Hi There,

Four years ago, I met this beautiful, tall, blonde man in a college class at a university I had just transfered to. We became friends and something like a year later we began to date. Although we were hugely similar (he was and still is the only person I have ever met who I did not feel the need to explain myself to – so similar were we in our emotions and thought processes) and very much in love, we couldn’t ever figure out how to make the relationship work. (I wrote a personal blog post about this yesterday @ http://thegirlinlongshorts.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/a-goodbye-goes-a-long-way/) For three years, we dated, broke up, spent months in silence, got back together, functioned as friends, etc. There were many very high highs and many very low lows. It was a relationship built on intensity and ruined by immaturity. I’ve still never been able to figure out what made him run so hard from me but that was what killed us every time. He would draw very close, say beautiful things, propose future plans (at one point he propositioned marriage) and then he would panic – startled, maybe, by the intensity of his feelings or the fact that he felt ‘not ready’ and then he would run away from me. I would let him go and, without exception, he would come back a few weeks or months later and he would apologize (and, for the record, he was always sincere and eloquent in his apologies, this man is just deeply and personally terrified of commitment. Plus, he is obviously decently self-absorbed). And I would forgive him and we would get back together. And then the cycle would begin again. Throughout all of this, I loved him, but eventually I met someone who didn’t constantly flee from me and I began a relationship with him. It wasn’t as intense as my previous relationship and it took months to build the feelings that had been present with the other man from the beginning, but slowly and surely we built a very stable, positive life together. Throughout this time, the first man and I settled into a friendship. We would meet for coffee once every few months and talk via phone, text or email every couple of weeks. Recently, he took a job in another state and moved away and, for various reasons, that was the end of that.

My struggle is this – I know he is not meant for me and I know him and his tenancies too well to ever truly want to be with him again but part of me is still deeply connected to him. I am happy in my life and I love my partner but there is something about a relationship like that that just leave a fill-in-his-name-here shaped hole in your heart. I like to compare him to some sort of meteorite who hurtled into my atmosphere, walloped my surface with the force of a 10,000 suns and then rebounded from the force. These things take time to move past. It has gotten better over the last few years and specifically since he has been gone but he is still present in my head and I wonder when, if ever, this will stop completely. Do you have a similar story? I’d love to hear it.

Best,

Ashley