Six years ago ( I know right...) I walked into a room and when I saw him my heart literally skipped a beat. This was the closest thing to love at first sight I had ever had. I felt like I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. When he smiled it lit up the room. I had no idea who he was.

After exchanging glances more often than could be deemed an accident we finally talked one day and he was just as funny and perfect as I had hoped. We clicked instantly and had so much fun together. But after being “friends” for so long we both wanted to take the next step. That’s when things really started to go down hill.

Turns out we were raised VERY differently. My family though strict we’re made of very strong personalities on all sides. My mother and father are both very stubborn and so are all of my siblings. My parents loved this about us and so long as we were respectful didn’t mind debating with us. I grew up with a very strong sense of who I was and what I wanted in life. He did not.

His household was a strong matriarchy. His father rarely spoke and his mother often spoke over everyone. She dictated how his life would turn out to the point of sabotaging his relationships in order to make sure he didn’t stray from what she had planned for him. She scolded him for get this -holding both of my hands at the same time-. She scolded him for everything. He had an erection at some point that I was completely unaware of, she found out and made him feel so terrible about it that he actually apologized to me about it. We were 16 at the time.

In the end she pressured him in to breaking off the relationship because she was worried that, despite her forcing him to literally date other woman in order to have him leave me, he liked me too much and it was going to affect her plans for him.

For the next two years we would see each other occasionally from across the room, in our interconnecting friend circles, and there would always be this elephant in the room. The way our relationship devolved left no resolution for either of us.

It’s been six years now since this all happened although we aren’t friends or talking he still has my friends on his Facebook. I wonder about how he’s doing. Who he is now, and wish that there could have been some sort of resolution to our relationship.

Every once in a while I think about reaching out to him, but I’m married now. Which almost kills my more, I want to get him out of my head because I’m happy with the man I’m married to. I just don’t know how to move past this. I’ve tried hating him for standing up to his mother. I’ve tried understanding and letting it go. I’ve tried thinking it over and weighing whether or not we would have been a good couple past that one year. I’ve tried talking it out with others. But I just can’t seem to move past it. There’ll be weeks that go by with no thought towards him and then he’ll pop up in a dream and I’ll feel like I’m back to the beginning again.

I don’t know what I should do. Reach out to him even though I’m married to try and resolve this? Continue ignoring it and hope it goes away on its own? I just don’t know anymore... I want to move past this. I want to stop feeling like I’m losing something all over again every time I dream about it. What do you think?