Have you ever let someone go (so they can figure things out), and they have come back to you?

Yes and it was a little more complicated than that & no they did not return.

He tried….;)

Your question brought back some painful memories. And my answer is yes i have let go of someone and she only came back in my dreams. i’m still hoping though, that one day our roads will cross again. But that is my experience,i’m sure yours will be a different one.

Nope. The few past relationships were ceased as a result of the figuring out. And one went away to go to college, so that ended that.

Yes. Give them 2 months to 2 years. Ya, that’s a long time.
When this happened to me (twice), once came back in 5 months, and I handled it badly and drove her away.
The second girl came back after several months, just to make sure I was still hooked on her, then dumped me again. I felt like a total idiot.
Both girls later wanted to get together again, but by then I had moved on.

I was engaged to a girl for about a year. Things were going great, until one day, she called me over to her house and broke our engagement. I took the engagement ring back and held onto it for about a year. She never gave me an explanation, as why she backed out of our proposed marriage. I gave her a month to think things over. I never heard from her again, ever.

To this day, I sometimes scratch my head and wonder what the heck happened. It was not infidelity on each of our parts. We were too crazy in love with each other for that to happen.

Today, I would have felt much better about myself, if only she had told me why.

Two years after our breakup, I was told that she had a sister in a mental institution. I was not aware of this…...at all.

Maybe, this was her reasoning for our breakup. Maybe she thought our children would also be mentally challeged. Who knows? I would have accepted this fact and dealt with it later in our lives, IF this had been the only problem.

What other deep, dark secret could she have held from me?

Yes for one guy and no, he didn’t come back. For another guy, I told him I would let him go so he could put himself together but really I was prepared to give someone else a shot who’d expressed interest in me and didn’t think the guy I was having problems with was going to turn himself around. Lo and behold, the guy got himself together and after a great deal of hurtful shite, we got back together.

@john65pennington I’m sorry to hear that. I wonder if maybe she was afraid that if you found out about her sister, you might leave her. Obviously you probably wouldn’t have as I have gathered you are very understanding from your posts, but sometimes (and many times) I would guess that it is fear that keeps us from communicating all of our, well, fears to our significant other…

@Neizvestnaya that is encouraging to hear. I’m a glutton for punishment and maybe a fool for hoping that he’ll get his stuff together and realize what he’s missing. :(

Ette, thanks. We had talked about everything, except her sister. I wondered if she really thought that would make a difference to me? Today, I am still puzzled as to why she did what she did. I heard through the grapevine, that calling off our marriage was one of the biggest mistakes of her life. I was a police detective then, and maybe she did not want the hassle of being a cops wife for the safety involved. Like I said, who knows?

@john65pennington I once had a friend of mine tell me that although she is now married and happy, she believes the one true love of her life was another man to whom she was basically engaged to, but something happened (basically she moved to another state and during the time, they separated and he accidentally got a girl pregnant). She says that she thinks that if that hadn’t have happened, they would still be together because she always loved him. I don’t mean to pry, but do you love your wife just as “crazily” as you loved your ex-fiancee? Do you think you could ever love someone else the way you loved her? My whole problem right now is that my boyfriend thinks that because he doesn’t feel the exact “crazy in love” feelings for me that he did for his ex-girlfriend of 10 years (and I’m basically the only other girl he’s ever been with in a semi-serious relationship), something is “wrong” with our relationship even though “I make him happy” and “we’re great together”.

Yes, he left for a year, and came back… and I am married to him now…it’s been 11 years.

I did….she came back…we got married and then she really fucked me over big time! Be very careful of what you wish for.

I haven’t ever experienced this in a romantic setting, but I’ve been the person to have to step away from those I love for a while. I had full intentions of coming back in a better state, but things felt too hard and then I let it go completely. Not because I wanted to.
Recently one of the people (all of who I’ve missed like crazy) reached back out to me. It was wonderful to see them again. Now I’m in the process of coming back.

