What’s your love and relationship problem?
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In 2019, I met my perfect match. We fell in love and moved in together months later in 2020, right during the pandemic. The chemistry we had was beyond anything I’d experienced before. She’s 44 and I’m 52.
When we discussed moving in together, she had a son who was just finishing up his senior year in high school and would be going on to college in the summer of 2020. When the pandemic, and after she and I moved in together, her son moved into our home instead.
The day he moved in, she and I had a fight, and I was panicking that her son would hear this, and that this would have a negative effect on my relationship with him. She was crying in the shower after the fight, and I ran in there and told her to be quiet because he could hear, and then frantically ran out the door. She followed immediately and the fight continued. I was very angry and wrote a very nasty text, telling her it was over and that I never wanted to see her again. I had no intentions of ever sending it, but to my shock, hours later, I actually said it and she moved out.
I know I really hurt her, and since that day in May, 2020, I have only spoken to her twice. She wrote me a letter telling me that we will always belong to one another and that she just moved down the street from me and was hoping that we’d run into each other. We never did. I tried reaching out to her and she told me that she was scared that if we saw other, we would just be right back in each other’s arms and she was too hard to do so.
She’s now living with a new boyfriend in California. They just met this year, and she moved in with him because she was told by a mutual friend that I had moved on with someone else. I reached out to her and she said that although what we had was extremely special and cannot be replaced, it would not be a good idea for us to see one another. She said to remember that I broke up with her over a year ago and she’s heard very little from me, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s with someone. I want her back so I’ve begun writing love letters to her every day, and I’m wondering if I’m even going to have a shot.
– Writing Love Letters
Despite the name of this column, I can’t endorse the love letter writing right now. This woman has been clear about where your relationship stands (it’s over), and how she feels now that she’s moved on. Stop writing – or write notes to yourself instead.
Your best bet – for her and for yourself – is to move on too. Yes, what the two of you had was special… and by that I mean intense. It sounds like the relationship involved passion and impulse, and in the end, all of those same big feelings led to its demise.
Perhaps the move-in was too much. Maybe you hadn’t spent enough time with her son to know how to navigate their relationship.
It’s hard to guess about any of this because I have no idea why that fight became so big, and why it ended with you ordering her out of the house. It sounds hurtful, beyond “frantic,” and deeply unhealthy. All I know is this wasn’t good for either of you, and I can’t believe it was one isolated incident about the fear of being heard.
Instead of trying to get her back, think about what you learned about yourself during this relationship. Do your best to find a therapist who might be able to guide you through some lessons here. Exciting doesn’t always mean good. Pacing is important, even during a pandemic. Conflict is uncomfortable, but there’s a healthy way to deal with it. You need some guidance. Loving and missing her doesn’t stand in for interrogating what happened here.
Take the focus off your ex – because she is, in fact, your ex. Prepare yourself to have a better experience with whatever comes next.
– Meredith
Readers? Move on instead of writing love letters? What questions do you have for the letter writer about what happened here?
After reading the letter, the only thing I can say is that someone who’s 44 and someone who’s 52 are WAY too old to be behaving like drama-loving 20-somethings.
jesnana Share Thoughts
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