I dated this guy long-distance in college for 1 year. I was his high school crush, and we stayed friends, starting to date in our junior year of college. The relationship was great for the most part, texting and calling each other all the time, great sex, giving each other gifts, acts of service, etc. But he started sending mixed signals in the last 2-3 months of the relationship, seeming really hot and cold, one foot in, one foot out, down to hang sometimes but not others, etc. It seemed like our relationship lost its magic. Sometimes, he’d be off in his own world or just be really annoying.
Another factor was that I’m not the same cultural background as he is (I’m Indian Christian, he’s Iraqi Christian), and his parents wanted him to marry within the same background. Even though I met his brother and sister-in-law, who’s also mixed, I always felt this doubt nagging in my mind. His mixed signals didn’t help.
I called him one day, testing him saying that I wanted to introduce him to my parents, but wondered if he’d do the same for me (I wanted to see how he viewed the longevity of our relationship). He froze at the idea, saying it was a kinda big and formal step in his conservative culture, and he wasn’t ready at that age, 1 year into our relationship. We were almost 22 at that time.
I also brought up the mixed signals, and he acknowledged that he was making mistakes and would try to fix them, visit more, communicate better, etc. But that convo (which became a fight) helped me decide that he wasn’t interested in our relationship becoming something more long-term. So I broke it off with him. I wrote him a letter saying I’d be down to hang with him still, since we were friends, tho I unfollowed him on Snapchat, and when he called a week later saying that he was excited to visit him, I had to more clearly say that we were over. I also also told him “If he wanted to, he would,” and that he should have been more appreciate of the good things in his life.
I later found out through a mutual friend that 2 years after we broke up, he got diagnosed with ADHD. That honestly really explained why he was sometimes super hyperactive, doing his own thing, inattentive, and had a hard time listening to me despite hearing me. It also explains a lot of the anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues I suspected he had. I haven’t talked to him in the past 2 years, and I’ve been seeing this other guy now. But I do feel bad for my ex. Neither of us knew the issues he was dealing with, and I think it had a big impact on his self-esteem, communication, and his ability to be a good partner. It provides a lot of context that neither of us knew about.
I now feel bad for him, and I don’t know what to do. Should reach out and apologize, and talk with him about this? I don’t know if he’s moved on.
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**tl;dr**: Broke up with an ex because of mixed signals and an argument about me meeting his parents (due to cultural background differences). Later found out he had ADHD and feel guilty about how the end of the relationship played out. Need advice on what to do. Should I reach out to apologize and talk?
6 comments
his mental health and his medical conditions are his own business. Its none of your business what his doctors have diagnosed him with, and his public disclosure of a condition is certainly not an invitation for people he hasn’t spoken to in years to reach out to try to talk about how his condition impacted a relationship that is long gone.
Its too bad that he had issues that were not diagnosed at the time that potentially had a negative impact on him, but it has nothing to do with you and any context it gives you for the relationship is for YOU to consider on your own.
Your memories and experience of the relationship are no longer shared– they are yours alone (and his memories and experiences are HIS alone) and therefore any pondering or re-contextualizing you do needs to be done alone.
As someone with ADHD, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s been two years and he’s had time to move on and do some work on himself, he’s clearly trying and caring for himself. Not everyone will go and get that diagnosis.
But reaching out two years later is just gonna bring all those old feelings of the past rushing back. Don’t do this and disrupt either of your lives. Bad idea.
If you reasonably think that reaching out to him would in some way improve his life, and it’s something you want to do, then go for it. If your reasons for doing so are purely to assuage your own sense of *ex post facto* guilt, then don’t.
The thing is this: ADHD may provide a reason and a context for *why* he did the things he did, but it doesn’t change *what* he did; if your needs were not being met because of the choices he was making (whether because of ADHD or for other reasons), then your needs were not being met, and his later diagnosis changes that not even a little bit.
It also doesn’t change the cultural differences that led to some of the challenges.
So if you want to reach out to apologize for things that were a matter of *choice* on your part (for instance, how you treated him, if you feel you treated him badly). But what you *shouldn’t* do is take blame on yourself for things that were out of your control, like your own needs, your cultural differences, and his own behavior.
Since you’re with someone else now, it may be a good idea to have a conversation with *him* to let him know what you’re planning on doing and why, if for no other reason than so that everything is above-board and it doesn’t look like you are sneaking around to talk to your ex.
I’m sorry but no one wants an ex they haven’t spoken to in years to call them up to talk about their medical diagnoses. It’s frankly not appropriate for someone to have disclosed that to you anyway, considering he’s a stranger to you.
Please don’t call someone and try to make their mental health journey about you or about a long-dead relationship.
Nope don’t reach out. Regardless if he had adhd, he didn’t take care of it properly. As someone who wasn’t diagnosed until I was 25 if an ex reached out for some reason I would feel infantilized. It was my issue that I worked through and that’s that. Don’t need anyone to apologize for my own shortcomings that I refused to deal with for so many years. Everyone is different but it’s probably best to just leave him be.
I don’t really know how his diagnoses has anything to do with you. I think it would be weird to reach out to him about that.