Is He Worth It?

Dear Terry,

Love your blog and your perception of the bleedingly obvious..so hope you can help me.

I will keep it brief..I visualised and met the most amazing man..so good so far..except that he had a breakdown..and chose to deal with this on his own. He distanced himself from me by basically disappearing without giving me much of an explanation.

This was a year ago..since then he has written to me via email to apologise an offer an explanation. He has now divorced, overcome his depression with medication/psychotherapy and seems to be in a good emotional space.

After no contact for nearly a year, we arranged to meet recently. It was so good to see him again, but I was surprised to hear he is now seeing someone else. He painted a picture that said he was not that happy with this new woman. I came away feeling hurt that he chose to move on with someone else when we had a great thing going before his breakdown.

He was very interested to know if I was seeing anyone. I told him the truth that I was dating a few men at the moment, but nothing serious.

I feel I have maintained my dignity and been gracious throughout our year of no contact. He apologised and says he feels ashamed of how he acted. He wants to be friends now.

I like to always keep the door open, and to just let life flow. But another part of me wonders why he not only let me go..but pretty quickly moved onto someone else.

Have I answered my own question?

-Keep Me Anonymous

Hi, Anonymous-

A couple of things strike me about this "amazing" man:

He disappeared, got psychological help, divorced, and then resurfaced to inform you that he's got a new woman in his life, and he's not really happy with her.

Huh?

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was separated (and that his wife was aware of the arrangement) when he started dating you. If I'm wrong, I dislike him immensely.

I get it that you were really, really attracted to this guy (otherwise, you wouldn't describe him as amazing), but you have to know you deserve so much better than this. Yeah, I'm sorry the guy had a breakdown, but what about the rest of it?

And now he want to be friends, but is he capable of being a friend (I don't know the answer to this, but you probably have a hunch)? Before you let him into your airspace again, ask yourself if it's worth it.

Being a friend means having someone you can share a laugh with, but it also means taking care of that other person. It means occasionally having to listen to them cry about their problems when you might rather be doing something else.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that, but will you end up having to tell him? Is he truly worthy of your time? Is he worthy of the time of the new woman he claims to be less than excited about?

I do think you answered your own question.