So, as I mentioned in my previous post via the ever so popular social networking sites a couple of my exes have found me. I got the strangest message from one, R, telling me why he feels we had issues. OMG, this gives me flashbacks to the worst nightmare I ever had ~ me stuck in the elevator room of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland with every boy I ever dated. Said boys then decided to either tell me how horrible I was or tried to get me back. In my defense of this crazy dream, I had it after a night of drinking jager to get over a bad breakup...so let's not read to much into it. Oh yes, I get the irony of this drama occurring at the Happiest Place on Earth does not escape me, all I can say is I was in my 20's at the time.
So, back to the message from R. We had exchanged a couple of notes-messages back & forth catching up. He is divorced from the woman he married after me, no kids, but a dog they fought over. I do love how people feel the need to tell you what they think you did wrong. Apparently I was not ever there enough in our relationship. Now by this he doesn't mean I didn't spend enough time with him, oh no, he clarified exactly what he meant. He feels that I never opened up enough to him the way he saw me do with others. An example he gave was that I had something going on with my best friend, DK and I didn't ask, tell, invite him to be involved. Basically what it all boils down to is that I put him too low on my list of priorities. I had college classes, a job to pay for said college classes, friends and family, but in his opinion he came at the end of all of that.
OK, not going to lie at all, my first thought was screw you. I mean this is all from a good decade ago, who cares. I did break up with him, but he also had a date the weekend after that happened so he didn't seem too broken up at the time! Well, then I stopped to think about it a little bit. I will give him a bit of credit and say that it is mostly true. I am great at sharing my life with my friends and will drop things to help them even. I tend to be much harder to get to know in a relationship. I care about the people I choose to get involved with, but I hold back quite a bit until I hit my comfort level.
With R, he was the first guy I dated for any length of time after my breakup with D. To know why this matters, D was the first in a lot of things for me and to this day is one of only 2 guys I have said I Love You to. He was an amazing guy who I loved, but in the end found I was not in love with. The hardest part of breaking up with him was accepting that and hoping we would both be better for it. My friends at the time...and some even now think I was crazy to ever stop dating him. R came along about 9 months later, met him at a dive bar I went to with my co-worker restaurant friends. He went to my school and also worked as a waiter so got my job hours and stresses. He was fun, cute and made me feel good about myself. We dated in what I thought was a casual way and didn't fight at all. He never met my mom, who lived 40 miles away, but many of my school friends. I never had him stay over at my place, I always went to his. I have no idea if this was some sort of control issue as I could leave or what. That was one of the things he brought up when we broke up. I broke up with him as my life was getting busier & after 3 months to be honest I didn't think it was going anywhere. To me he was like a friend I went to the bar, movies etc with and sometimes we made out. I didn't feel a big connection or growth. As I said he found someone fast, he had a date 5 days later, she knew him from work I think. They ended up married 2 years later. She didn't care for me much so we lost touch, only to have him find me online and send me a note letting me know what he had been up to all this time.
So in the end my ex gave me an oh moment, where I came to an understanding of what he meant and how much I held back in past relationships. I didn't let him in as far as getting to know me via my world, my friends, my family. I kept him apart from all of it and then left as there was no connection, well how could there be? I have learned now that you have to open yourself up some in order to get that back. I think I actually appreciate what R said even though no one ever likes to be told they were wrong ; )
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