ve pretty much made the argument which paints him as an unfit partner, so you should simply let him know that you would rather not pursue a relationship with him.
You don’t owe him anything as you said so yourself, so don’t put yourself in a position where you can lose something.
By the way you’ve described this guy, i would say he’s greedy and lacking in intelligence…
Don’t apologize, be honest…
But on a more assumptive and critical level (a guys perspective)
If you date him it will most likely wind up the same as before, If you don’t date him he will be reflecting on his loss for quite some time…
Even though as a man i would want the former to happen, the latter is better for me in the long run (not to mention better for you)
He wants to get back with you, and/or, have sex with you. No great mystery here. If you feel like becoming humiliated again, then by all means, go ahead and talk with him. Respect is a difficult concept for some (males) to learn & understand.
Tell him that you don’t want to talk to him at all. Tell him that you would rather leave what happened many years ago where it belongs, many years ago. You have a future of many unknown possibilities, but you already know where the past with this individual took you. It may be true that he is a different person now, but there will still exist some similarities, and some of those similarities might be those which led to your problems with him to begin with.
As far as being delicate and not making him feel worse goes, why not? Just tell him the truth and he’ll feel however he decides to feel, how he feels about the whole thing is not your responsibility.
As far as mutual friends goes, it kind of sucks that it is the case because it is better if you can sever all ties, but then, fuck how they feel too, that’s not your responsibility either.
Oh yeah, I forgot to give you my advice. My advice is this : never forgive and never forget. If somebody hurts you, then either hurt them back or prevent them from ever interacting with you again. Trust should become built on a strong foundation, not one built on pretense and lies. But, lies seem to be the nature of the game sometimes. So, yeah, tell him to piss off and answer my PMs lol. That is my advice to you.
sigh This will be difficult. I might actually have to pretend he’s talking about someone else to maintain a more or less objective perspective. And that would be difficult.
I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I need to maintain a good relationship with them. Please trust me on that. If it were not for them I would even worry about this. Somehow, they got brought into this, and I know it’s not fair, but now I have to balance this variable too.
This is not about me, or sex, this is about him.
No, I don’t feel like being humiliated again. But want and the best course of action are not always the same.
I know all of this, CI. But sometimes, you may be put into situations that you don’t like and based on your best (rational) judgment, you may have to act against your interests, or you could make it even worse for yourself (and not necessarily in that venue).
It seems like you don’t owe this guy anything and that you are also unable to forgive him. If you don’t want/are unable to forgive him don’t meet up with him and give him that. In emotional, face-to-face situations it can be very hard not to grant forgiveness to someone when they are asking for it (especially if there is shared history). Not just in terms of the willpower it takes not to lie and take the easy way out, but because by agreeing to a meeting like that, forgiveness is assumed by other parties watching. That means that if you don’t grant him forgiveness, all of a sudden you are a bitch and he gets off scot free.
The way you’ve described it, this is a no-win situation for you if you let it advance any further than it has. He can deal with his shame/guilt. Your mutual friends can deal with his whining. Anything else starts to play into his hands.
I’d go out and pretend like you’re gonna do him, then leave him hanging at the last minute and take off, then seriously never talk to him again other than to post mean comments on his facebook or myspace or whatever for all this friends to see.
I’ve dated those kinds of people who you eventually just have to make go away. You can’t really be friends w/ someone after you date, for one, they’re going to constantly be trying to still have sex w/ you under the guise of some emotional nonsense, and two, because it’s not too easy to convince a new person that you’re just gonna go hang out w/ your old b/f or g/f because you’re just friends now.
I find thinking in terms of ‘who owes who’ and ‘who deserves what’ pretty unhelpful. It seems to pander to some kind of objective standard of etiquette, or moral manners or something - would it instead be unhelpful to turn this dilemma into something philosophical?
You’re going to go with what you feel anyway, but I’m seeing this whole thing as you just wanting some reason to back it up and make you feel more confident about it, right? And obviously there’s a lot of conflict between your desire to do good, especially to someone who used to mean a lot to you and who has friends that are your friends too, and your desire to stay clear of him because what happened happened for a reason and you know this in your heart + won’t go back on it for that reason. The latter sounds stronger from your description, just the practicalities of going through with that seem to be what is troubling you.
Why is it that you want a guy’s perspective by the way? You want to understand what he wants to achieve and where he’s coming from so you know how to approach things better? To be honest, I’m afraid I’ve gotta side with the somewhat blunt interpretation that Capitalised Interest suggested. If you’re a guy, coming back to an ex saying you’ve “made the biggest mistake of your life”, you’re either after sex or getting back together…
… but of course he’ll say that he ‘just wants to be friends’ again.
