I have always — ALWAYS — had the problem of ex-boyfriends coming out of the woodwork all at the same time. I mean, when it rains, it really pours in my life.

This week, I’ve had some sort of interaction with three exes. The second one I encountered — the guy I dated freshman year of college — wasn’t much of anything, and really not that weird except that it came at nearly the same time as the other two. I talk to him from time to time by e-mail or Facebook, and he was just telling me he had a new job.

The third one — the high school boyfriend — wasn’t a big deal either. I catch up with him every six months or so by IM, and he was telling me of his new job (I’m sensing a trend) and how married life was treating him. Of course he dropped the “When are you getting married?” question on me. Thanks for making me feel like an old maid, bastard. I don’t get that enough.

It was the first encounter that was the most surprising. He was a guy I dated my junior year in college. I had been left nursing wounds from a painful breakup a year before. I’ve seen nearly the same story on so many of your blogs: your self esteem was hurting, and a guy found you that took advantage of that and made it worse. So was the case with me.

I was charmed and things took a turn down a path that I didn’t expect, and I spent the rest of the time pursuing a relationship to justify what had happened. No, it wasn’t a good idea, but when you’re 20 with low self esteem, you’ll do anything.

We were semi-long distance when we dated. I was two hours away on a six-month internship. We saw each other on weekends, that was, until he stopped calling or visiting. I’d had enough by that point and had come to realize what a jackass he was, but it was still a bitch-slap in the face. I found out later that he had cheated on me with at least two girls, possibly more. Fine, so he didn’t want to be with me and I didn’t want to be with him, but he could have at least returned my calls so we could formally end it. I’d have prefered the band-aid method. A quick, painful sting and then it’s over.

No, it was much worse than a band-aid pull. I had been treated like shit by a guy I DIDN’T EVEN CARE FOR that much, and worse, I had let it happen. Talk about low self esteem. I felt alone and stupid. When I went back to school, all my best gal pals were wrapped up in relationships of there own, and I found out that a bunch of people hated me for a reason I’m not going to get into right now. That pretty much left me to dig myself out of the deep, narrow hole I was in.

People who fall under the Cancer sign of the Zodiac are said to be like crabs: soft center with a hard outer shell. That is so true in my case. My shell had been shattered. I put it back together, harder, stronger so no one could reach me again. That helped, and after a while, I moved on as best as I could. Kept myself busy. Started to feel better. Not coincidentally, it wasn’t much later that I got involved with the Modern Beau, (for a second time, but that’s another story for another day), and as they say, the rest is history.

The ex-boyfriend and I share tons of mutual friends, because isn’t that how it always goes? His name came up frequently enough, and I would just grit my teeth and not say a word. There were others that felt the same way about him as I did, and that helped. But there were plenty more that were still charmed by him as I’d been, and it stung me to know that. And there was that stupid Facebook Do You Know? feature that kept badgering me to add him as a friend until the 12th time that I said hell, no.

Over time, college friends drifted, I moved to another city and so did the ex, and I stopped thinking about him. After about a year or two, I had a chance encounter with him at a bar in the ol’ college town, and it was weird, of course. I gritted my teeth and tried to be nice, all the while thinking to myself HATE, HATE, HATE.

That was over three years ago (I think). I had hardly thought of him a second until I ran into him at that same dang bar this past weekend. Some friends invited the MB and me to join them there, not telling me that the ex was in town and would be there too — I think they’d forgotten that anything even happened between him and I.

I cringed as I walked up and saw him. Is he really standing there? No, no, no, no. I thought about walking away, but opted to do the mature thing and suck it up and deal.

And that’s the thing about maturity … it sneaks up on you when you least expect it.

We talked as a group for probably an hour or more before the MB and I excused ourselves (it was a late night, it was time to go home anyway). And I felt nothing. No twinge of hatred that had cropped up every time I saw him or his name was mentioned. I still didn’t like him, but I didn’t feel like punching him in between the eyes. It was freeing. After five years really? five?, I realized I was finally free of that devil that had nagged me for so long.

This is why the Catholic church has always preached forgiveness to me and whoever else will listen. I’ve forgiven those past transgressions, and I finally have no relationship skeletons in my closet.

I don’t know what made this time different than all the rest, but I have my suspicions: 1. Time. 2. A healthy relationship with a man who treats me right. With those two things, I had no reason to hang on to hatred. It was of no consequence anymore.