Moving on from a pre-move fling, with added baggage

Post date: 2022-06-30 11:30:42

I'm in a situation similar to this question about moving on from a fling with a departing housemate, with some added baggage. I want more granular advice than "move on," especially when it comes to my own attitude toward relationships.

Three years ago X and I had an (unconsummated but very emotionally intense) fling when we were both in relationships. I left my relationship, in part so I could be free to pursue them. X did not. Several months later X rekindled the fling, to similar results. I spent the following two years trying to get over them, sometimes in ways that were productive, sometimes not. It was an agonizing process which left me drained and emotionally unavailable in ways that harmed other relationships I tried to pursue at the time, but it was also the most sustained period of personal development and growth I've ever experienced. By the end of last year I was finally ready to conclude that I was over them. (Throughout this period I would periodically try to contact them and would almost always be left on read.) Then, in early May, I ran into them at a brunch and found out they were moving to a distant city in another country to be with their partner (the same one as before). I suggested we get a drink before they left, to which they responded eagerly.

We met up. After three drinks I blurted out that they had been very important to me, and that this would be true regardless of whether I ever saw them again. There followed a very emotional scene and an intense night which turned into several more meetings in the following weeks. We finally slept together and it was the best sex I have ever had. Their last night in town (last Thursday, June 23) they asked if they could stay with me before going to the airport. It was an incredible night and morning. Just before their plane took off they texted me that they could not stop thinking about it, and that they couldn't get me out of their head after the previous night either, and a heart emoji. Since then I've sent a couple of messages and have once again been left on read.

I don't blame X at all--they're going through crisis after crisis at work added to the stress of a long distance move and moving in with a long-term partner. We did not have an explicit conversation about what basis we were going to be on after this move (X is very avoidant about these kinds of things, which reflects a deeper and lifelong struggle with intimacy issues that I totally empathize with) but intellectually I understood that this was not going to turn into anything "real" (though X did say they would be back in town for a few days in October). I've gotten that far.

The problem now is convincing the anxious part of my brain to stop spinning out about this. I want to remember this as a form of closure to a very difficult period, something that made me very happy for a brief moment, which it did. But I'm already starting to go back to constructing these baroque mind-reading explanations for why they didn't respond this time, to blaming them for being hot-and-cold and avoidant, to ruminating on how I might approach an interaction in the future, to fixating on October as a time when all will be revealed. None of this is helpful and it doesn't reflect my actual attitude toward this relationship. More broadly, I would like to free myself up to pursue other kinds of relationships like this in the future--I want to get away from feeling like every romantic interaction has to be this no-holds-barred thing where the goal is being together for eternity. That means developing some kind of ability to rein in this thought process.

I am already in therapy, which is very helpful. I also meditate and journal daily, which is also very helpful. I do not want to date anyone else right now, for complicated reasons. I have read Attached and agree with some parts of it but have found others to be totally false in my case. I know that there will be a chorus of people saying "no contact," and you all are right, but realistically I will absolutely not be able to follow this advice, especially when it comes to October. What I'm looking for is suggestions beyond these, for specific strategies either in terms of activities or mental health techniques or anything in that vein to help me process this and ultimately to be less ruled by my own anxiety and desire for external validation.

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