Scarleteen

Hi Scarleteeners,

Here's a little back story to my post. I was married at 18, the marriage lasted almost 4 years. The relationship was abusive in every way, but I think the reason it was so volatile was because we were young and not fully mature enough to grasp what comes out of a marriage. Anyway, we got divorced in 2009 and every few years or so we would get together for lunch and talk about what each other was up to. The last time we spoke was 2011. I've been in the same relationship for 7 years and will be married this fall.

He has been in the same relationship for 4 years and is engaged. This past August, he contacted me out of the blue and asked how things were, and wanted to get together for lunch because he was in town for the week. I declined, and he asked me to come over after work to talk. Alone. I declined and that was the last I heard of him.

We are friends on social media, and in October I saw that they were expecting their first child together from the baby shower pictures that were posted. That's when I became confused. I'm wondering why he contacted me, because in my mind, since we're both in happy relationships why would he want to spend time alone with me? I understand that he may have been reaching out because I'm a familiar person, but I also feel that his intentions were more than just seeing how I was doing. If he's happy, why would he go behind his fiancés back? Why would he risk hurting her? From the looks of things, their relationship is very stable. I'm just trying to get some more insight into this.

Hi ashley,

I can't give an absolute answer for his reasons, since I'm not him, but I can say that it was a sound call on your part not to see him. It could have been that his intentions were completely harmless, but given what we know about people who are abusive it takes a long time and a lot of work to undo those behavior patterns. Even if he had no intention of cheating on his partner, he has not proven himself to be a safe person to be around alone, and your intuition did a good job of sounding a "Nope" alarm when he made that request.

Out of curiosity, does he tend to contact you over social media, or over things like email or the phone?

He does not contact me over social media or email, and he does not call me over the phone. It was just one text message that was sent to me in the middle of the night, which I responded to the next day.

I mentioned what his intentions were because the last time we saw each other in person, he tried to be sexual with me (while we were both in the same relationship with other people) and I declined it.

Maybe it's time to take some more steps to cut off his ability to contact you, like disconnecting your social media networks, and blocking him from your phone? That might be a thing that feels good for you, period.