Hi, sorry if this turns into a long post but I am really struggling with this and I have no idea what to do.
Last year I met someone who I really liked, he was very kind to me, he respected me and I honestly think he was the best man I have met in terms of how he treated me.
He suddenly stopped speaking to me and became inactive on all social media. None of our mutual friends had heard from him and I wasn't in a position to get in contact with any of his family.
I was pretty broken by this as I honestly believed I could see a future with him, in the past year not a week has gone by where I haven't thought about him and wondered if he's okay.
A few months ago a mutual friend shared an article that was about him. He had been convicted of a horrible crime and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
I almost struggled to believe it was the same man I met.
What I'm struggling with is shaking my feelings for him. After everything he's done I'm feeling really guilty for still feeling any love for him.
I did write to him as I thought it would help me get some closure but he replied once and has since stopped replying so I'm also struggling with the fact he doesn't want to speak to me.
Has anyone got any advice on what I can do? I really need to move on but I don't know how to. All I want is for him to stay in contact with me but I respect the fact that he probably doesn't want to.
You clearly didn’t know who this guy was, so your feelings are for a fake person whom you created in your head and not for the man you were actually dating.
Understand that your emotions for him aren’t real and do what you can to find somebody whom you can love as a real person.
Many criminals can be charming people.
However charming he was, it’s time to move on. Don’t fall into the trap that he will change for you if you just wait.
He didn’t end up in jail by being a kind honest person
Go to therapy
Therapy is your best bet
I was in your position once. I fell for a guy who was perfect; charming and gentle and kind. One day I get a collect call from the local jail and it was him. He had been arrested for something pretty bad (not murder or harm to another person). He was sentenced to 3 years in prison and I spent about 1.5 of that visiting him every week, sending him money, and spending way too much money on phone calls. I was his advocate and tried to repair his image to everyone around me. It was a long hard road to learn that he was charming yet manipulative and was using my kindness to his advantage. Once I began talking to his friends who told me that he is a user and doesn’t know how to have true empathy for people I started to see the signs in him. I wasted so much of my life on this man because I was sucked in. My point? Be GLAD he’s not engaging because if he wanted to suck you in to bleed you dry he would. This is what helped me: realizing he wasn’t who I thought he was. Telling myself that he was acting and I don’t know the real him helped a lot. You can DM me if you want someone to talk to.