I’m in need of advice as you can probably tell from the title.
In my senior year of high school, I met this boy while visiting my sister. We ended up hanging out all night, talking and we did everything but have sex. Throughout that time, we would hangout occasionally but it never progressed because I felt like he didn’t like me and that I was a booty call. Fast forward to my sophomore year of college, we hung out a few more times - but again it led nowhere. All throughout this, I was conflicted because I liked him but didn’t know if it was reciprocated. I found out he had a girlfriend and cheated on her with me, so I went no contact. A year later, he messages me late at night and asked if we could talk. I eventually gave him but was wary. He (drunkenly) confessed that he loved me and wanted to know if I felt the same way. He blindsided me and I told him we can talk in the morning when he was sober. He ended up blocking me and we didn’t speak for years.
I moved on and started seeing someone else. I didn’t hear from him again until recently. He reached out to me out of nowhere and, me being the kind of person who doesn’t want to hold on to grudges, decided to talk to him to get closure.
I know I shouldn’t have allowed that conversation to take place but if you knew my past, and everything else - I felt like I needed it.
He ended up telling me that he has had feelings for me all these years later, and that they haven’t gone away and he always wonders about the “what-ifs”. I’d be lying to myself if I said that I don’t think about him and have those same thoughts. He has since limited communication because he’s aware that I’m engaged (he’s unaware of my upcoming wedding) and he says he’s missed out on getting to be with me altogether.
While I’m not entirely confused as to what to do, I still am. We’ve had a lot of moments in our history where we were both too afraid to admit feelings, or we had done it too late as we entered other relationships. While I love my fiance, we have had a tough relationship where he’s cheated and used sex websites. It’s taken a lot to get to where we are, and trust is still being built back up. I feel extremely guilty for a) even talking to the old fling and b) having these thoughts. I just need advice on how to move past this as the closures been given and how to not focus too much on the what-ifs.