Waiting Out a Transition/Tough Situation

[UmbrellaBoy]

So I'm in love with this guy. We met just about 2 years ago online and it was love at first contact for me. We really clicked and he invited me to fly out to see him, and he initiated physical intimacy. However, after the trip he said he didn't envision a romantic relationship, and then a couple months later started dating this guy who was an old friend and whom I already had known was in the picture and sorta had "first dibs."

 

But. I also knew this relationship was sort of based on pity and a sense of obligation to this old friend. So I just decide to, basically, try to steal my guy away through sheer romanticism. Over the course of the next year, I send all sorts of elaborate and creative gifts, become his closest confidante talking to him online almost every weeknight (the boyfriend lived out of town too and only came to see him on a couple weekends a month), but also wasn't a pushover because I challenged him on a lot of things in terms of his personal growth and there was actually a sort of tension in that regard as I became this sort of confident protective "authority" figure in his life.

 

Flash-forward to last spring, a year ago. I get invited up to visit again. He only has one bed, so we both sleep in it, and on the last morning he initiates more physical intimacy in spite of the boyfriend. We don't discuss it at the time but, fed up with that sort of game-playing and stringing-along, I go no contact. He freaks out and two weeks later comes back pledging things will be different. However, a month later he announces the boyfriend is moving in with him (I later find out he let himself be guilt-tripped into this because the boyfriend is something of a pity-party and had nowhere else to go).

 

I get mad and chew him out again, and we don't speak for 2 months. However, in that time I make one big final gambit (which has worked out for my life even if I don't get him in the end, so I don't regret it) and MOVED across the country to be in his city, a block and a half away, actually.

 

When I get there, he starts talking to me again, and really wants us to be friends, but I basically lay down the law regarding the fact that he can't just have two boyfriends, or a comfortable live-in boyfriend and his "white knight" of an emotional-affair with me. For several months things are extremely stressful, but we keep seeing each other through a series of "negotiations," take a month off mutually to sort out our own heads. After that month, when he came back and still was being indecisive, I went No Contact yet again, and he couldn't stand the thought of that a third time and so breaks up with the boyfriend officially for me. The guy was supposed to move out 6-weeks later.

 

In the meantime, he and I both felt like things were headed towards a relationship for us and I was happy and it was great. But then out of the blue I get an email where he tries to cut ME off this time. I exert my power of personality to talk him out of it. I later found out, it turns out what happened was this was the point where he realized the ex was not going to be able to move out as soon as planned, and therefore trying things with me at that point became practically impossible.

 

The stance I take is that we were probably rushing things anyway, and that if the ex can't leave for financial reasons, then as long as they aren't officially together, I'll not ask questions about what sort of "overtime" stuff may be going on. There were then a few rocky months with a lot of tension regarding this "detante." We had some very good times "as friends," but also some huge fights that made it feel like things were on the brink again.

 

This is not a permanent situation. Basically, the living situation is going to last until September when my guy goes off to school about an hour away, and the ex is going to take over the lease completely and stay in the city. In the past few months my guy has described the extreme tension and misery of having to live with the ex. We're all trapped in a sort of weird emotional limbo because of it. I'm still in love, but resentful and frustrated and terrified at the instability of the situation; my guy has a few times, when things were getting too intense, seemed to toy with the idea of getting back with the ex basically just because it's the path of least resistance and would resolve some of the pain of the living situation. My guy, for his part, can't "move on" from the ex emotionally with him there constantly and in the same bed (obviously, the two of them must have settled into their own status quo, which can't mean always fighting, and therefore I can only imagine that, living together, the idea of positive emotions keeps presenting itself constantly). I can only imagine how betrayed but also desperate-to-cling the ex feels.

 

Nevertheless, I've always managed to get my guy to stay strong and not go back to the ex. I've reminded him now we only have a few months to get through before he'll have his own space again, and recently he picked his apartment for school and is starting to talk like he's looking forward to finally being out of his horrible living situation and have his own space and get distance for himself for a while to move-on emotionally and settle his own head and concentrate on other things. He and I have basically put aside the tension and fighting and agreed that, if we're stuck in this situation for the next few months, we might as well just sit back and make the most of it "as friends" even if we can't be together with the ex still lingering in the apartment.

 

However, I don't want the flame to die in the meantime, or for the definitive ending with the ex in September to also turn into a "moving on" from the whole triangle and thus from me too. I want to figure out how to make the most of this "transition"/waiting period (where progressing to an official relationship is impossible) and how I should approach things in the Fall. How much time do I give him to heal once he moves out from the ex? How do I keep the idea alive in his own head without explicitly talking about it right now (which he feels is just too much pressure given the whole messy nature of his life right now)? How do I make it through?

[Philosoraptor]

You're putting more effort into someone who clearly isn't willing to put in the same amount of effort back. This will likely end in pain.

[Nextlane]

You're putting more effort into someone who clearly isn't willing to put in the same amount of effort back. This will likely end in pain.

 

+1. It seems you are putting TOO much effort and may (high chance) of getting hurt. Seem like you're giving this person trying to break up the relationship and if successful, this person may eventually hate you if things don't work out between you two.

 

Don't invest too much effort and let things happen naturally. If it were meant to be, then he will eventually come around.