DEAR EMILY,

I met a guy through social media last December. Yes, I used it in hopes of finding “the one.”

He was honest about his separation from his wife a couple of years ago and having kids with her. He is 32 and a stroke survivor. Citing his in-laws’ interference in the breakup of their marriage, he said his wife was very dependent on her parents’ approval for everything. Worse, he said she never took care of him during his two-year recovery.

To test if he was being truthful, I noted if his answers were always consistent with our previous talks. Facebook also confirmed he’s separated.

We got along from Day 1. To make the story short, I fell in love with him. I was willing to take care of him, knowing he might suffer another stroke. The year started really good for him, as he got a new job that would pay enough for his medication and child support. A workaholic, he worked six days a week. Sunday was our only time together.

I felt loved. He did things no guy had done for me. I asked about the annulment possibility once and he said both of them agreed their relationship would really not work anymore.

In late January, he became really busy but still made sure we saw each other Sundays. In late February, he became cold. I guessed it was because of stress at work or the effects of his stroke.

Come March, he asked for space. This made me very confused. He said there were things in his life that stressed him out a lot. He wouldn’t tell me what, and I didn’t force him.

I gave him three days for his space before sending him an SMS asking, “How are you?” No response. After a few more tries, he finally picked up the phone, and said he and his wife were talking about reconciliation for the sake of the kids. He said he was lost and depressed and, though he doesn’t love her anymore, he misses his kids.

He said he didn’t know what’s in store and that I should meet other people again. I asked if he ever loved me. He said he did. He asked me to take good care of myself and said nobody knows if we would see each other again.

I believed him. I just couldn’t help but ask if he just used me to fill up the void in his life. I’m trying to convince myself that God gave me to him when he needed me the most. It would have lessened the pain had he told me earlier that they had been talking about reconciling. I could have prepared myself.

It’s been two weeks. I just want this feeling to completely vanish.

FREIDA

Yes, in your case, it’s horrible, isn’t it, not to be able to see what the future was going to be—immediately and clearly!

Sheer cruelty of fate to plan it that way. Wouldn’t everyone in this planet be deliriously happy, astonishingly in love, and absolutely enthralled with life, if what was about to unfold was already right there and rolling like a movie before our very eyes?

But life isn’t lived like that. Yet, that’s what you wanted to happen when you first met this guy! Life is living day to day, with the moments unfolding like the layers of an onion.

You knew that, despite his supposed honesty to you, you must have had a teeny-weeny inkling at the back of your mind about his ambivalence. Your good times together were real. Don’t punish yourself by saying they weren’t.

Meeting you the first time surely made him feel good. He was lonely and you were a novelty—coming in with wonderful unfamiliar stories to tell, seeing things in new and different ways and making him feel special. You represented someone so unlike his recent traumas, like his failed marriage and stroke.

Are you hurt that you just sort of filled up the void in him? In a way, you were the distraction when he needed it most. Didn’t he find you on social media?

The love you were feeling for him couldn’t have been the same kettle of fish he was feeling for you. You met him while he was just trying to rebuild his tattered life. But unbeknownst to him, you were galloping to and proclaiming a love he wasn’t looking for, or even ready to give at that early stage.

You couldn’t have prepared for it because you were not really in tune with him. Not even on the same page. You zeroed in on him as the “one” before knowing him well enough. You couldn’t have known his deep-rooted troubles at so short an acquaintance. And you couldn’t see much reality because you were looking at him through those colored glasses of newfound love.

Live with it. It happens. Despite not seeing the future as you had wished, consider yourself lucky. It happened soon enough.

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