GF going back to her abusive ex

[imkeysersoze]

Hey guys, I had a post in the other category about breaking up just this week. In short, I've been involved with and basically dating a girl (we'll call her J) who was in a long term abusive relationship with her previous boyfriend (we'll call him K).

 

They had a lot of short term breakups, but it officially ended in February. Her birthday and Valentine's Day are about a week apart, and she received nothing, and did nothing, for either. Keep in mind, this was also after 2.5 years of being together, and she was engaged to K. They also had been trying to conceive for months and had recently found out that she was finally pregnant. K then started a fight that week about her starting to go to school at night instead of during the day; the reason she did this is because she has split custody of her child from a previous relationship with the father, and it worked best for their work schedules. K didn't like that, and asked for his ring back. It turned into a colossal fight, and she ended up finally leaving him for good, with the support of her parents, and aborted the child a week or two later.

 

A month later, we get in contact and start hanging out. I had been friends with K before we had our own falling out (see a trend here?), and me and J had always really clicked. Well, first a hangout turned into dinner, then dinner turned into a movie night, and J showed serious interest in me while I tried to determine if I wanted to go that way. We started hanging out a lot and got quite involved. She wasn't completely comfortable to say we were officially dating, but we agreed we were monogamous with each other, and that we wouldn't have labels for the time being, and would see what developed. In all cases, the general trend was that she wanted to go extremely slowly as it was one thing she had not tried in previous failed relationships, but in this case it had been working wonderfully.

 

Fast forward to the present day, and things had been pretty great. I was fine with taking things as slow as she liked, because she obviously has a lot of issues from her ex K, and we worked through them. She constantly praised me for how unbelievably understanding I was throughout the time, and expressed that her only main fear was that eventually one day I would grow tired and impatient of the situation and just stop caring. We hardly had fights, and when we did, we calmed down and talked through the issues. It has been the most open and honest relationship I've ever been in by far.

 

Physically, we hadn't had sex, but were close. She stopped me advancing things a few times a month or two ago, and I decided to wait for her to give me a sign she wanted to go further. That happened on July 4th, as she came over, we drank, and almost had sex in the pool. She stopped me at the last minute, and expressed a few fears. First, she explained that 99% of her mind knew I was a great guy and she should move forward, and 1% of her was fearful that doing so would turn out like other relationships and just change things for the worse. In the end, I told her that I would never pressure her and I wanted her to be comfortable. She also expressed fears similar to the label thing; that it would change the expectations of our relationship and ruin things.

 

You can read the linked post to see what happened this last week. In short, she disappeared for a while, and finally explained today that she still loves her ex, and feels its not fair to me to be stuck while she can't mentally move forward, and while she's still stuck on him. I see her tomorrow to return some clothes, and she's expressed a desire to still have me in her life, but it seems the same slowness that made her comfortable is now making her believe it's a sign that she's meant to return to the abusive ex-bf.

 

She says that she feels she needs to go back to him to get closure, whether good or bad, and also feels that the most logical way to attempt to heal all her still open emotional wounds is by working through them with the person who initially caused them. Certainly sounds like a recipe for disaster, at least to me.Obviously, I am deeply into this girl, and I've been trying to make this all work, whatever the pace. Along with that, I truly want her to be happy, regardless of who its with. Our mutual friends think this is a terrible decision, and even her father (who hates K) think it's a terrible decision, and expressed privately to me via text today that he feels "she has her head firmly planted up her ass to still have feelings for him" and that he "feels I'm a positive influence and a great guy" for his daughter. I really want to change her mind, or to make this work...and I don't want to see her get hurt again.

 

1. Is there any salvaging this in the immediate future? In other words, is she completely decided by the time we talk tomorrow, or is she leaning that way as a result of my pressuring her to explain what's been going on?
   
2. Is there anything I should say or do tomorrow? Not necessarily as a love interest, even as a friend. K has destroyed every girl he's ever dated and I fear he's going to undo and worsen all the emotional progress she's made in 4 months.
   
3. If the present is lost...is there anything to do in the future? Assume for a moment that she goes back to K and gets crushed in the next few months. Maybe it's the only way for her to learn. Is there any way to maximize the chance of getting her back to me in the future? As hurtful as this week has been, I could probably forgive her and try again if the opportunity was there.
   

[SammySammy]

1. Any salvaging this in the immediate future? No.

 

2. Anything you should say or do tomorrow? "Goodbye. Hope you have a nice life." That would be good.

 

3. Anything to do in the future? Yes. Stay far away from this girl and this messy situation.

 

Look, she's not your girlfriend. You're so far in the friend zone that you're never getting out.

 

I don't understand why you would even want to be with a woman like that. Already has a kid. Tried to have a baby with another guy she's not married to - your supposedly abusive friend - who she can't leave alone. Won't allow you to call her a girlfriend. Gives you no sex.

 

This crazy, messy story gets worse and worse, but you want to know how to make it work.

 

Get out, dude. Salvage you dignity and self-respect if you want to salvage anything.

[imkeysersoze]

Totally can respect your outlook. It does sound fairly bad at a glance.

 

To clarify a bit...she had a kid at a young age, with a guy she had been with for 5 years at the time. They lasted for 7 years total. It was still born out of wedlock, but not like she just got knocked up drunk at a party. It was a serious relationship that ultimately didn't work out and they ended on good terms (hence the split custody without needing lawyers or anything else).

 

She then was with ex for 2.5 years, was nearly married, and decided to have a child too. As I said, she canceled all that finally when she started to come to her senses about the guy being a piece of crap.

 

On the friend zone thing, I'm going to have to disagree. At dinner as of two weeks ago, we discussed the label of girlfriend, which she was cool with. My dad had make a joke about the friend zone which I brought up, to which she emphatically replied "Yea, we are most definitely well past the friend zone. Hahaha what an ass."

[imkeysersoze]

I know it's a messy situation. I knew it going in, but I believe people can redeem themselves and improve their lives. She's back in school to eventually become a nurse, she's made substantial other changes to improve her life and her child's life, and she has generally been making huge steps to get her life together. I played a large role in it, which is also why I'm so attached to it. And while we've most certainly had an unconventional relationship the past 4 months, it's been something mutual and well discussed, so it's worked so far. The only real decision I've disagreed with, and feel she'll regret, is to decide to bring the ex back in the picture.

 

Ultimately, my main issue is how nonchalantly she's handling the conclusion of things. She has a habit of rather than making a hard decision at times, hinting at stuff and letting me take charge and actually decide for her. Rather than saying something clear like "I don't feel we should be together any more", she said "I still love him and it's not fair to you", as if she expects me to then be the one to decide we should end things fully, and get each others crap out of our houses, etc.

 

That pussyfooted handling is what made me think that possibly she's unsure if she really wants to do this, and she's instead looking for me to walk away to make the decision easier for her. If that was the case, I wanted to instead figure out if there was a way to change her mind. It's a mess and she's not over him and I could get hurt down the road anyway by continuing; but if I could get through to her and avoid her some more heartache, I wanted to do so, both as a former friend and now something more.

 

Anyway, thanks for your opinion. It's a rough one but ultimately you're trying to be honest with how you see it, and help me out. Much appreciated.