I’ll start.
We had great chemistry but different goals. She was religious and looking to marry and thought she could change me, a non-religious person who intends to remain unmarried and childless. I was up front about the lack of religion and the lack of desire for marriage. She was not up front about her intent to change me.
After two months of regular flings she told me we couldn’t see each other anymore, because she wanted someone to go to church with, it was my fault she was living a sinful life (totally), and she was cheating on me with another dude was a Christian.
It never really got started. Ive known this woman for many years, back to when we were both kids. We met through a friend of a friend over the phone, so for a while, I thought she was much older than she actually was. When i found out she was significantly younger than me, I had to tell myself no. And that “no” stayed in the back of my head for a long, long time.
Now its been many years, and we’ve stayed close for a long time. We had a few periods of fooling around once she got older, but between going away for college and both of us starting careers, it never worked out. A couple years ago she moved back and we had been spending more and more time together. We actually started getting intimate with each other in the last year or so, even if we saw each other barely once evey month or so.
I had a traumatic incident at work, losing my job, and spent about a day in shock, and she was there for everything for me. She didnt judge me or push me or do anything besides understand and comfort. I didnt know that was something I desperately needed until that point.
After about a week of pulling myself together, i turned to really pursing her. I asked her out on dates, I tried everything I could to make myself available to her. Weeks went by and she never has the time. Then she told me she’d asked someone at work out and how excited she was.
I was devastated. I didnt understand for a few weeks. Then we talked about it and she said she just didnt notice that I was even making an effort. She said it just felt like the old hang out and whatever between us, and that she had let those feelings go a long time ago.
Im still recovering honestly. Part of me entirely understands where she is coming from. I told her no when she wanted it most, and it bothers her that I would take her saying no so hard now. I asked her if she felt it would have been taking advantage of her to accept her back then, and she said she doesnt know, but wanted it anyways.
The intimacy over the last year is what confuses me most. We’d done some rough kissing a few times, but nothing like what we shared in the last 12 months. Part of that was finally having time and being close enough to each other, Part of that was growing as people and being more honest about being what we wanted. I just dont understand why she would want that with me if those feelings were really gone a long time ago.
I really dont know. A huge part of me just wants to wait for things to get better. I sleep a lot. Between the loss of work and the loss of hope, its hard to tell which one feels worse. I still message her. We share dumb memes. It hurts every time I see her notification pop up, but hurting is better than nothing sometimes. Its been a long time since I’ve been so deep in the hole, but I’ve always pulled through before. Just have to wait. Sleep is good for waiting. Dreams dont hurt.
Everyone copes.