Why? These are not just little fantasies; they are elaborate schemes. They imagine destroying your new relationship, sabotaging your career, your success, turning everyone against you. They write and rewrite emails they’ll never send, plan confrontations that will never happen. Some actually act on these fantasies—the crazy ones. They will spread rumors about you, try to turn mutual friends against you, suddenly remember that thing you borrowed three years ago and demand it back. They’re crazy. They will threaten legal action over imagined slights, anything to force contact, to make you acknowledge them again.
The craziest part is that even their revenge feels empty without you because there is no one to fight. What is the point of winning if you are not there to lose? What is the point of hurting you if they cannot see your pain? Your absence robs them of the satisfaction they crave.
They may have had multiple relationships since you—maybe they have married, had kids, built what looks like a life, a family—but you are still there, haunting them. Not as a ghost of love lost, but as a reminder of control lost. They will still react viscerally to your name. They will still feel that spike of rage when they accidentally see your picture. They will still measure every partner against the supply you provided—not the love, but the control they had over you.
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