I met my DH at 21, so only had a couple major relationships before that: a high school boyfriend of several months who pursued me hard, we had a fairly intense several months, and then he broke up with me out of the blue (I suspect to get back with his ex who he'd been with for 2.5 years before dating me). I didn't really care when we broke up, and I stopped thinking about him quickly. When I went to college 6 months later, he tracked me down through a mutual friend and sent me an email (this was 1997 - email was new) along the lines of: "you were the most important thing that's ever happened to me, our brief relationship was one of the most powerful things in my life. you have such a special place in my heart." I wrote him back along the lines of "hey, great to hear from you! Email is so crazy! How's life?!" I don't know if he was looking for a new relationship (long distance) but I really just didn't care. Our relationship was fun, he probably didn't treat me the best at the end, but I harbor no ill-will to him. We have sent a couple pleasant notes on facebook over the years.
And my college boyfriend of 3 years, who I had a totally f-d up, abusive nasty relationship with, where he broke up with me like 22 times (and he always came back - and I was a dumb depressed 20 year old, and stupidly felt like I needed to show people that I could make the relationship work lest I was a failure) and he finally went overseas for a semester and it was the greatest thing ever because I really despised him for most of our relationship and it wasn't till he was physically gone and I knew he wouldn't be coming back that I could get on with things. I met my DH 6 months later and it was the BEST since day one (17 years ago). I haven't seen the ex since the day he left town. A week later he sent me a possessive "I sure hope you're not going to hook up with our mutual friend Larlo" email. That was the last straw and I wrote him back to never contact me again. Every time there is a new communication platform (Hotmail! Gmail! Myspace! Facebook! LinkedIn!) he tracks me down and sends a "what's up dude!" note. I have literally never responded since I sent him the "never contact me again" email in 2001. It's his way of still trying to be a control freak.
So yes, my experience is that the men are more likely to be the jerks in the relationship, and regardless of how hard they dropped you, are more likely to crawl back when you move on. That said, I'd never want one of those jerks creeping back into my life.
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