The one you don't forget

Some breakups, you just never get over. No matter how bad the relationship. And maybe because the relationship was so bad.

Take my friend, Melissa. She dated this guy for close to two years. She was sure he was the man of her dreams. Little bit of a bad boy. Had traveled a bit, and he seemed to know a lot about the world and could carry on a conversation about anything. Attractive.

(She overlooked some major red flags -- still lived with his parents? -- so she caused herself some unnecessary heartache, she concedes.)

The first time he broke up with her, she was blindsided. During a date, he stopped her on a sidewalk in a busy neighborhood, suggested they sit down on a bench, and listed everything he felt the relationship was lacking: She tended toward the quiet, when he was a little more outspoken (took him a year to figure this out?); they seemed to be a different stages in their lives (a fair concern); and the sex was so-so (you only get what you're brave enough to ask for, my man). Then he let her loose. He said he was sorry. Melissa dissolved into tears, he took her home, and she tried to forget about him.

Then, about a month later, he apologized. He said he wanted her back. She agreed.

It was about three weeks of happy-happy joy-joy, Melissa once again got lost in the relationship, and she was blindsided yet again.

He broke up with her -- in a park, this time. She says she was a little less weepy that time around, a lot more angry, and a lot quicker to move on.

But she was always haunted by what she should have said, how she could have expressed her anger a little more clearly. Maybe a little more loudly.

She ran into him about a year later. He apologized again for how he had treated her. He blamed it on depression, and said he was taking medication to address it. Then he asked her back to his place. She says she smiled at the silliness of it all, but she declined.

Still, the regrets of that relationship follow her -- like those nightmares you have about missing a final exam long after you've received your diploma -- despite many years and several solid, healthy relationships under her belt.

She says she'll probably never get over those regrets. Given that she's held onto the regrets of the relationship for so long, would she ever take him back, should they again cross paths? No, she insists. She'd rather just live with the old regrets, instead of creating new ones.

But how would she react? She's says she can't know until she's in the situation. But she guesses she might have a few words of advice for him. That her tone might be a lot harsher, the volume a little louder than the last time.

Maybe she even has those words ready to go now. Don't you?