It’s consistent with not wanting to let this happen to not let a direct confrontation happen. You can do this by going through your mutual friends, telling them reasons why - but no doubt this will just make him think of ways to get around these reasons. What you need to go with this is a way to make him no longer FEEL the need to try things with you again. Having a new boyfriend is an excellent way to do this, or wounding his pride in another way. Telling him he wasn’t good enough in whatever way he wasn’t for example - the more honest the better. You probably won’t be able to get away with dishonesty when you still have mutual friends.
Also, don’t be too tempted by trying to do it too nicely - obviously since you care you’ll probably want this to some extent, but firmness is perfect for making decisions clear and final. But perhaps I am speaking too much from a guy’s perspective here - in my experience, girls seem to find ways of being successful without being that firm…
So we talked.
It was casual and light; nothing heavy. Based on our conversation what I got from him is - he misses me as a friend.
We were actually very good friends before we got together (we did things and we went places and we share many good memories) and he talked about the things we used to do (and planned to do) together as friends. In any case, the topics that he stayed on during our conversation concerned mostly our mutual interests, the same ones which brought us together as friends in the first place. He didn’t mention any of the romantic stuff.
So I guess he feels bad for losing a friend. And that, I take it, puts a new meaning to the phrase “biggest mistake of one’s life”. And I admit, I do miss some of the things we used to do together as friends, we did have a great time, but it’s hard for me to reminisce about them because these memories, which in themselves are really good memories, are tainted for me now.
I suppose I could pretend to be his friend again and act the part if I’ll have to (it’s actually not that difficult), but honestly I cannot think of him as a friend because I lost all of my respect for him. He’s just not the same person in my eyes anymore. The only way I can relate to him in a civil way is as a polite and friendly hypocrite.
Sorry, I forgot about you Magsj. You’re one of the guys, right?
I was actually going to come in here and offer you my womanly advice until I saw this. Just some thoughts here though.
Maybe you can see a pattern here, maybe not. I won’t offer you one to see. But it might be there.
But my advice to you would be to ponder Heraclitus’ words - that no man or woman walks through the same river twice.
He may just be on his good behavior masking what he really wants (if he even knows what that is).
He may be feeling residuals of the old relationship, which are really just emotions and memories - they may not necessarily be based in what might or could become a healthy relationship. The best relationship is the one in which both parties are able to grow, in which both parties help one another to grow. Do you see this happening?
Getting drunk and talking nice things about you with friends is not necessarily about love - but can be about not being able to move on and having something of the past to hold onto. Something may have acted as a catylyst to bring it all flowing back to him. Of course, that doesn’t negate your wonderfulness, Pandora, who you are.
Sometimes people are able to transcend the past and really become friends again but sometimes only one has changed, evolved, and the other has stayed in the same place. But both must really know who they are and what they expect from the new relationship for it to work. And even then that river so changes!!!
Probably the most selfish and SELFLESS thing you can do for both of you at this point is to let him slip into the belly of the whale and find his own way out and you just turn around and swim back to shore. There are a great many beautiful and different seashells to be found there. The bottom line is though - it is your life!!! Listen to your gut.
That’s important. It sounds like you think that you need to forgive this guy and maybe even pretend to be friends with him, to keep the mutual friends you really care about. But what evidence do you have for that belief? How do you know your friends need you to forgive/renew friendship with this guy? Maybe if your friends know how much it hurts you to deal with this guy, they would sympathize and stop bringing his drunken conversations up to you. Have you talked to these friends about why you don’t want to see him anymore? You don’t even have to be specific to get the point across.
) has just walked back into my life seeking some sort of reconciliation, claiming that he has realized that he has made a biggest mistake of his life when he broke up with me. I have moved on and I really would like not to have to deal with this were it not for our mutual friends (actually they are mostly his friends but I do want to maintain good open relations with them because some of them are really good people), who now have seemed to adopt a role of peacemakers. They are telling me that when they go drinking with him, he gets drunk and talks about me all night, and it is getting to them. So they want me to talk to him. So, right now, I am in a rather delicate position because I really don’t know how to best handle this situation. He really wants to talk to me and I really do not want to (The way I see it, I do not owe him anything and neither does he owe me anything, anymore). I know that he feels bad and he wants me to hear him out. But to me, it’s also like being kicked in the nuts twice, once by being rejected and again by being asked to alleviate his guilt (I know he wants me to forgive him so that he can feel better - so basically, the way I see it, he is trying to use me again, years later).
And I admit, I do miss some of the things we used to do together as friends, we did have a great time, but it’s hard for me to reminisce about them because these memories, which in themselves are really good memories, are tainted for me now.
I won’t offer you one to see. But it might be there.