Was my ex acting out of love, concern, guilt or was he simply playing games?

[weltschmerz]

We were in an inter-religious inter-national long distance relationship for five long years that ended in a separation since our families couldn't accept it.

 

My bf (then 35) gave into pressure from his family and eventually married behind my back. He never informed me of his impending marriage, even though he was in touch with me until the last day where he kept claiming his love for me. Of course, I could sense things were going downhill but I thought it was a rough phase we were in. I had come to a point where my health had declined and things had stopped making sense to me. Immediately after my bf's wedding, one of his family members wrote me a mail and informed me of the same. It came as a huge shock and more than his wedding, it was the idea that he could hide such a huge fact from me that broke my heart. I felt betrayed and all of a sudden it felt as if he had been lying to me for all these five years!

 

I was devastated and my health deteriorated. I was clueless on who to turn to and how to handle the situation. My family stood by me and gave me all the support one would expect but nothing helped me. To end my agony, I wrote a last email to my ex, saying how his decision to hide things from me had damaged me. I cried but I didn't curse him or swore at him. I ended the mail promising him that I wouldn't disturb him ever again in his life. (I never got a response to my last mail to him and I hadn't even expected one.)

 

I was in severe pain and had taken ill but I never wrote to him again. A month passed by and on 1st of January, I got a mail from my ex. The mail wasn't personalised, he had not even typed my name, but it had lyrics of a song with lines like "I'll always be right here" & "I love you". I felt he had copy pasted the lyrics from some website. I didn't care for the mail, I didn't care for the lyrics but what stayed with me was the day he had selected to send me this mail. In our last months together, he had missed wishing me on our traditional new year and when he had called up, I had mentioned (not complained) it to him how badly I had waited for his call. Especially, since I was not keeping well, I sounded very low and I remember how miserable he felt and apologised to me profusely. I had then even forgotten about the incident, until his mail arrived on 1st January. It suddenly made me realise, that he was genuinely upset when I had casually told him how badly I had missed his call on my new year's. That not only he was sorry, but it had stayed with him, so strongly that even after everything ended between us, he had ensured to wish me on the 1st.

 

Of course, his mail hurt me but I chose not to respond to him and maintained a stoic silence, like I had since I'd heard of his marriage. Three days went by and on the 4th of Jan, I received a call from his mother. They chose to call up on my landline and his mother spoke to me. Even though I had major grievances against her, I ended up crying on the phone. I didn't speak much, but my mother intervened and politely but very firmly asked her and her son to refrain from contacting me again.

 

That day onwards, no one ever got in touch with me but one year down the line, through a common friend, his colleague actually, I got to know, my ex still missed me. He had cried on his wedding day and even after a year, he was still miserable. Honestly, this piece of information left me enraged. For I no longer could grasp, whether my ex had really loved me or had played games all along! Whether he's as hurt as I am or is he doing things to control damage to his reputation. I feel so hurt, especially since irrespective of the fragile state I was in, I never acted foolishly to put him in a quandary. I have not till date done anything to affect his life since we separated but one after the other, things that have come my way have left me terribly disturbed. On one hand, my heart empathises with him, for I know the really bad situation we were in and on the other hand my head points out all the things that shouldn't have happened. His lies, his cowardice, his betrayal.

 

Can any one here, especially men or women who have dealt with a similar situation, please help me understand why on earth would my ex behave the way he's been behaving?

[Wiseman2]

It sounds like he was scheduled for an arranged marriage and decided to communicate with you until he had to go through with it. Good you went no contact, that's the best way to heal and move on.

[gebaird]

I suspect he was torn between his love for you and his desire to do what his religious parents wanted him to do. It's a very difficult choice for anyone to have to make, and obviously he is still struggling with it. But now that he is married, what can you do? Any contact with him will just cause you pain.

 

I'm so sorry you were on the losing end of this deal. Sometimes the pressures of religion and culture and family expectations are stronger than attraction and romantic desire.