Dear Anita,

He’s the middle child out of five boys. Two brothers are married and two have been in long term (at least 5 yrs) girlfriends. He’s the only one without a gf or had any very long term gfs.  He didn’t ever speak negatively about his parents to me, maybe a closer relationship with his mother than father. His parents, at least his mom was very strict.  He told me incidents where she’d watch them all until they finished  – meals or homework. No messing around.

We rarely talked about how he feels about any topics. He’s fairly calm on the surface and doesn’t like to talk about anything negative.  That’s one thing that bothers me is that he avoids any negative confrontations. He did things to make me happy in order to avoid confrontations. I’m not a demanding person but I nag sometimes.  I believe he’s been in denial when it comes to love. He loves deeply but denies it in order to maintain his lifestyle – not making compromises to email or call. Relationships take time and effort and he doesn’t want to compromise (didn’t do it for exes either). He has deep emotions just like everyone else.  He got emotional when I broke down. There’s absolutely no reason for me to believe what we shared was fickle. He aches in private and alone.  I hope he finds peace and love.

Dear Anita,

I received an email from him today.  My heart was jumping out of my chest while I was trying to digest it. It was shocking that I was experiencing the abnormal heart rhythms. I can rule out that I don’t need to go see a cardiologist!  I was not angry but confused why he reached out after all this time. He asked  how I’m doing and hoped that I found peace.  He also told me that his mood is not great due to the weather. Then he went on to thank me for the wonderful times we shared and referenced a few funny events that occurred in a flirtatious manner. He made sure he made enough nice comments to solicit a response – not to say that he didn’t mean what he said.  Why three months later! I’m numb and don’t know what to say. I can’t leave it unanswered as peace is what I seek and we both deserve closure.

Dear Anita,

I don’t feel that I’m denying my hurt and anger toward him. When I catch myself feeling hurt/angry, I remind myself that I played an active role in it and that I was warned.  I don’t want to stay angry all the time. It robs me of my peace.   I try to accept it for what it is and hopefully memory of him will fade.  Each morning I write down the things I’m grateful for and set my intentions for the day.  Most days I’d say I feel great 90% of the time.  What do you suggest I do?   I start to look at the situation as we were nothing more than FWB.  In this scenario I should not have any  expectations.    The last two nights I slept great and today was the first time I stopped checking my email.  I don’t check it as often as I used to but today I had no desire to. I’m not going to give this event any more power over me.

Dear Anita,

I’ve no trouble falling asleep, usually within minutes of turning off the light.  If I was angry I’d not be able to fall asleep initially. You’re correct in that once I’m awake my mind automatically wanders to questioning his behavior – going over events that occurred, trying to analyze how someone supposedly cared so much can abandon that person without as much as a word. I consider myself to be a pretty peaceful person. I’ve not even gotten so mad at someone that my heart is racing. The anger I feel sometimes is mostly toward me, for not able to stop thinking about it. I don’t regret the time we spent together. I enjoyed my time with him. If he had deviated (any hints of flakiness) I would have picked it up. There was none, therefore, I know he also truly enjoyed my company and shared his authentic self with me.

I’ve not heard him speaking negatively about anyone. He spoke highly of his exes and is still very close to both. Both exes are married but he continues to meet one ex regularly so that could be a reason why he’s holding back from me. He brought her up various times and lit up when he saw her name on a shirt. He also told me that we’d never have met if she and him had wanted the same things. He claimed he broke up with her over 5 years ago. I’m not sure if he brought her up to make me jealous or still has feeling for her – having a fantasy relationship with her in his head to prevent from getting too serious with anyone. This is a big red flag to me.

With us, we shared an extremely intense chemistry. I mentioned before I don’t find him particularly attractive in terms of looks but there’s some force beyond my understanding at work that magnetically pulled us together. The strong emotion and intensity left me very uncomfortable and I’m sure he felt the same. Here we were, barely knew each other yet experienced the intense emotion and passion was unsettling for people not used to it.  When the ‘love’ hormones is released, women want to bond, whereas men want to retreat to the man cave if they’re uncomfortable and that is what I think happened.  This time I retreated knowing how he had been in the past because it was excruciating to be waiting around without acknowledging my emails, especially in the digital age where it takes seconds to respond. He probably didn’t want to treat me ‘special’ because we were not in a relationship.  I realized this relationship aroused considerable anxiety in him, which caused him to react by hurtful withdrawals.  I feel sympathetic toward the trapped spirit within him and I’ve forgiven him. I just wish I could put this behind sooner rather than later.   Posting here is cathartic!  I thank you for taking your time to help me and the others.