Is this a bad idea or is it breaking NC?

[BehindBrownEyes]

Hello and welcome to my post...any advice would be greatly appreciated as I feel my perception of things has been altered since my ex and I broke up about six months ago. I was weak in the past when it comes to NC, I left a message on his phone, sent a couple emails, all with no reply. But I really just felt that I needed to vent and/or explain myself.

It all just happened so suddenly and I don't think I ever got to say what I wanted to.

Anyway...my recent thought was, although my ex has not responded to any of my attempts at contacting him, I want to write him a letter. I happened to borrow $20 from him the last time we were together when I was back home. When I left I gave the 20 to a mutual friend to give to him but he has since stopped talking to her also...so he never got that money. I feel bad because I never wanted to just take his money, although I know it's only 20 and he probably doesn't care...it's the principle, I don't want to owe him anything. So I was thinking of sending that with a letter to his parents house because I don't know his new address.

Also, in the letter I would probably say something like...I realize that this time apart for us is a good thing, we need to be on our own and maybe in the future we will find our way to one another somehow.

Am I just kidding myself by wanting to do this? Or am I just desperately trying to contact him again in any way? I don't know what to do. Any advice iwould be helpful! Thanks.

[michelemybell]

Hi Brown Eyes,

I would absolutely NOT send a letter. You would obviously want a response from your letter, and most likely wont give it once again and it'll only make you more upset.

I very much know how much you want some sort of explanation, something from him...but sometimes you just got to accept that there is no closure in a situation like this.

And, you have to accept that if he wants to talk to you, he'll contact you when he is ready. He knows where to reach you. Sometimes sending reminders to the person who broke up with you sends them a message that you're still waiting around for them and they take you for granted. Do the opposite (true NC) and you have a better chance. He'll probably wonder what happened to you and contact you himself.

Take care, Michele

[shes2smart]

I happened to borrow $20 from him the last time we were together when I was back home. When I left I gave the 20 to a mutual friend to give to him but he has since stopped talking to her also...so he never got that money. I feel bad because I never wanted to just take his money, although I know it's only 20 and he probably doesn't care...it's the principle, I don't want to owe him anything.

 

You don't owe him. You did pay him back. That your friend may have failed to deliver the money is out of your control. But your intent to repay him was there, as was the effort (you parting with the cash) to do so.

 

Am I just kidding myself by wanting to do this?

Yes.

 

Or am I just desperately trying to contact him again in any way?

Yes.

 

Anyway...my recent thought was, although my ex has not responded to any of my attempts at contacting him, I want to write him a letter.

 

What you want is to contact him, as stated in the last portion of the above quote. The money is just a plausible excuse to do so. Since he has not responded to your previous attempts at contact, I wouldn't waste my time making another one. He knows how to contact you. If he wants to, he will. If he doesn't....well, that tells you what you need to know, too.

[arwen]

Well, you can give him the money back, as long as it's not an excuse to write him a letter. Why would a letter be needed? Why not just transfer the money to his account?

 

I don't agree that the giving the money back is out of your control if the friend doesn't talk to him anymore. If YOU feel bothered by not having paid the money back, go to your bank and transfer the money.

 

If you don't have his number, you can call his parents simply for that, and play cool. Just say you hope they are doing fine, you need his account number because you still owe him twenty bucks.

 

Take care,

 

Ilse.

[shes2smart]

I don't agree that the giving the money back is out of your control if the friend doesn't talk to him anymore. If YOU feel bothered by not having paid the money back, go to your bank and transfer the money.

 

Lemme explain my rationale behind this. Speaking as someone who enforced strict NC when I have broken up with someone AND having several exes who didn't respect that, ANY contact is not welcome. Even if it's years later supposedly just to say "hi." I'll give someone plenty of chances while in a relationship, but when I'm done, I'm done and I'm gone permanently.

 

If it was a significantly larger amount of money involved, maybe. But for $20, if I was on the recieving end, and had made no attempt to contact this person since the break-up, I'd view it as an annoyance, and just another excuse the ex was using to bother me.

 

If it's bothering the OP that much, a $20 bill with a note saying "here's that $20 I owe you" and nothing more mailed to him c/o the parents address covers it. Although this is similar to what she's already done -- giving the money to a third party to give to him. Even though it's his parents, there's still no guarantee it'll get to him (just like before).

 

Here's another way to soothe your conscience if your concern is purely the money -- make a $20 donation in his name to any charity you've known him to support. If it was one of my exes, I'd rather they do that than use a flimsy excuse to contact me.

[BehindBrownEyes]

Thanks for all the advice ladies. I like the idea of supporting a charity in his name, to free it of my conscience. I know this is all probably just my attempts at contacting him. I need to stop. It's hard, because I miss him so much and still love him. I just want the hurt to stop and I don't know how to make it. I haven't talked to or seen him in almost five months, yet I still think of him every single day more than several times, I feel like he's always in the back of my mind...in everything I do. Ever since we broke up I have this void, I feel like I am waiting for something, or something is lacking, and I hate it.