Updates From Former Letter Writers (and One Person Could Use Some Advice)

Today we’ll do some updates. The first is from a letter writer who asked us, in August, “Is it normal that he is still hiding me from his friends and children (youngest in high school)?” Hi Meredith,  Here is an update: While I was writing to you, I have noticed how gullible and trusting I was with this guy. Writing helps clear our thoughts, I guess. So a few days after writing to you, I told him that I am ending it (before you published my letter). Your response, as well as your readers comments, helped me see what we really were. Thanks to you, I resisted the temptation to go back to him. Even after I broke up with him, I missed him very much and regretted the break up every day. I was very much in love with him but it was not mutual. It was painful for months; I cried every time I thought about us.   Almost five months passed since I wrote to you. I met someone else on a dating app. He is a good man, a single dad who raised his daughters alone, now all in college, and he is looking for a life partner. He is 10 years older. We enjoy each other’s company and conversations a lot. We’re planning to meet each other’s kids this month. And it was him asking for it, not me. We are both very honest with each other. We share our thoughts and feelings freely instead of pretending. What started as a rebound relationship is turning into a love story. I feel lucky to have met him. Thank you 🙂 Thank you for writing. The next update is from a person who was experiencing a nightmare. The letter is from 2018. This person could use some more advice, I think. Hi Meredith, thanks for keeping me company through the pandemic. I wrote to you in 2018. After a lot of drama, I packed his bags and told him to leave. But you were right, this was complicated. For two years, it became an on/off relationship. We lived separately – until 2020, when we decided to try again, and funny enough, his lease was ending. Yup, I am an idiot. The other part to the story is that I was offered a job in London, and he knew about it, so he convinced me that he could help me with the move. What I didn’t know was that he would lose his job and the pandemic would hit us. So there we were, living on my salary again in my little studio, focusing on him getting a job, talking about his fears while neglecting my needs because I was being “dramatic and difficult.” In summer 2020 he landed a well paying job (two times my salary). My friends were no where to be found so I was grateful for him, but I was also emotionally exhausted. I knew I was hitting a burnout. We co-signed his lease as his debt would not allow him to rent a place alone. He was waiting for seven years to pass so his gigantic credit card debt would be overwritten. He paid a company to move all my furniture to his new place then he dropped me at the airport. I left for London. Two months later he called me in London to break up with me because the long-distance relationship didn’t work for him, but I was his best friend so he wanted to be able to call me whenever he needed. I declined and totally broke down and contacted a therapist. I was not in a good spot, being burnt out and under lockdown in a new country. I have been single for more than a year. I have been working with my therapist to try to figure out why I allowed all of this to happen. Although he and I have been no-contact, I see his posts, all these pictures on social media with a new girlfriend, acting like some famous TV star in his branded clothes – traveling to Miami, California, New Orleans … living the life, all fit again. Frankly it still hurts, knowing that I supported him when he was homeless, we could never go on trips. Getting him to the nearby grocery store was a mission. I even paid to take the ferry to the Cape for our only romantic trip in two years … where he ended up drunk on the beach. He was not able to plan a trip. In hindsight, I wish I had stopped the nightmare after those four months. There is nothing more to say. I want to believe in karma, but then I am the one paying. My thought is – stop watching this ex on social media! Block him in all ways. But … what does everybody else think about how to let this go for good? Discuss, please. You can send your own letter here. If you’re a former letter writer, send us an update to [email protected] or [email protected]. And again, have a safe weekend. And to all a good night, etc.

– Meredith