'I'm Happily Married But I'm Still Hung Up On My Ex!'
Dear Polly, I feel a little pathetic even asking this question but I feel like if anyone in the universe is capable of holding this ache of mine tenderly while also holding me to account, itās you. I met Joe 14 years ago, when I was 21. I went on dates compulsively, almost every night. I had grown up feeling awkward and ugly then around the time I turned 21, I started feeling more confident in how I looked, I put effort into how I dressed and men noticeably reacted to me differently. It was like magic and I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the attention but it was also a way to avoid being alone with myself when the rest of my life was such a mess, when I felt so anxious and unsettled. I was failing most of my classes in undergrad due to a lot of perfectionism and undiagnosed ADHD. My teachers always told me I was smart but when it came time to actually finish and submit an essay, I kept stalling and procrastinating and often didnāt submit anything rather than submit something that didnāt live up to the imagined standards in my head. I was such a mess that I genuinely didnāt know if I would ever be able to hold a full-time job or graduate or do anything substantial with my life. I had a new therapist around the time I met Joe. She gave me this helpful suggestion to try only saying yes to a date if I was actually attracted to the person asking (it truly blew my mind when she suggested this). I felt like I had to say yes to everyone then, like a dog who happened upon a huge bag of sugar unsupervised. Shortly after that, I met Joe. He was 24 at the time. He was so handsome, so tall, so quiet, so calm, so self-assured and funny and smart and we loved the same books and music and movies and shared the same values and both worked in the same idealistic field. We seemed aligned in values and aesthetic sensibility and love of emotional depth. We said āI love youā within a week of meeting each other. I broke off all my other situationships right away, convinced that I had met my soulmate. How could it get better than this? We talked about having kids. He said he had never felt like this about anyone else before. Before him, I had never wanted to have kids and yet with him, I was so sure that I wanted to have his baby, to have more of our love in the world. Within a month, he started pulling away. He said he would always need alone time and space. I couldnāt handle it. I couldnāt understand why he didnāt want to spend every spare minute with me like I wanted to with him. He felt pressured by me and pulled away even more. I felt scared of him pulling away and tried to hold on even tighter, which made him want to pull away more. The vicious cycle continued until he broke it off two months later, saying that if anything were to come of us as a couple, heād like it to come from a friendship first. He said we were both blinded in the beginning and saw things in each other that did not exist. I was devastated. I didnāt understand why he couldnāt see that we were meant to be. We didnāt speak for three months then I reached out again and we tried dating again. The same problems came back almost right away. I thought we were right on track then heād stop responding to my texts for days or cancel plans at the last minute. This only made me more anxious and I would text even more. He eventually snapped at me and broke things off again, frustrated that āwe were back at the phone thing againā and that I was expecting way more than he could give. It feels like such a clichĆ© to write all this out to you but through all this, I still thought he was my one true love. We got back together one more time a few months later. We went for coffee and then went for a walk. He called himself a coward and told me that heās not a good partner for me and that he canāt give me what I need. I cried because I understood and I agreed yet I still couldnāt let go. We decided to date again. Another few months pass by and I make plans to move to another city because I wanted a fresh start. I was still hoping heād beg me to stay but instead, he said he was happy for me and he said a lot of people will be lucky to have me in their lives. Except for the very beginning, he was always consistent in saying that he didnāt want to be more available, he didnāt want to be instantly connected, he didnāt want to spend a lot of time with me, he wanted to be able to cancel plans as he saw fit. He said he was too selfish to compromise at that point in his life. I kept saying okay to the crumbs, as long as it kept him around. I thought it was worth it because we were meant to end up together if only I could be patient enough, understanding enough, and less needy. If Iām being honest, I also wanted him to choose me so I could keep using him as the direction in my life. I would just follow him wherever he went and organize around him when I didnāt know what I wanted or who I was. He mentioned that he didnāt want anyoneās happiness to depend on him and he didnāt want attachment in relationships. He broke up with me before I moved to the new city, saying that heās not a good partner for me and he didnāt want to be so toxic for me anymore. Now itās 13 years later and Joeās been on my mind a lot lately. Iām going through some huge shifts in my life right now. Iām now 35. Iām quitting my job soon. Iāve worked for 10 years in a high-prestige and legible field that others admire but that slowly made me feel dead inside, completely out of sync with my moral values. Iām married to my husband who Iāve been with for 12 years, who has always made me feel loved and accepted for who I am right from the beginning, someone who has gone to therapy himself to work on his emotional issues, someone who has endless patience to work things out with me when we disagree or fight, someone who takes care of me when Iām sick, someone who makes me laugh and understands my exact humor, someone who I feel safe and calm with. We are talking about starting a family and yet Iām not sure if I want to. I canāt tell if I donāt want to have kids in general or if I donāt want to have kids with my husband. I love him but I sometimes wonder if he really understands me and all my emotions. I canāt tell if Iām just grieving the passage of time, how Iāll never be 21 again, or if I really miss Joe himself. Even though I was such a mess then, I felt all my feelings and tried to embrace being a radish (I was an avid Ask Polly reader even then). I did a lot of things to try to be impressive to Joe but I also gained a lot of confidence through those things. I learned how to ride a bike safely on the streets (because Joe was into biking). I learned how to run a 5k (because Joe loved to go running). I went dancing with my friends to try to distract myself with other boys and forget Joe. I tried to become a vegan. I read loads of books about love and philosophy to try to crack the code of how to be happy enough on my own so that I could withstand the amount of space and distance Joe seemed to need so heād love me again. My future seemed full of possibilities then. I felt free (in both an empowering and terrifying way). Iām proud of everything I accomplished since then and all that I carried myself through over the past 13 years. Not only have I been able to hold a full-time job and graduate, Iāve excelled (even if it was in a field that didnāt feel aligned with my values). Iāve travelled a ton. Iāve done things that I was too scared to even dream of when I was with Joe. My anxiety and ADHD and depression were so overwhelming that I didnāt think any of what I have now was possible. Iām so proud of myself for what Iāve been able to do. Another trigger from the past few months: I saw a picture of Joeās baby with his partner on Instagram (his partner and I have a few mutual friends and her profile popped up). It was such a gut punch to see his daughterās face. She looks just like him. For a second, my brain malfunctioned and didnāt understand why/how that wasnāt my babyā¦
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