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Bit of a long story so I'll shorten it down, but I met a girl in 2007 and we started dating April 2008. We dated for about a year before I broke it off. I used a very lame excuse (I'm just not looking for a relationship right now) but the truth was I was deeply in the closet and still struggling with my identity. I started dating a guy secretly shortly after the breakup, came out of the closet to really close friends and family in 2011, then we got married in 2012 and I was finally comfortable enough to be completely out of the closet.
It has now been 4 and a half years since I broke up with my girlfriend, and I was thinking about sending her a message explaining the truth and apologizing. I know she was completely blindsided by the breakup and my explanation was really insufficient, but since we graduated in 2011 I haven't seen her at all. I'm just not sure if clearing the air would be appropriate at this point or not.
I would do it, if I were you. And if I were her, I would appreciate it.
You never know if she has forgotten you completely, or if you are the one she lies awake at night trying to figure out how things could have been different. Clear that up, and maybe you two can be friends again -- or at least she (and you) can feel that the past is more tidy.
If you haven't seen her, heard from her, or contacted her in several years, don't live in the same place, aren't connected on social media, aren't likely to come into contact with one another, I'd probably just let it lie. No need to rise from obscurity to revisit things. It may or may not be welcome, at any rate, and it's probably more for your own conscience/personal reasons than for her, anyway. I could see it if you are in a situation where you might run into her with your spouse, and a head's up might be the polite thing, or if you have connections via social media where details of your life are accessible to her, and an acknowledgment might be nice, but otherwise, eh. Let sleeping dogs lie. You have no reason to believe she hasn't moved on and doesn't need such closure from you...it's been several years, after all.
Whether or not a former girlfriend is going to find the "Sorry we didn't work out, but it's because I'm gay" revelation to be relieving or bothersome (if she didn't feel just totally neutral about it) is really a crapshoot. There's one type of person that would say, "Oh, got it, it really WAS "you, not me," cool," and then there's the type who would have some sort of self-esteem issue tied up in it ("what about me attracts closeted men/men with orientation confusion/is there something wrong with me that I had a boyfriend who doesn't even LIKE women," etc.) Without knowing which way this would go (if either), I'd probably just let it lie.
People break up for lots of reasons all the time, and while it might seem like it's important to know the reasons in this case, it's in reality no different than any other breakup...it's over, people have ostensibly moved on, and the reasons aren't necessarily important, now that this many years have elapsed. If you ever ran into her, sure, but specifically contacting someone you're otherwise not gonna see? Eh.
Well, it never went intimate, if that makes a difference.
Seems like this is a very evenly split topic, so I would guess erring on the side of caution and maintaining the status quo would be for the best. We do both live in Chicagoland, but its a huge city and chances are our social circles wouldn't ever intertwine. We do have a couple mutual friends, so there is a possibility she is already aware of my marriage, but I wouldn't be able to say for certain.
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