u/Right_Editor1631

I thought I’d give an update. You can check my post history for the full background.

We’ve started talking again. To be clear, I don’t think we’re getting back together. He was very clear before that he didn’t want to continue the relationship, and I still believe that’s where he stands.

But he has been repeatedly asking to see me. He told me he misses me, kept asking when he could come see me, and eventually said, “I really want to see you.”

At first, I kept avoiding giving him a clear answer, even though the truth is that I really want to see him too. I think I was protecting myself. I’m scared that seeing him will make me hopeful again, even though logically I know it probably won’t change anything.

Eventually I told him I want to see him, and we’ve agreed to meet toward the end of this month. We’ve even talked about possibly going to Orlando together for a short trip.

Now I’m conflicted.

Part of me thinks: we both miss each other and want to see each other, so why not?

But another part of me is scared we’ll have an amazing time, create new memories, and then he’ll leave again — and I’ll have to go through the breakup all over again.

I also find it confusing that he seems so eager to see me when we talk about it, but then we can go several days without messaging. Maybe he genuinely misses me but still sees the relationship as over, while I have a harder time separating those two things.

Would you see him if you were me?

If you knew reconciliation probably wasn’t happening but you both still missed each other and wanted to meet, would you do it? Or would you leave things where they are and protect yourself from getting hurt again?

Hi everyone. I honestly don’t even know what I’m really asking anymore. I think I’m just trying to understand whether relationships like this ever actually come back, or if I’m just struggling to let go of something that’s already over.

About a year ago, I met a man online. At first we weren’t that close, but after meeting in person about six months later, things became emotional pretty quickly.

At the time, he was still legally married, but he told me he and his wife had already been separated for years. According to him, the reason they hadn’t divorced yet was mostly financial/practical.

We were involved for about five months. Most of it was long distance, but we saw each other every month or two. During our last trip together, he suddenly decided he was finally going back to move forward with the divorce.

A few days later, he called me and told me he had reached an agreement with his wife. He asked me not to contact him for two months because he was afraid our relationship would complicate things emotionally and financially while the divorce was being finalized.

I respected that and didn’t contact him.

Two months later, the divorce was finalized. But after that, he never came back.

Eventually I reached out to him myself. He told me he didn’t want to continue the relationship anymore. He said he really had been happy in the beginning, but that something emotionally changed for him later. He also said he wanted freedom and didn’t want the complexity of everything anymore. The last thing he basically told me was: “Please don’t contact me again.”

And honestly, since then, he really hasn’t.

What confuses me so much is that this didn’t feel casual or fake at all. Right before everything ended, he was still affectionate, emotionally present, talking about future possibilities, holding me while I cried. And then within two months it was like he became a completely different person.

Since then I’ve been trying to figure out what actually happened.

Some context that might matter:

He had been struggling professionally for years before I met him and was only starting to rebuild his life.

During our relationship, he eventually got a job offer on the West Coast.

He also has children and a very complicated personal life.

Part of me wonders whether the reality of rebuilding everything at once — divorce, finances, relocation, kids, responsibility, shame, starting over — just became overwhelming for him.

He’s also someone who values independence very strongly and tends to emotionally shut down or retreat under pressure.

At the same time, I know this relationship wasn’t healthy in a lot of ways either. There were trust issues on both sides. I made mistakes too. My therapist thinks he’s emotionally inconsistent and probably not capable of giving stable love right now, and honestly she thinks I’ll keep getting hurt if I stay emotionally attached to him.

But the truth is, I still love him very deeply.

I think the hardest thing for me is this:

If someone truly wanted to leave forever, why did it feel so real right before the end?

And I genuinely can’t tell whether:

he loved me but became overwhelmed by reality and chose to retreat,

or

I fell in love with potential and interpreted ambiguity as depth.

Part of why I’m stuck on this is because I recently listened to a podcast where a married man ended things with his affair partner before the divorce, disappeared for a while, and then later reconnected with her and eventually married her. Ever since hearing that, I keep wondering whether situations like mine sometimes do reconnect after time and distance.

So I guess my real questions are:

When someone explicitly says “don’t contact me again” and then actually disappears, how often do people like this come back later?

Do relationships like this ever reconnect in a healthy/stable way?

Am I holding onto a realistic possibility, or mostly just hope and fantasy?

And if you’ve been on either side of something like this, what was the emotional reality behind it?

Part of me still feels like if something was this real, a person can’t just completely stop loving you in such a short amount of time.

But another part of me worries that maybe I’m creating meaning around someone who already made his choice.

I honestly don’t know which one is true anymore.