An Ex-Boyfriend Contacted Me Through Facebook

My ex-boyfriends generally fall into two categories: those I’m friendly with, and those who don’t want to talk to me. One of the ones I though was in the latter camp sent me a message over the weekend, out of the blue after about 6 years.

He’s actually the last person I seriously dated before I met my husband. I’m sure his version of why we broke up is probably different, but my version is I was still in love with someone else, and didn’t really want a serious boyfriend, and he wanted to get married and have kids. Not necessarily to/with me, but that was his goal.

Anyway, really nice message, and his picture shows him with a baby so I assume he got the marriage and kids part figured out, which is great. Happy for him. And I’m glad we can be in contact, even though I’m sure it’ll be very sporadic. I hate losing anyone to the past.

But. Ex-boyfriends popping up make me feel unsettled. It’s got me thinking about that time in my past--things were complicated back then but they are infinitely more complicated now. I’ve lived through a lot since we dated, things I don’t necessarily want to talk about in a catching-up conversation with an ex-boyfriend. I feel a lot like I can’t really talk about how things have been. It’s too heavy. So I give the cheery “got married, still doing the same job, living in Colorado now, snowboard season’s going to rock, all’s well” reply, instead of “since we last talked my brother’s been killed, I’ve had to leave California and the ocean and I’ve been to hell and back trying to have a baby and we’re nowhere near through yet.”

And I feel more isolated than ever.