Ex-boyfriend wants to be friends again after 2 1/2 yr absence

[Dahlia]

Hello everyone,

New to the forum, and needed some opinions on this personal dilemma that I have. Like many of you, I must apologize for the lengthiness.

My ex-boyfriend and I had broken up around 2 1/2 years ago on bad terms, though it was sort of a mutual break up, it hurt me deeply. We were friends previously for a couple of years, but we had always had attraction for one another during that time. Anyway, we had a rocky 3-4month relationship and broke up twice.

Since then I had broken off all contacts with him and was able to move on with a new boyfriend (of now 2 years). The thing is, despite how sour things went, my ex-bf wasn't a bad person. We both were kind of young (23) and foolish and didn't know how to handle the pent up emotions during the time we were friends. I've thought about him every single day since we broke up, and in fact, still have feelings for him but know that he could never be the type to make me happy despite longing for him.

The biggest surprise was that he sent me an email a couple of months ago, wanting to re-initiate our friendship again. Thinking that enough time had passed and enough space was given to eachother, he thinks that we can be good pals again. I've asked a few people of their opinions on why he wants to reiniate contact with me and got various responses.I decided to be brave and ask him myself and his response still confuses me. I asked him why he didn't want to just move away from our painful relationship and just let it be, he responded: "No, I want to turn a new leaf and extend the olive branch." He said he felt bad on how things ended and wanted to see how I was doing. He has a tendency to compliment me by saying he still finds me "interesting and smart," yet at the same time expresses no desire to get back together. And no, his intentions are not sexual.

We chat online occasionally every 2 weeks, but have yet to see eachother in person. Convos are casual. Only our first convo was lengthy and deep. He says a lot of confusing things like "You think I easily got over you? You think I'm over you? [...] Well it's probably something I'll have to live with for the rest of my life," while saying another like "I want to move to this [insert country] ASAP" and being dead serious about it.

So my question is: why is he so interested in being friends again? I was fine keeping a no contact policy no matter how painful it was, but even just chatting with him is making me feel like I'm still dependent on him for satisfying my emotional needs. I'm well aware that this couldn't possibly work out, but I guess I just need some advice on how to really move on from him. And to get a clue as to what he really wants from me. A friend said that he's just seeking to balance his life and that remembering the good times he and I had, he'd want to recapture that.

Opinions are appreciated and thanks for reading this far.

[jaamkie]

having kept in touch with an ex myself, who I knew wasn't entirely over me, I said some similar things, and looking back on it my motivations were a mixture of things- some not so flattering to me, and none really having anything to do with legitimately wanting another chance at a relationship:

- I genuinely did like the guy/conversations/challenges in some ways, so legitimately I thought maybe with the emotions gone some of the good stuff could return
- I (evil-ly) liked the fact that I could twist him around back to saying he still wants me- it was flattering to feel wanted, even when I knew I didn't really want him- so I would sometimes look for the things to admire in him and act attracted and complimentary, subconsciously I think manipulating him into saying all sorts of nice things in return that fed my ego
- I was sort of morbidly fascinated with watching him and his subsequent relationship craziness, to pick out all of the immature manipulative traits that made me not want to date him, all of the reasons we were bad for eachother, sort of making me feel better about the decision (even though yes if you read all of this I probably sound like the awfully immature one with lots of bad traits... sigh...)
- I sometimes just wanted attention, sometimes physical to cuddle with me and then stop him and say "hey we're just friends now", sometimes someone to listen to me, and I knew he would do it, even if most of the time I was mooning about loving another guy; someone who I could bounce all of my ideas off and know I would get some interesting outburst in response- like the ideas of moving to another country, dating someone else, changing careers...

anyway, I would definitely keep reminding yourself of why you aren't good together, distrust his intentions, and not build up expectations unless/until he makes a clear prolonged effort to restart a relationship with you and you feel things are different than before.

[Dahlia]

@jaamkie:

Ahh, I used to be manipulative like that with him in the past when we were friends. But though the idea is really tempting to do that again, I know it wouldn't be fair to him and pretty selfish on my end. But at the same time...isn't he selfish for wanting to make himself feel better by smoothing things over with me? Don't feel bad about feeling evil, I've been through that too, and it's so egotistically fantastic to feel someone who still wants you. But, I've learned to overcome those feelings, lol.

Thing is, he says he still has a huge amount of respect for me still, what that entails I have no clue, but I'm guessing that he still cares about me and wants to make sure I'm doing ok. I feel like he's just keeping tabs on me and checking up on me to make sure I'm still breathing.

For now I'm keeping my distances, but for some reason it just makes me sad that we can't be close like we used to be...