Let it go?

[Phoenix13Nash]

Hey y’all, needed some advise. I got back with my ex of 7 years after 3 years of separation. We have been together for 9 months.  
 

everything is perfect. I really feel like she is for me and we get along so well and otherwise have no other problems. However she told me something she did when broken up that kind of unsettled me. 

in our old relationship there was this guy who would always FB comment on her post. We took a 1 month break and she made a special gift for him. Regarding the FB posts, she said he commented on everyone’s stuff. And the gift was given as some sort of giveaway. My gut told me there was something between them and when I asked she always denied. They did have a single date in high school before our relationship but he never reciprocated her crush. 
 

She told me recently that during our 3 year break up, she hooked up with him for a weekend and had no feelings for him and that it was just a quick fix because she was feeling a certain way. But I feel like it was a lie and that the feelings were always there. Granted she had two other boyfriends and sexual activity with them, but those two guys don’t bother me all. It’s just him because I feel like she lied the whole time about him.
 

She  said she would block him out of respect for me, and there is nothing there. But I’m just having a hard time letting this go. Is this something that should even concern me? 

[DKT3]

It should not concern in the sense that it happened when you two were apart. However,  this guy has always been there, hanging around and you suspect that she was involved with him.  

Here is the problem,  you believe she cheated on you with this guy, her hooking up with him solidified that thought. 

My personal opinion,  if she actually cheated on you with this guy its highly unlikely she would have told you about the weekend since she knows you were suspicious of it before. 

The real question here is why restart a relationship with a woman who you don't trust? There is no way she can ever prove she did cheat with the guy, and you will likely always feel she did.

[Wiseman2]

11 hours ago, Phoenix13Nash said:

. I got back with my ex of 7 years after 3 years of separation. We have been together for 9 months.

Sorry this is happening. Why did you break up in the first place?

Were those things ever resolved?

Why did you get back together and who initiated that?

On/off relationships are about unresolved conflicts alternating with dependence on each other as backups when forays into dating/relationships with others don't pan out.

She'll probably keep this guy on the back burner as well in case your getting back together doesn't pan out or the same old conflicts appear when the rosy glow wears off... should be pretty soon.

[d0nnivain]

Yes & no. 

In one sense it validates your gut way back when.  There was something there & when free she acted on it.   You were right to be suspicious & you now have validation that you can trust yourself.  

But in the larger sense there is nothing to worry about now.  She got him out of her system.  She's willing to block him.  As long as she does that -- as long as she is well & truly done -- lump him into the category of the other 2 guys she dated & don't worry about it.  If he's still an active part of her friend group, that is a problem. 

[ShyViolet]

Listen, you two were broken up at the time.  She can hook up with whoever she wants while she's officially broken up with you.  The fact that now she is willing to block him and not speak to him anymore shows that she is putting it in the past and trying to do the right thing by you.  She's making her relationship with you the priority now.  Accept it and move on.

[oldtruck]

7 hours ago, DKT3 said:

It should not concern in the sense that it happened when you two were apart. However,  this guy has always been there, hanging around and you suspect that she was involved with him.  

Here is the problem,  you believe she cheated on you with this guy, her hooking up with him solidified that thought. 

My personal opinion,  if she actually cheated on you with this guy its highly unlikely she would have told you about the weekend since she knows you were suspicious of it before. 

The real question here is why restart a relationship with a woman who you don't trust? There is no way she can ever prove she did cheat with the guy, and you will likely always feel she did.

 

how did this one month break up happen?

whose idea? was she a b**** to get  you pissed off so you would break up?

i believe that she dated him then and was physical with him if not all the way

then still in some way.

 

i think the opposite. she admitted to the minimum. we just hooked up one 

weekend when you were separated long term. the ploy is she tells you a

truth freely without you having proof then you will feel that she is being

truthful and not hiding anything else. this is  known as trickle truthing. TT.