I would think that you have to read the situation. If they really do care about you, and their intentions of improving are honest, they’ll come back as soon as they feel they can.
Maybe get an estimate on how long they think it’ll take?
—Don’t put your life on pause, though; keep living.
Again, if they really are going off to figure things out, it’s because they want to be with you longterm, and not let shit get in the way. So as hard as it is now, it might turn out that 12 years from now you’re where @ladymia69 is.

@john65pennington I’d bet ya any amount and give ya 10/1 odds that that wasn’t the reason. You didn’t state and age at the time, of either of you two. Could it have been you were young and she just got scared out of her wits? Anyway, I take it you tried to FaceBook her or Yahoo or, heck, look her up in the phone book and try to reconnect. It’s likely too late to call back on the marriage and all that good stuff, but an’t no law that says you can’t talk to someone from a former life.

Of course, this all could have been three years ago. The only timeline we got was two years after the break-up. Hope things worked out well for you, anyway, and you didn’t end up like that old lady from Great Expectations.

@DancingMind Thanks…the “problem” I guess is that I have to be the one to end it otherwise we’re just going to be spinning in circles doing the status quo. I love him. My greatest fear, which is always a possibility, is that if I do let him go, he’ll never come back. But unless I let him go, I don’t think we can get to a point where he can realize how he truly feels about me. He basically says I’m the most amazing girl he’s ever been with, but that he’s confused. I honestly think a huge part of that is the fact that he is still holding onto what he had with his ex. He thinks he’s supposed to feel the same way about any girl he’s in a relationship with, the way he felt about her. She was the only other girl he’s ever truly been with. One-night stands notwithstanding. I disagree with him, because I’ve been with more than 2 guys in my lifetime, and each love I have felt has been very different for each person.

They left for someone else, but came back after a year, when they realized how good our relationship was. In the meantime, I had moved on in the sense that the relationship was about putting another person’s happiness before my own. I mean, I was really happy before, but wasn’t loved enough to be chosen as the one. When I finally was chosen by the person, I felt it was too little too late. Choosing me would make them happy, but would never undo the pain of rejection of not being enough in the first place.

Yes, more than once and they never came back. The fact that I needed to let them go, was pretty much an indication, that we were not meant to be, I had to let them go, and I kind of figured deep down in my heart that they would not come back (even though I desperately wanted them to come back). If they needed to be cut loose in the first place, it was for a good reason, they weren’t in the same picture with me. And once a person goes, water starts flowing under the bridge and at that point, your lives are not running down the same path. Even if they come back, things will never be the same, and one person will always want the relationship more than the other one does (even though the wanter may be the other person, once the first person leaves). Once a person leaves (without the couple getting some kind of help or therapy or changing of ways) the relationship dynamic changes, and most often it disentegrates. Because one of both parties realize that what they had was not “real” or not working or not sustainable and that’s why they had to part ways. And usually one person ends up heartbroken and the other person ends up much happier. But until it happens, you’ll never know which one will be which.

I’ve let some people go. Don’t know if I loved them or not, but they were important to me. It hurts a lot, because they never came back. I thought they would figure things out…but maybe I was wrong about what I figured out and thought they should. Prolly a good thing they didn’t come back. XD Or maybe I should have went back to them myself. Complicated. XD

@ette_ : Good Luck to you but truthfully, I wish I’d have steered clear and not fallen in love- it was tortuous and there were others who would have done right by me and not given me half the heartbreak to come.

I have let someone go and they did come back. I’m sorry you are suffering right now, I knowhow it feels to let someone you love go and not know whether they will come back. I hope it all works out for you.

12 Oaks, I was 21 and she was seventeen, almost 18. That was almost 50, yes 50 years ago. She moved to another county and I kept up with her for a short while. I have yet to find a reason for her breakup with me. Her parents liked me and her brother was just weird. Maybe one day, I will have an answer. I do not know her location now and I do not use Facebook that much. Thanks for the comeback. jp

@Leanne1986 thank you, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and empathy. I am in a lot of pain right now and quite a bit of it is self-inflicted by my thoughts…