My ex still loves me, but she's got a new girlfriend...

[TS470]

5 Months ago I broke up with my girlfriend. There were a number of reasons. Firstly, she had been made homeless and I rushed out to get an apartment for us both and I moved in, when we moved in I got my work/family/social/love balance all wrong, I didn't see friends or family for months and neglected work, in the end I decided to pack up and head back to my old home and leave my girlfriend the flat (Mistake 1)

 

When I got back home I stopped calling, stopped seeing her as much, We'd been together 4 years and I was feeling comfortable in the relationship, I didn't need to be told that I was loved every day anymore and I assumed that she felt that way too (Mistake 2) Of course she didn't, and then I started to feel guilty and feel guilty about leaving her alone in the apartment when I know she has issues with loneliness. I pushed my guilt behind a wall of denial and that remained, even after May this year, when we finally had an argument and agreed to separate.

 

So in early September she popped up to me, she was clearly missing me and kept dropping hints that I was "The love of her life" etc, deciding I knew best and thinking she deserved better I was cold and unresponsive. In late September we met up and it didn't go well. I should mention that I have a disability and because of that I decided that she deserved better, something she would later tell me was another mistake. We met up and I didn't talk much, because she was being very cold with me. In fact we got on a bus and she sat right the opposite end and just stared at her phone the entire time. Apparently this is because I didn't ask how she was as soon as I saw her.

 

Come October I have my wake up call. I find out that she's seeing another man (She did not tell me, or rub it in my face, she tried to hide it from me to save me the pain she says, I may be many things but I'm not stupid, and I saw it right away) my initial response was "Great, I'm happy for them" and I meant it too. But then, I couldn't get it out of my mind, I tried and tried but all that happened was my wall of denial came crashing down. I realised what a moron I had been. I did a lot of crying, a lot of soul searching and deciding what it was I wanted in my life, and it was her. It's always been her. I know that sounds very dewy eyed, but I mean it. We weren't just boyfriend and girlfriend, we were life partners, we'd planned our future and I was a fool to give that up.

 

I stopped by one day and I told her everything, I apologised for what I had done to her, for abandoning her and told her the reasoning behind it, she stood looking sad, but she was happy to know the truth at last, and she said "If you'd told me this a month ago, we'd be together" but of course, she's got a new man now. He wasn't there that day, and she was behaving very strangely. Knowing her as long as I have I know when she's battling back emotions, and she was that day. She hugged me, she smelled my hair, she opened up. She praised me for being "Mature" and there was definetely a lot of repressed feelings behind her eyes, eventually I left.

 

Yesterday I randomly popped up to her online and she told me that she was on the floor crying after a dream she'd had where her new guy left her and she was alone (She has severe loneliness issues from a lifetime of bad experiences - My Fault, I've made them worse, brought them back) So obviously I got round there as soon as I could which was today, we had the same thing, lots of hugs, lots of opening up but always with the caveat that she's with someone else now. BUT today, kind of stupidly I asked her "How did you get over me?" and she responded (After some coaxing) with "I didn't". Yeah she still loves me. When we were talking about how I could move on and I said I had lined up a date she said "Please don't have sex with her" (SHE HAS A LIVE IN BOYFRIEND) she seems to still be heavily emotionally invested in me and, I just don't know what to do next.

 

Let me tell you about the new guy. He works in a clothes shop every weekday afternoon. Mostly they just play the PS4 together (She's a big gamer) They moved in to my old apartment in under a week of being together... A WEEK (Because he was made homeless by his family) and for their 1 month anniversary they got a kitten. He's a caring and compassionate person who was there for her at a time that I wasn't and for that I want to shake his hand, but on the other hand, she sleeps in his arms in a bed that we built together and I want to break his fingers... (Though she did say today, she often thinks of me when he's asleep with his arms around her...) What does all this mean?!

 

She also said today when I let slip I thought she'd been ignoring my texts that the new guy, Rick, noticed that whenever I would text her, she'd grab the phone instantly no matter what she was doing, she then said "So I have to leave them now" almost as if she was doing something wrong. As well as that she said "Why couldn't you have had your wake up call a month earlier?" and "You deserve a second chance" But I didn't press her on this one, I was feeling to emotional, so we just had a hug.

 

I've been showing her that I learned from my mistakes, that I am on a course of self improvement because I never asked for her forgiveness and I don't want it, I screwed up and she got hurt, I'm making changes to myself so that it never happens again but I am afraid that she doesn't have the will power to get rid of the new guy. One thing I KNOW about her is that she deals with emotional pain by bottling it up, even today she stubbornly admitted that she does and said "It's the only thing that works" even when I said "Look back in your life and tell me when it's ever helped you" she stuck to it.

 

She has had a hard life, her family hate her (I mean detest) all of her partners have either abandoned her (Me included now ) cheated on her or abused her. She has severe anxiety issues when it comes to lonliness. In fact here's the dream she had yesterday which had her on the floor of my apartment, crying next to the fire. "I had this dream. It felt so real, it was like the last year rolled into one. You were with some girl and you were happy, Rick was playing happy families, even mum was playing happy families and I was just alone in a cement room with a bed and a TV crying" Even in the honeymoon phase of a relationship she shouldn't be on the floor crying, it's just wrong. She seems to get happiness from new guy but as soon as he's gone or asleep, her issues are back.

 

Now tonight she's messaged me that "Maybe we shouldn't talk about relationship stuff because it will only hurt us both" and seems to have gone cold again. She's the kind of person who will shut down a conversation if it goes into sensitive territory, I'd like to take some moral stance here but it's exactly what I've done for nearly a year where she's been concerned. Now it's like I'm watching her make my mistakes for herself, and I don't want her to.

 

I don't know what to do, or where to go from here... She loves me, but she replaced me, but she can't bare to see me replace her.

 

I love her, I don't think about our past, I don't wish I could change things in the past, I'm focused on the future, on getting my health sorted and her issues sorted. I just don't know what to do about it.

 

My current plan is to just play the friend but make it clear I am available to other people, I don't want to be "back up" in case this new thing doesn't work out.

 

I know this is the definition of an emotional ramble, but I am totally out of ideas, I miss her like crazy and I feel like every day she falls more for him and less for me.

 

Does anyone have any kind of advice to help?

 

Thank you, TS

[NopeNah]

Time to tell yourself she's not coming back and get on with things. Go NC.

[dumbass2]

"My current plan is to just play the friend but make it clear I am available to other people, I don't want to be "back up" in case this new thing doesn't work out"

 

do this and that's exactly what you are setting yourself up for or by playing the "friend" you put yourself in the friend zone thereby eliminating any romantic feelings and you don't go from lover to friend back to lover again.

 

She's made it clear you're not the one and time for you to move on because if you were the one, you two would be together and she wouldn't be with someone else. You've been replaced. It sucks