Pretty hard and rigid rules you’ve laid out here. Do you also approve of ghosting?

I think your “one size fits all” advice does not take into account the nature and duration of the relationship and the ages of the two people involved.

Was the breakup a mutual decision or was one of you the dumpee?

What were the circumstances of the breakup?

Maybe the fact there has been no communication for years is due to respect for boundaries?

There is a huge difference between someone who, for a year or two, you casually dated and slept with while in your 20’s or 30’s and someone you lived with for 5, 10 or more years.

Maybe you had kids together? Owned property or a business together? For sure you had dreams of a future together and those dreams died.

Maybe you are now in the winter of your lives, closer to the ceiling than the floor.

Let me tell you the world looks a lot different in your 60’s and 70’s than in your youth. Possessions, status, and career are not nearly as important as relationships and experiences. Things you thought were crucially important and fought over become insignificant as we age. I think gratitude and foregivness are most important.

Sometimes in the years before death “burying the hatchet” brings peace to both parties. Because it is possible you are both thinking of one another positively but neither of you will risk the attempt to connect. Sometimes testing the boundaries might be an acceptable course of action even after a decade of no contact.

There is also the matter of Steps 8 & 9 in many 12 Step programs. Making amends to the people who have been hurt by your actions. Making amends goes way beyond a simple “I’m sorry…” to a much deeper self examination of one’s soul.

If possible, making amends needs to be done face to face unless to do so would cause harm to the other person involved. So sure, if your ex was violent or a criminal or a narcissist, it might not be wise to respond. But most breakups are over sex, money, kids, and family.

So Shannon, they don’t always come back for the immature selfish reasons you offer. No, you are not friends and won’t likely ever become friends. Although it is possible.

But you are connected spiritually and a breakup and physical distance cannot erase that connection. If you were living together a long time, you probably know each other better than any other person on the planet. The good and the bad.

When you’re old and your peers, acquaintences, classmates, and co-workers are dying and your older relatives have already passed, it seems rather childish not to have a line of communication to use on occasion with someone you once loved deeply.

If you have something to say, it is better to say it while the other person is still alive and able to receive it.

If my ex were dying in the hospital of a terminal illness, I’d sure want to know about it before their Facebook “friends”. A line of communication is even more important if both of you were only chidren, having no brothers and sisters.

I notice all the commenters who agree with you are below middle age. Whatever happened in their previous relationships, these people seem not to have yet come to a state of foregivness over it. You’d have to be very angry still to send the message you suggest.

Our lives in the overall scheme of things are insignificant. In 100 years, no one not famous will be remembered anyway.

If someone significant from your past asks to meet with you for coffee and conversation, maybe the kindest and most loving thing to do is to hear them out rather than sending them the cruel and rather heartless message you suggest.