ghosts of exes past

It started again, as it so often does.

This time, it began with an innocent "Happy holidays" email.

Then it was an email to check on me, because he knows that this season is rough, considering what happened.

That lead to me looking him up on Facebook, just to see what he's been doing.

Then came the texts with the pet names....


Psycho Ex and I go through this back and forth periodically. It starts off like this, then we become friends again. I let my guard down and we get close. I realize he's trying to have his cake and eat it too--again--and tell him to kiss ass. We don't talk for months. Then an email....

Yesterday it was a "Thinking of you" text. After I didn't respond, I got this today:

I know u told me not to contact you again but i do still think about you and always hope you're doing well. Really impossible for me not 2 think of u.

*sigh* WHY LAWD?!

I want so bad to cuss him out and make him hate me, but something in me stops me from doing that. I can't say I still love him, but I did, and that truth is what makes it so hard. In some other relationships I realized that it was just infatuation so it was no big deal to say eff it. But even when I told him to lose my number there was still some hesitation. And this was almost a year after the big blowup that happened years after we were done!

But this time, I'm ready to end this little back and forth. I haven't engaged in any conversation other than a "same to you and your family" to the Happy New Year/hope all is well texts. I just can't get sucked into the back and forth. Every time I see his (unsaved) number pop up, I think about his wife and have 101 questions. Does she know he still feels this way about me, still contacts me? Has she just accepted that that's the way it is? How does he rationalize his actions in his mind? If we were together, who would he be texting on the side? Would I be so blind?

The answers to those questions really don't even matter at this point. This is a chapter in my life that should have been over long ago. You can't run from the past, can't undo it. But he's a lie if he thinks I'm ready to repeat it.