What's the underlying meaning of constantly yearning for someone's acknowledgement?

About 5 years ago, I met a man where I worked that made a drastic impression on me. I thought I was in love with him, but I am not sure. This was not the nicest man… somewhat misogynistic, vain, a womanizer… I am not attracted to people like that except with this one person. When first meeting him, I could not stand him. I also felt a very strong chemistry between us that made me extremely uncomfortable. I went out of my way to avoid him, but after a few months this man started seeking me out. I do believe he is controlling and has mommy issues and also believe that he may have been looking for a friend in me. Gradually, I started having feelings for him and one day out of the blue I realized that I wanted this man in my life for the rest of my life and thought that he should be in a romantic way. A very weird feeling as I’ve never felt anything like that for anyone else before or since.

Anyway, he would often do a lot to get my attention: constantly moving his seat to be near me, texting me and asking me what I was doing, calling me and talking about various things. This man would say things like “oh, we should get married,” “do you want a spring wedding or a fall wedding,” “we should have children,” etc. That said, this man NEVER said that he liked me. One oddity is that at one point at about 5 months into us knowing each other, he texted me and said “I can’t stop thinking about you.” This scared me so I did not answer right away and wound up saying something sarcastic to shut him down. I felt the same way about him… I could not stop thinking about him – it was obsessive to the point of ridiculousness… and it made me extremely uncomfortable.

6 months after meeting him I summoned up enough courage and I told him that I liked him. He said he did not see me that way… he only saw me as a friend. I was devastated.

We had a very bad falling out 4 years ago. He had decided to date my supervisor where we both worked (lol – oh the drama). I was so devastated that I talked to a friend at work about it (i know, big mistake), told this friend not to say anything because it was a delicate situation and he told! The supervisor wound up leaving about 4 weeks later to work somewhere else. Within that 4 weeks, this man started texting me again, asking what I was doing, saying that he missed me (i had changed my schedule to the night shift so that I would not have to deal with him). I did not feel comfortable responding the same way because he was still seeing the supervisor. All of a sudden, this man rips into me via text message and starts calling me a liar, telling me that he never had feelings for me (i think he was trying to save face for his girlfriend at the time).

Here is my concern: I have not spoken to this man in 4 years, I found a sweetheart of a man and married him and we are not expecting our first child… I live clear across the country from the state in which this happened… yet, I have thought about this man almost every single day for 4 years. No worries—would never leave my husband or any silliness like that. What I do yearn for, though, is acknowledgment from this guy. I cannot understand why this man has meant so much to me, why I constantly think about him, why I feel a huge need to hear from him, etc. I know that a relationship with him would NEVER have worked – he is too much of a womanizer and has too many issues. Still, the thought of this man haunts me unconditionally. I even constantly dream about him and these dreams are not sexual in nature. It is usually me noticing that he is always around me in some type of setting and trying to get my attention for some reason… usually in a negative way (which is often what he used to do at work).

Why do I feel like I need acknowledgment from this man after all of these years? Where could this obsessive view come from and how do I get rid of it? Why is this man still so important to me?