So, I’m hoping that writing some of this down will be someone cathartic, but also very appreciative for any advice.

A couple of days ago, I (M, 30) met my ex (M, 36) who I’ll reference as “J” for the first time in almost three years. We were together for around 18 months and sadly broke up in lockdown.

For me, J has always been “the one that got away” as our relationship was great. We didn’t live together, there was a bit of distance but we made it work both during the weeks and weekends. The last physical memory we had together was a short break in Wales the weekend before the UK locked down during COVID. That weekend away was great, we climbed Snowdon etc. and enjoyed each others company as we always did.

He runs his own business and as lockdown hit, his communication dropped off a cliff. With hindsight I can now completely understand this. But with the confusion of the state of the world back then, it just wasn’t good enough for me. We almost mutually decided to end things - over the phone, because, lockdown. We did say that maybe “in a few weeks” we could maybe meet in person to discuss things, not really knowing at that stage how long COVID was going to impact things for. I’ve never felt so devastated by a decisions, I reeled from it. It took me a long long time to get him out of my thoughts and dreams, but I healed, mostly, after a little while and eventually entered another relationship (which ended up being abusive and toxic, but that’s another story) and that relationship ended in January this year.

Here and there since J and I had split, I had messaged and he would either be very blunt in replies, or not respond for weeks, or at all. I had tried to contact him after things ended with my ex, but again, was met with not much of a response.

Fast forward to a month ago, J posted a picture on Instagram (I re-followed him when I split with my ex, he didn’t follow me back) where he he sold his house and bought a refurb project. I messaged him wishing him luck with the refurb and was suddenly met with more open communication, he followed me back, he was asking me questions and putting a kiss at the end of messages, both things he hadn’t really done and the communication was way more lengthy than previous.

I was enjoying chatting and actually had a work meeting the city closest to him. I saw this as an opportunity to put an offer to meet forward and let him know and said it would be really nice to meet to catch up. To my surprise, he agreed.

We met a couple of nights ago, and I felt it went really well. We had a quick hug, walked around the Christmas markets, chatting the world away, had some dinner, and chatted for about 3 hours straight. It got to around 10pm and I thought he might have to head back for his dog, but he said his Mum’s looking after it and he could stay out for a drink for another hour, which surprised me, as I thought he may want to head back, especially as he had almost an hour drive back to his town. So we found a quiet spot and chatted for another hour or so.

We mostly chatted about my job, his business, each others families. Not so much reminiscing, we didn’t touch on “us” or the breakup, and didn’t talk about relationships since really. Though I have a feeling J hasn’t really dated much, or had a relationship since us at least as I feel he’s focused on his business and his own life, perhaps being a bit of a “hermit” in that respect.

He walked me back to my hotel, we hugged and I said “let’s not leave it 3 years next time”, he laughed and that was it.

I left it around an hour, but I needed to head to bed and wanted to message him, though I wasn’t sure if it was right to do. I sent him a short message to say before I went to bed I wanted to thank him for a really nice evening and that it was lovely to see him again. He replied when he got home saying it was lovely, he really enjoyed it and was good to see me again.

I know where he has moved to he has no mobile signal and was hoping he was getting his broadband installed yesterday, as there has been a lot of issues getting it sorted. So messages in the days leading up to the meet were quite delayed, but was confident that he wasn’t going to bail, and he didn’t.

I messaged him last night to say the markets were a lot busier last night than the night before (I was staying another night for work and out Christmas event) and there were a couple more messages exchanged and he’s yet to reply to a message I sent at 9pm with a funny picture of me getting off a ride at the market and asking how his day had been.

Obviously, in an ideal world, I’d like to look to reconcile/rekindle whilst taking it easy and putting as little pressure on this as possible.

I feel like I need to wait for him to put an offer to meet forward this time, to see if he’s interested? Equally, I’d really like to see him again this side of Christmas and have this coming weekend free due to cancelled plans.

I just don’t know how cool to play this, whether I put anything forward myself, or just simply try to be patient and see if he does 😅

Thanks for reading!