The One Who Got Away (and now is ACTUALLY a thousand miles away).

We met many years ago in London when I had been with my (soon to be, hopefully) ex for three years, married for the last one: the relationship was toxic but I wasn’t aware of it at the time, and we were in the middle of our first of several crisis. I was heartbroken because I thought that my husband didn’t love me anymore. Little did I know that it was just a typical narcissist/codependent relationship that will make my life really hard in the years to come. T came and we made a connection I’ve never experienced in my life with a man: I felt that we already knew each other in a past life and that we were very similar, if you can believe those things, but nothing physical happened because I wasn’t ready to give up on my marriage and he understood. It was an emotional affair. He was also seven years younger than me and I thought that he needed to live his life, and I didn’t want to influence it. It wasn’t the right time for us. We parted ways with our hearts broken, he moved away and we stayed in touch for a while but it became too painful and I (cowardly) changed my number without telling him and disappeared. I stayed with my husband, had children, but I wasn’t happy most of the time. Whenever something awful happened in my marriage I looked for him: Paris, Barcellona (he’s a musician and moved around a lot). I eventually found him and emailed him. I lied to him, telling him I was happy, and I apologised for breaking his heart back then. He understood and was thrilled to hear from me. We wrote to each other for a while but then we stopped. Last year covid came and my marriage started to collapse again, I thought of him and reached out again. He was really happy to hear from me and we started texting. He told me that he wanted to come to London (where I live again now) before covid and he would do it as soon as possible, and that he wanted to see me. This made my heart jump and I started obsessing over him. It’s been almost a year, covid still makes us wait, I’m finally going to separate from my husband and I need to know what’s what with T before I can really move on with my life.
He lives in the south of France now. We’ve been texting and he’s been adorable and clearly there’s something there. He does hate social media and uses them only for work and he has apologised for being a crappy long-distance friend, but he insists (he’s quite adamant) on seeing each other in person because he says he wants to connect to me that way. From his rare posts it looks like he ended a serious relationship before last summer (different living situation) and sadly his dad passed away a few months after, but he doesn’t share these personal things with me and aside from extending my condolences and letting him know I’m here if he needs me, even if far, I’m respecting his need for space. He’s very sensitive and very private, which I actually like. I’ve hinted at my personal situation but I didn’t want to say too much, and I only text him every few weeks but I mostly initiate.

What can I do to make him think about me ENOUGH so that we get to actually meet in person and he doesn’t loose interest in the meantime without seeming clingy or desperate? This could actually happen soon, and I need to do this so I don’t get stuck on it forever. I need this to either end or progress, and yes – I am aware that this is real life and not The Age of Innocence.

Thank you.