Sorry guys, I just realized that this post got a little out of control. Please don't feel that you have to respond or even read it. I think there was something cathartic about getting if into words instead of it just tumbling around in my head on it's own. I'm going to leave the post as is as a kind of therapy for myself and on the off chance anyone has a thought. Thanks for letting me take up some space....cheaper than a therapist I guess.
I am at a loss and could really use some advice if anyone has some. Hopefully I can explain well and succinctly enough to be understandable. (Okay, I just read what I wrote and it is kind of long, but hopefully it makes some sense.)
In college I dated a guy very seriously for a little over a year (he was also my first and only serious boyfriend before I met Phil). When J broke up with me, we decided to stay friends and I felt like he was one of my best friends for several years. At the same time, we weren't always very good at being "just friends" even, to my great shame, into the first few months of him starting to date his next long-term girl friend. After that, it was very hard for me to get him to back off even though he was getting pretty serious with her. (He was very good at having sympathetic reasons as to why it would be "okay" if I would give in.) During those few years we were friends, I would often take issue with how he wanted our friendship to proceed (somewhat normal guy-stuff about not wanting to talk on the phone unless it was something he was interested in, I always had to be the one to call or email, etc - somewhat of a one-way friendship it seemed alot.)
When I first started dating Phil, the relationship did not go over well with J and I took a lot of flack for what he perceived as moving too quickly. When we got married in Vegas, J gave me trouble for not telling him so that he could be there (um, hello, my parents were only there by chance - the Vegas wedding, not the church wedding with family a few months later). He and his girlfriend did come to the family church wedding.
When we moved back to Boston J's girlfriend lived not too far away from me. About a year ago, maybe more, they broke up after almost 5 years for several reasons including him cheating (several times) and him not being willing to commit more permanently. A few months later J decided that he had made a mistake and tried to get her back. She had finally started getting over him and wasn't ready to go back right away. She asked for some time and space to work things out. He basically refused and kept calling and emailing. By this time the xGF and I were riding the same train to work often and would sit together and talk some. As the months passed he was getting more and more insistent that they talk and wasn't altogether nice about it. In the end, it resulted in what I would consider stalking or at least pretty close to it. (She had gotten a new job in the city of Boston and moved closer to it without giving him info as to where on either count. He used "sources" to find out where she worked and called her there a couple of times. There was also a instance with a previous girl that wasn't handled very nicely either, but never got as bad.)
As he finally started backing off on her, J started getting upset with me because I hadn't "been there" for him enough when he was so upset about the breakup. When she wouldn't get back together with him, I tried talking to him but he was a wreck and often wouldn't talk much. As I was now married and had a child, plus work, it was hard to catch up with each other much. Then, when he wouldn't back off of xGF I told him that I didn't like how he was handling things and that he needed to leave her alone. In the end, it resulted in J deciding that I had betrayed him and was now on xGF side.
After a few borderline-harassing emails from him, I basically tried to break off the friendship altogether. (In hindsight, this is something that I should have, and wanted to do, several years ago. It was just easier to stick with the status quo.) I got a few more emails about how there was too much history to just end things like that. Thanks to the friendships I found when we moved to CA and again here with this group, as well as the renewing of some high school friendships, I came to realize all of the shortcomings in J's and my friendship. Through personal growth I also came to realize some very controlling and degrading aspects of our relationship (they were supposed to have been "jokes", "just the way he was" and "not to be taken personally" even though they were directly about me) that I had been too blind and naive to see before. These two things added to his behavior in the past year, told me that I really needed to break loose for good.
When I tried to say this as delicately as it can be (without anything accusatory as he was admittedly starting to scare me a little bit after some of the xGF things) it did not go over well. In the end, I left it with the excuse that with our move, job change and a bunch of other personal issues I was working on that I would consider things and I would contact him if and when I thought that I could or should.
Since then, I have gotten an email from J almost monthly. Every time he tries to guilt me into contacting him including playing on the past, threatening to contact family and friends to find me, and other things that make me feel uncomfortable. I got the latest email 2 days ago. Before that it had been Thanksgiving and every month before that since June. Everytime an email comes I get a little freaked out and don't know what to do. I don't really want to contact him, but at the same time, I don't want to feel his way every month for who knows how long. Should I contact him and then slowly back away without anything confrontational? (Probably what I should have done from the beginning, but didn't know it would go this far.) Do I keep ignoring the emails? I get too afraid of not reading them in case there is something that I should know (threat or otherwise as I have felt some emails come close to at least suggesting threats, though as to what I do not know). Do I take the chance to respond with just a simple note to say that I can't talk to him? The only thing that I do know is that I cannot be friends going forward. I also know that if we were still living in Boston, I would probably be even more concerned due to proximity as he lives in NY and his parents live in Boston and Cape Cod. The problem is that I don't have any proof that there is something to worry about, just the feeling that things would not be good if I were to run into him.
Sorry guys, I know that posting just went out of control. Please don't feel that you have to respond or even read it. I think there was something cathartic about getting if into words instead of it just tumbling around in my head on it's own.