Burying the hatchet with a bad ex: Stupid, impossible, or neither?

[Werel]

Hi, folks. I'm debating something internally, and I figured I'd toss the question to y'all, see if you had any experiences or thoughts which might help me make a decision.

So, background info: For about eight months last year, I dated a guy. We fell hard and fast, and made a lot of words about being, at the very least, friends until we were dead. I really wanted that to happen; I hoped he'd be around in the long run, even if we weren't together romantically for the rest of our lives. I made some major upheavals in my life to make room for him to be around forever, in fact.

Things carried on for a while, blah blah, love, whatever.  And then, TLDR, the relationship got complicated in some ugly ways towards the end. I hesitate to use the word "abuse" when it was never physical, because I don't want to trivialize the experiences of folks who've experienced much more severe partner abuse, but I read the opening chapters of "Why Does He Do That" and recognized the behaviors like I was reading my own diary. In short, it was just a lot of gaslighting (especially trying to make me feel crazy or naive when I objected to things he did), a lot of insisting that his emotional needs be tended to while scolding me for having emotional needs, a lot of dismissing my concerns while crumpling into an emotional black hole if he had concerns, and a lot of lashing out at me every time we had a disagreement or he felt threatened. He was pretty mean sometimes, and every time I said "ouch, that seriously hurts, can we please not hurt each other on purpose" I got some form of either "all people lash out when they're angry and you're crazy to expect otherwise" or "you're way too sensitive, you can't expect me to walk on eggshells."

So I broke up with him about six months ago, cause that shit ain't cool and I don't want to be with anyone who's mean to me on purpose. And when I broke up with him, I said (very sincerely at the time) that I still hoped we'd be friends, that I still loved him, that I did not want to be out of each other's lives. But I was raw and hurting and needed some time away from him to lick my wounds, to stop being so scared and mistrustful of him, before we could be friends.

Fast forward to now, and we still haven't spoken, except for once right after the breakup when he offered me a job (I'd been doing some freelance writing work with him). And in hindsight, I realize I do not really trust myself to have him in my life. I'm still raw about how he treated me, I still have a real tender spot in my heart for him, and I don't think he understands what he did wrong or why it hurt me so badly. I don't think we can be friends at this point. I don't think it'd be good for either of us.

BUT! This is literally the first ex I've ever had, so I don't know how to navigate Ex Things. And I really, really hate the idea of there being bad blood with someone I was once so close to. So, in the tradition of New Year's being a time for renewal and clearing the air, I've been thinking of sending him a brief note to say "hi, hope you are well, I don't want to be back in regular touch yet, but I bear you no ill will and I wish only good things for you." I don't want or expect an apology, or anything beyond a mutual acknowledgement that we don't hate each other. And I'm aware of the possibility that he hates me, and hearing that would hurt. But I still want to send the good vibes, because I do still care about him and I want him to know I wish him well.

So, questions for you:

1) Is this stupid? Am I cruisin for a bruisin?
2) Is this unkind? Is a simple "wish you well, don't wanna be friends right now" message a cruel reopening of wounds for no reason?

Any and all thoughts welcome, wise comrades. Help me do the right thing.

[Enail]

Hmm...I also have no experience with navigating Ex Things, but we all know I have opinions on everything anyway , so....I don't think it's either unkind nor terribly stupid - as long as you are 100% sure within yourself that you are truly ready to disengage right away if there is a reply, that you're not going to get sucked in whether it's a get-under-your-skin-perfectly attempt to relitigate old conflicts or cast you in a light you feel compelled to refute, or a low-key, friendly response that makes you think maybe you two really can go ahead and leave the past behind to resume some kind of casual friendship contact without it messing with your head or further entangling the two of you.

That said, if you someday hope to truly have no bad blood between you, whether that results in being friends or not, I think it would be a lot more likely someday if you leave things be for a good long time, much longer than you want it to be, and let the intensity and emotions truly fade before trying to have any contact. I doubt a message of well-wishing right now has the ability to send good feelings along the strings between you while they're still a tangle or a knot that can be knotted tighter when feelings tug at the line. If someday those strings can be arranged into a lighter, less fraught, less dangerous or painful cat's cradle with ends that you can both hold up without knotting or pulling on something that shouldn't be pulled, I suspect that could only happen when the strings between you well and truly lie slack and you can pick them up as maybe not new strings, but ones that aren't already tangled into a still-fresh or even half-remembered pattern.  ...that metaphor got awkward, but hopefully it makes sense on some level, if not the level of coherent sense This sounds like extremely tough stuff!

[JP McBride]

Yeah, don’t do it. It’s a great way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Werel]

Thank you, Enail. That strings metaphor actually made so much sense to me that it shifted my thinking pretty strongly. You're right: I shouldn't tug on the strings while they're still so tangled, at least on my end. Can't know how tangled they are on his end, but: I know for a fact that there's still a lot of messy Stuff inside me re: him, so I probably shouldn't stir it up just yet, even with good intentions. That seems like a good way to hamstring any possibility of friendship in the future.

And hah, thanks for chipping in, JPMcBride. Two votes for nope. Alright, I'll let sleeping dogs lie for a good long while.

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