Should I tell my ex who still loves me how I feel?

So I was dating this guy for like a year and it was really great. I was happy and loved spending time with him and thought I was in love. It seems like the last time I was genuinely happy. However, towards the end of our relationship when I was going off to college I started to feel myself not like him as much and I don't know why. I dumped him and I was kind of a .

Flash forward another year and somehow we got in contact over the summer and we hung out a lot and it was really great, but I had the feeling he still liked me so I felt kind of awkward, like I didn't want to lead him on. He asked if we were friends and I said yes and he was clearly disappointed. Later in the summer we slept together and then kind of had an uneventful falling out until the fall.

That fall he helped me throw a halloween party and slept over platonically the nights leading up. During the party he acted like the perfect boyfriend and the next morning confessed he was still in love with me. I told him I only saw him as a friend and he was upset and didn't want to hangout with me anymore which was understandable and we stopped talking.

It's been a year now and recently I couldn't stop thinking about him so I text him and we got to talking about us. A lot of feelings were shared and things were said that should have been said a long time ago. I guess during our relationship we both kept things bottled up. He told me he hadn't been in a relationship since me and that he still has feelings for me but he didn't want to be together if i wasn't going to be happy. So we drifted away from the relationship conversation for a while then he started texting kind of dirty. The thing is i'm frustrated not being with him. I think about him all the time. I want to do the whole living together, cooking dinner together, grocery shopping together, referring to ourselves as mommy and daddy for our pets, kids in the future thing. I want him to be my best friend. I want to be able to call him my boyfriend. He's the only guy I've genuinely liked and cared for in years. But there's no telling what the future holds and I couldn't stand to break his heart again. So should I tell him how I feel?

I think you should tell him, but first you need to understand why you lost feelings in the first place. I don't think it's fair to him until you understand what the problem was (and therefore how to prevent it).

You are playing with this poor guys feelings. First you love him, then you don't, then you're friends and yet you sleep with him, now that he is not in your life and you haven't found anything better you decide you want him back again. You need to figure out what you REALLY want. Is it him? Or is it just a relationship? Because to me it sounds like you're more in love with the notion of a relationship. This is not all about what you want, and how you feel. If you really care about this guy stop jerking him around and make up your mind one way or the other, and STICK to it.

I think you are wanting and feeling ready to be in a relationship but you are mixing that up with wanting it to be with him.

You've dumped and rejected him so many times that this will never work because there are reasons people dump and reject others.

Even though you may want to play house right now, he's not your guy.

Why have you never found another relationship in all this time and instead kept trying over and over with him in the friendzone/fwb zone?

I want to do the whole living together, cooking dinner together, grocery shopping together, referring to ourselves as mommy and daddy for our pets, kids in the future thing. I want him to be my best friend. I want to be able to call him my boyfriend. He's the only guy I've genuinely liked and cared for in years. But there's no telling what the future holds and I couldn't stand to break his heart again. So should I tell him how I feel?

Seriously let him move on. dont tell him anything.

So I was dating this guy for like a year and it was really great. I was happy and loved spending time with him and thought I was in love. It seems like the last time I was genuinely happy. However, towards the end of our relationship when I was going off to college I started to feel myself not like him as much and I don't know why. I dumped him and I was kind of a .

 

Flash forward another year and somehow we got in contact over the summer and we hung out a lot and it was really great, but I had the feeling he still liked me so I felt kind of awkward, like I didn't want to lead him on. He asked if we were friends and I said yes and he was clearly disappointed. Later in the summer we slept together and then kind of had an uneventful falling out until the fall.

 

That fall he helped me throw a halloween party and slept over platonically the nights leading up. During the party he acted like the perfect boyfriend and the next morning confessed he was still in love with me. I told him I only saw him as a friend and he was upset and didn't want to hangout with me anymore which was understandable and we stopped talking.

 

It's been a year now and recently I couldn't stop thinking about him so I text him and we got to talking about us. A lot of feelings were shared and things were said that should have been said a long time ago. I guess during our relationship we both kept things bottled up. He told me he hadn't been in a relationship since me and that he still has feelings for me but he didn't want to be together if i wasn't going to be happy. So we drifted away from the relationship conversation for a while then he started texting kind of dirty. The thing is i'm frustrated not being with him. I think about him all the time. I want to do the whole living together, cooking dinner together, grocery shopping together, referring to ourselves as mommy and daddy for our pets, kids in the future thing. I want him to be my best friend. I want to be able to call him my boyfriend. He's the only guy I've genuinely liked and cared for in years. But there's no telling what the future holds and I couldn't stand to break his heart again. So should I tell him how I feel?

The pattern that has been established and reinforced between the two of you seems to center on relieving the pain of his loss and your loneliness.

Does he really love you or is he unable to move on because you peiodically reinforce his hope for the "something more"?

You are in control because your loneliness is seasonal. Your feelings changed around the time you were going off to college. You "somehow" got back in contact over the summer, on your terms, and then had an uneventful falling out in the fall. Were you home for the summer and then going back to college? What do you think caused you to lose interest in the first place? And the second? Third?

When he has confessed his love to you, you have told him that you still wanted to be just friends. You slept with him at the end of summer, lost interest, and then strung him along during the Halloween party. The message here is that if he hangs in there long enough, you'll throw him a bone and then leave him again.

All of this will keep him hanging on, not because you are the girl of his dreams, but because the hope and rejection cycle is like a recurring nightmare and he can't wake up.

He will be unable to let go of the past enough to move on and unable to form a secure attachment with you enough to get his needs met. You are holding him emotionally hostage.

Your concern of breaking his heart again says a lot. "There's no telling what the future holds", sounds like you'd like to be open to that unknown future and like you already know that at some point, you'll want to explore other possibilities. There's nothing wrong with that. The fact that you genuinely care for him and haven't met anyone else....yet....is not reason enough to justify the risk you are asking him to take. Not great odds for him.