January 25th

Today is my XBF's birthday. His name is Tom. He's been on my mind alot lately just because of the time of year. We broke up 2 years ago just before I moved here and I've not seen him since. We live in the same town and I've not so much as passed him on the road. Until yesterday. I was getting ready to pull out of my complex when he passed by on the road and all these feelings came flooding back.
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Two years ago this month was when I started the process of buying my condo. There were a few factors that led me to this particular condo. One of the big perks being that it was 2 miles from Tom's house. He came to look at the condo with me and also liked it. He talked about partially living with me and part at his house, where he was caring for his sick mother and brother. When I made the offer on this place, he was totally into it, talking about plans, our future & Bianca's future. We talked about this being somewhat temporary, believing that by the time Bianca started school, we would move to a home of our own or at least have the income necessary to have other options, like private school, available to us.
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I failed to see alot of red flags in him throughout our 2 1/2 year relationship (We dated 10 months, broke up but stayed close friends for 9 months and got back together for another 10 months). To start with, he'd never had a relationship longer than 3 months before he met me and he was almost 40 years old. I didn't pay enough attention to the dysfunctional dynamics in his family. I listened to his words and didn't pay enough attention to his actions. I will say, though, in the first 2-3 months of our relationship, each time around, he treated me like a princess. It made it that much more confusing when things started changing. I excused it. I clung to the way things used to be and didn't give weight to how things were in the here & now. I just held onto hope that it would go back to how it used to be.
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The second (final) time we broke up, it was the week before I closed on my condo. He was so into it when I put in the offer. And when the idea of our future and commitments became a reality, he bailed. I remember so vividly leaving the closing and coming to my new home. I had packed a little picnic lunch of salad, strawberries and a martini. I sat down on my dining room floor and I cried and cried and cried. It was so bittersweet and I was so angry with him for breaking all his promises, for saying all the "right" things to me which fed into my building this false idea of happiness and security. It was all an illusion but, in my mind, it was so real and so infallible.
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I'm now trying to make decisions about where Bianca will go to school. I work an hour from where I live and I hate the thought of having her so far away. I can't help but regret that I didn't take school into account when I moved; that I listened to his promises. I can't help but be reminded of where I thought I'd be in my life at this point. And, don't get me wrong, I am happy and I'm better off without him. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that I sometimes wish he had turned out to be the person he said he was.
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I have to believe that there was a reason I saw him yesterday.....I guess it was time for me to confront some of these feelings again. I started to cry when I saw him and I'm not sure why. My first instinct was that it has to do with feeling bad about myself and feeling ashamed of how I look now. I stuffed it down right away because I didn't want to explain to Bianca why I was crying. She's *really* into Why? Why? Why? right now without accepting any brushoff answers. I didn't have the energy for it. Of couse now that I've stuffed it down.....who knows if I can get it back.