Bumping into J6

So I haven't responded to some earlier comments asking more about J6 and why I stayed with him as long as I did if he treated me so poorly. Namely, I think, it's because I didn't realize it. My friends did -- and they tell me that they tried to tell me during the relationship but that I just defended him. I was comfortable with him, too, and I guess there's a part of me that didn't want to be alone.

When we met, the first date was okay. He was easy to talk to, and I didn't have a reason to NOT go out with him on a 2nd date. So I did. And then I went out with him on a 3rd date. I wasn't super excited about him, but I never had a reason to NOT go out with him again. And eventually we had been dating for a few months, and he wanted a commitment from me, so I gave him one. And then it was six months, and then a year, and at 18 months we started looking at rings. But then we didn't get engaged, and still didn't get engaged, and eventually I gave him a deadline and he didn't meet it so we broke up.

Within a few days of the break-up, I realized how relieved I was to not be with him. And how relieved my friends and family were as well! I felt free, and happy. I was sad to be alone, but not sad to be without him. He actually showed up, begging for me back, and then started telling me all the things I could do to improve my relationship with his mother and to make things better with him and stuff and I was like "really? that's how you are going to win me back?" I've never been so glad to have someone out of my life. He asked if I thought there would ever be a chance of us getting back together and I said "No," and when he asked if we could be friends I said "No." I didn't want him around. I had already realized -- and yes, the realizations go on and on, 6 months later -- how poorly he had actually been treating me for all that time. And it was REALLY poorly!!

This past Saturday I spent most of Shabbos afternoon in the park. I was leaving, walking out with some friends, and went over to talk so some other friends who were sitting on a park bench. Standing near the end of the bench were two guys whom I didn't recognize -- and it took me a couple minutes to realize that one of them was J6. He had shaved his goatee (and looks about 15 years old) and was wearing shorts and a polo. Now understand that we'd been to the beach a couple times to visit my family and he never owned shorts, nor would he ever dress down on Shabbos, so it was weird to see him like that. He smiled and said "Hi," so I nodded at him. I stood and talked to my friends for a couple minutes (not talking to him or the girl they were standing next to), but then I decided I didn't even want to be around him so we just left. I didn't say good-bye or acknowledge him again at all.

It was weird to see him -- we haven't been in contact at all -- but weirder to see him on the UWS for Shabbos, with someone I didn't know, and dressed in such a different way when I had asked him so many times to be more casual on Shabbos afternoons and go to the park with me. But I was proud of myself for just walking away and not letting him engage me at all.

I'm kind of expecting him to try to contact me sometime before Yom Kippur (when it's traditional for Jews to ask people whom they've hurt in some way during the previous year for forgiveness). It's funny b/c I've only recently realized how much he had hurt me, but I have completely healed from him and I don't harbor any ill feelings toward him. If he's trying to improve himself and his life, that's good for him. I just don't want him involved in my life at all. I don't want him to be in my community or around my friends -- they are MY friends, and they all know what a jerk he was. Does that make sense?