Dear Athena

Dear Athena, I’ve recently connected with an old flame and, I have to be honest, it’s knocked me for six. It’s stirred up emotions that I didn’t even know I had any more. I feel transported to young and carefree days, but I don’t want to get carried away. It was not an amicable break-up…

He left me for another woman. The most beautiful woman in the world to be precise. That really did a number on my confidence I can tell you. He walked out on me and the happy, beautiful life we had built together without so much as a backward glance. My heart was broken, and I’m starting to realise that it never properly healed.

His new relationship didn’t work out either. The two of them actually ended up causing one of the most devastating wars in our history. That was ten years ago, and now that that war is coming to a close, now that he has been fatally wounded and is nearing the end of his life, he has – literally – come crawling back.

I hate how happy I was to see him after all this time. I’ve only truly been in love once, and it was him. But he wants to put the past behind us, to act as though nothing has happened. To live out his final days reminiscing over our pleasant youth together. “We were on a break” he says…

My head is telling me that I should throw him out on his ear for the way he treated me, but my heart is telling me to take pity, to care for him in his final days. I love him, but he hurt me so badly. What should I do? – haven’t_always_had_Paris

Athena says: The “on a break” excuse is weak at the best of times, but after ten years?! More like “give me a break!”

I met this young man once and found him to be opportunistic, selfish, arrogant, not to mention a very poor judge of character! His decision to exploit your good nature after treating you so abominably does little to alter my opinion. But it doesn’t matter what I think. What’s important is that you care about him, and I promise that my focus will be entirely on suggesting what’s best for you.

The key to working out what to do in this situation is going to be honesty. You’re very honest with yourself about how you are feeling, which is commendable, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t be equally honest with your ex. Telling someone how you feel doesn’t have to be a declaration of one clear, strong, certain emotion, it is equally valid and important to express when you are confused and being pulled in multiple directions.

Telling someone how you feel doesn’t have to be a declaration of one clear, strong, certain emotion

It is obvious that you love this man, but is that love stronger than the pain he caused you? I think that a part of what’s making you hesitate is the idea that allowing him back into your life, even for the short time he has left, is letting him off the hook, sending the message that the way he treated you was fine when it so evidently was not. You don’t deserve to be in pain, and regardless of whether you decide to spend his final days with him, I think that it’s very important that you seize this opportunity for some long overdue closure. Talk about the past, hold him accountable, get it all out in the open, just make sure you do it on your terms.

I suspect that during your discussion he will try to make out that his decision to walk out on you was entirely down to divine intervention. While, admittedly, there were gods involved, he cannot lay the responsibility for his treatment of you entirely at their altar. He should have handled the situation better, and don’t let him deny it.

You’ve proved that you don’t need this man, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t want him.

His rapidly expiring existence can’t be an easy prospect either. He abandoned you once, and he’s about to do it again, albeit for different reasons. He’s asking you to open up your heart to him once more, only to leave you behind for a second time. However, this time you’re prepared for his departure. Not only that, but you also know that you have the strength to deal with it. You’ve proved that you do not need this man. You’ve coped for the last ten years without him and you could continue to do that just fine. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t want him.

I don’t really know you, of course, but you seem like someone who would usually follow their heart. The fact that you are not instinctively doing so should tell you something. This man certainly owes you an apology, but you owe him nothing. So talk, think, do whatever it takes to work out what will make you happy, that will certainly be what both your head and your heart are telling you to do if you really listen.