I ran into an ex boyfriend a little while back. I was surprised to see him but it was cool. I harbor absolutely no hard feelings or ill will toward this guy. Actually, he was a very good boyfriend; sweet, kind, considerate, generous, affectionate; everything a woman would want. We were together for three years.
Mid way into our relationship he started throwing hints and innuendos about marriage. I knew full well that if you are with someone for that length of time marriage will be brought up at some point. I knew in my heart this guy would make a fantastic husband and father someday. It all sounds pretty good, right? Not really.
See here is the thing, I didn’t love him. As a matter of fact I tried on many occasions to break up with him because I no longer felt attracted to him but there was always something going on that made breaking up with him a bad idea at the time: I was helping his brother with some graphics and letterhead for his business and his father was ill and dying of cancer for starters. It just seemed too harsh to break away so I stayed longer then I really wanted to.
When his father finally died and things seemed to settle down for him I decided to break it off with him. He was devastated and I felt so bad for him. I’ve had my heart broken many times and I KNOW how he felt and my heart was breaking because of what he was feeling. I tried to maintain a friendship with him but I soon realized that it was far too painful for him if I stayed around so I stopped communicating with him. I even stopped attending the church that he and I went to together out of consideration for his feelings. We were still civil with one another as there were no hard feelings between us.
Fast forward 4 years and I run into him unexpectantly. He is now married and has one child and expecting his second. I couldn’t be happier for him as I knew that’s what he wanted and I couldn’t give that to him. I spoke to him with a smile and he just muttered and inaudible “Wassup.” and kept moving. I was surprised as surely there was no tension or hard feelings involved between us so a friendly hello and benign “catching up” banter should not have been out of the realm of possibility. We hadn’t seen each other in about 2 years at that point and a lot had happened in both of our lives.
Would friendly banter have been inappropriate? I wonder if I was just expecting too much.
