I (35F) had a romance with a man (38M) while I was studying abroad. I had to return to my country due to not finding a job to let me stay where I was, and to take care of my health, but I kept in touch with this lover on the daily, thinking that we were building something special.

After about four months of this he ghosted me. No explanations, no replies to my messages or phone calls, absolutely nothing. I asked to our mutual friends if something had happened to him or if he had gotten into a relationship, he seemed to be doing fine and wasn’t committed to anyone. He just didn’t want to talk to me. I admit this was a mistake (please don’t be harsh on me for this, I already feel bad about it), but I went on endless stalking sprees on his social media trying to find an answer. There were a few women who caught my attention but there was no evidence that they were more than friends.

Fast forward 14 months and I find myself in the city where I used to live and where he is based, for work reasons. I sent him a message asking to meet to have clarity and closure, without any expectation to rekindle the relationship. To my surprise, he replied, we met, and it seemed that he had changed as he was more open and understanding. It was an amazing experience to reconnect and see the feelings were still there.

I had to go back to my city and contact continued. He seemed a lot more interested in me and acted better, like never before. Since things seemed to be in a good place, I asked him about one of the girls I found out about, because during our last meeting I mentioned her and he seemed uncomfortable. He admitted that yes, they dated for a while but not anymore. I simply said that her social media gave me the ick (shes of course very pretty but it’s a classic aspiring “actress” with no real acting credits anywhere, just a lot of nudes and posts saying she sleeps around but commits to no one), and he said something among the lines of “I understand you might be jealous and spiteful but it’s ok, I don’t blame you and I could explain why she posts those things but I don’t want you to think I’m defending her so let’s leave it like this”.

Those were the most painful words he could’ve used. I didn’t need him to talk badly about this lady, but the way he delivered all of this was extremely condescending, insulting, offensive and felt like he was subtly defending this woman who supposedly he doesn’t care about. It felt like he didn’t care to hurt me to defend her, and that made me feel he was still in love with her.

I said all of this to him, and his only reply was “it makes me sad you put yourself down like this, please stop it”. Again, radio silence. I let a day go by, and sent him a message saying that I was over the incident and that I hoped we could resume talking. More than 24 hours later, I haven’t heard from him.

I have talked to other friends about his and they all said “it’s not a big deal, maybe he felt judged for his past behavior and that’s why he did it but he didn’t mean to insult you, he’s done good things for you so let it be for a few days and he will be fine with you”. They might be right but I still feel deeply hurt. I don’t know if this connection will survive, or if I will ever hear from him again.

AITA?