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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lil_fighter" data-source="post: 1703890" data-attributes="member: 10548"><p>Thank you so much for your support and comments. I reconnected with him last weekend and we talked for two and a half hours about the whole thing. Can't believe we spoke for so long but there was a lot to catch up on. He was really pleased to hear from me. He said I had hurt him back then and it seems he went on to have bad experiences from women and moved abroad for work. He would like a future with me though and was very compassionate as I spoke about the trauma. He is abroad now and so our conversation was over the phone. It all felt very healing and he opened up a lot too. We agreed that we were both right for each other but it had been bad timing. He asked me about the future and whether I think we could still have a chance. He asked me about what I have in place to ensure I don't get triggered or let the trauma take over again. I explained that the issue had been that I had kept everything to myself for so long and when I finally opened up and saw a therapist, told my parents, friends etc. what I had experienced - it was only then that my life started to settle as I had finally admitted it to myself. I told him how I had gone to train in the career I wanted and how I am much more settled now with a great support network. He is very patient and compassionate but understandably is not that well trauma informed so did not quite understand everything. He did say however that he can imagine that for me, meeting him when I did must have been really difficult and trusting a man must have been hard. Especially as I had gone into his home. He was right and I was so pleased he seemed to get it.  He is coming back to live in the UK next summer and we will stay in touch. It was truly so healing after all this time as I had felt so guilty for ending things without explaining. Funnily enough, he says he sensed back then I may have experienced something traumatic as he was confused about my sudden cutting off contact when we had got along so well and had discussed marriage etc back then (we come from the same cultural background). For me I am just grateful for the closure but also it felt good to talk about the sexual assault without feeling ashamed and for him to be so supportive. I know I hurt his trust back then and it will take him time as he said on the phone but he forgave me for not being straightforward back then and he did say he appreciated me reaching out. After our conversation, I got home as I had been sitting in a cafe (with a lot of privacy of course) and he sent me a message saying he will be visiting the UK in December and would love to meet up. Very positive and just shows me how important it is to speak up when it feels important. We may just stay as friends who knows but we shared a very personal deep conversation at the weekend, just as we used to in the past. I am no longer afraid of deep emotional connections with people and I won't push him or anyone else away again as I am grateful for good people and support <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" alt="☺️" title="Smiling face    :relaxed:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/6.0/png/unicode/64/263a.png" data-shortname=":relaxed:" /></p></blockquote><p></p>

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