Christine* writes
I was going out with my high school boyfriend, Ryan* for about 3 years, when he cheated on me on his trip to the Gold Coast for Schoolies. While I tried to forgive him, a few months later I ended our relationship as I was unable to get past the whole breach of trust issue.Up until that point, we had a great relationship. In fact, looking back it was a wonderful “first love” relationship – we had loads of fun together and I still consider him to be my first love.About 9 months later, I saw Ryan at a local night club. It was the first time I had seen him since we had broken up and, after a number of hours of drinking, I gave him what for…everything I had been afraid to tell him regarding his cheating came spewing forth. I was like a girl possessed. I was absolutely horrible to this guy to the point that I had his friends telling me to stop. This guy (actually, man), who I once loved, was in tears. In a nightclub. In front of his mates.
I have not seen him since.
Fastforward 11 years. I am married to the love of my live. We have two amazing children. Life, while not perfect, is pretty darn good…but that night in the club is eating away at me and has been for about 12 months now. I do not know why I am only recently starting to have feelings of guilt…perhaps it is now that I am a mother I would hate for someone to treat my children the way I did Ryan. I am not an agressive person AT ALL and I actually cannot stand conflict of any kind, however, the guilt I feel about how I treated Ryan is eating away at me.
While I cannot remember all the specific details of everything I said that night, I can still see the way he looked at me, with so much hurt in his eyes, it makes me feel sick to my stomach that I could possibly make another human being feel that way.
Through the grapevine, I know that Ryan is now divorced with a young child of his own.
So I guess my question is: Do I try to track him down to apologise for my behavior that night all those years ago, or do I simply accept the fact that for that one night, I was an absolute bitch and just let sleeping dogs lie?
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Top Comments
Have you considered writing a letter that you don't intend to post/send? In it express all of your regrets, feelings, things you wish you had/hadn't said, your wishes for Ryan and his future etc. Get it all out and then either rip it up, put it away for a while and then decide after some space if you still think you need him to read it, or if it was something you just needed to get out on paper.
If you contact him now, you may really mess with his head. You have no idea what is going on for him in his present life. He may think you want to start up a relationship with him again. He cheated on you. You had a melt-down. You were horrible to him and you feel you made a mistake in the things you said. Okay that's life. Get over it. If you can't move on you should see someone to help you deal with what you are feeling. If you had apologised to him not long after the event, it would have been a reasonable thing to do. If you were to bump into him and spontaneously apologise that's also fine, but to seek him out after all these years to apologise ....? Sounds like you have a lot of unresolved stuff that you need help with, but you should get the help for yourself and leave him alone.