Split up ... but we still care ...

Diane wrote:

I split up with my ex about a year ago now.

The reason we split up was because I had started university along way from where we had been living. We lasted long-distance for five more months before we decided that we couldn't bear the hurt of living with that type of relationship as it WAS difficult.

Since then we have remained close friends and constantly speak to each other, even though he has a new partner now with whom he has numerous arguments, and I normally hear about them from him.

His partner doesn't like me an awful lot because there are suspisions that we still like each other, and one New year's Eve just gone he got extremely drunk and confessed his still being in love with me ... which his partner later discovered.

Anyway the point I am trying to make is that I still think about him an
awful lot, every day, and its killing me inside. Its also very annoying
because I don't want to have these feelings when I don't see what I can do about it, as I only have one year left at university which I feel is important too.

Should I tell him that I feel the same now as I have since the day I met him? Or do I leave things as they are, and just hope that it won't take another year for them to go away?

Thanks.

Dear Diane

Fantasy is so much easier than real life, isn't it?

It's nice now; you have the vicarious pleasure of his anguish at the hands of the New Woman, and no need to have any conflict, because you have no responsibilities.

And you've neatly forgotten the pain the made you split up in the first place.

Remind me, whose idea was it to split up? And how long had you been together? And what would be different now?

Other than the current girlfiend taking your role as confidante, teasing him about the futility of ling term, long distance relationships while you tried to make it work.

  And how did his partner hear of his secret confessions to you?

Get real; this guy has got it made, hasn't he? A gf at uni, and a first reserve back home. You have chosen to be a doormat - or you have chosen to carry on a campaign to undrmine his current relationship.

So you are a fool or a spiteful woman. And if you win, what will your defence be, when you get treated exactly the same.

No man on this planet is worth throwing away your self respect for. If he preferd you to his girlfriend, he'd have said - or not got a girlfriend in the first place.

Once a doormat ...