 

the saying trust your gut because it is never wrong. well we all have seen 

this to be true in other stories.

 

this OM was not that into her, though he was enough to give it a sample.

i do not think that you have to worry about him. though for peace of mind

she should block him.

 

as to getting the truth hounding her will not guarantee she will confess.

for she will not want to risk your current relationship. and at this point i

would not recommend a polygraph test. people make bad decisions when

young. 

 

i believe two things. first, that she broke up with you for that month so she could

test ride that OM. second, that she broke up with you so she would not cheat

on you. if she did not cheat on those other two OM it is safe to assume that

she will not cheat on you now.

 

also a good sign is that she  volunteered to block this OM. 

 

edit to add she needs to block and go NC with all three of them. then you are

good to go.

Edited December 20, 2020 by oldtruck

[Phoenix13Nash]

You guys all rock. I’ll reply to each of you. I appreciate y’all’s thoughts.

[Phoenix13Nash]

1 hour ago, ShyViolet said:

Listen, you two were broken up at the time.  She can hook up with whoever she wants while she's officially broken up with you.  The fact that now she is willing to block him and not speak to him anymore shows that she is putting it in the past and trying to do the right thing by you.  She's making her relationship with you the priority now.  Accept it and move on.

She could, I agree. But does it make it right? Not necessarily. She could have hooked up with anyone and it wouldn’t have mattered to me. But the fact that it was HIM a of all people tells me 1.) there were feelings involved 2.) more was going on and my gut was likely right about this guy. It just kind of plays into this narrative that the guy was always there to begin with and she wasn’t completely honest with me. At least for me, I’ve never really had an encounter where there wasn’t feelings, at least the bare minimum attraction.  
 

I agree that blocking him is a step in the right direction for our relationship. But why couldn’t she have done that in our old relationship when I knew they kinda had a thing for each other. 
 

 

[ShyViolet]

1 minute ago, Phoenix13Nash said:

She could, I agree. But does it make it right? Not necessarily. She could have hooked up with anyone and it wouldn’t have mattered to me. But the fact that it was HIM a of all people tells me 1.) there were feelings involved 2.) more was going on and my gut was likely right about this guy. It just kind of plays into this narrative that the guy was always there to begin with and she wasn’t completely honest with me. At least for me, I’ve never really had an encounter where there wasn’t feelings, at least the bare minimum attraction.  
 

I agree that blocking him is a step in the right direction for our relationship. But why couldn’t she have done that in our old relationship when I knew they kinda had a thing for each other. 
 

 

if she did have feelings for him while you two were together, that doesn't make her a bad person.  That makes her human.  People sometimes are attracted to other people.  We're not robots.  The key is whether she acted on it while she was in a relationship with you.  Did she ever cheat on you?  If the answer is no, then she did her best to do the right thing.  She waited until she was actually broken up with you to act on it.  That's more than can be said for a lot of people.

Why don't you cut her some slack.  She is showing you that she's making every effort to do the right thing now, by promising you that she'll block him and not talk to him anymore.  What else do you want from her?

[Phoenix13Nash]

3 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

Yes & no. 

In one sense it validates your gut way back when.  There was something there & when free she acted on it.   You were right to be suspicious & you now have validation that you can trust yourself.  

But in the larger sense there is nothing to worry about now.  She got him out of her system.  She's willing to block him.  As long as she does that -- as long as she is well & truly done -- lump him into the category of the other 2 guys she dated & don't worry about it.  If he's still an active part of her friend group, that is a problem. 

3 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

Yes & no. 

In one sense it validates your gut way back when.  There was something there & when free she acted on it.   You were right to be suspicious & you now have validation that you can trust yourself.  

But in the larger sense there is nothing to worry about now.  She got him out of her system.  She's willing to block him.  As long as she does that -- as long as she is well & truly done -- lump him into the category of the other 2 guys she dated & don't worry about it.  If he's still an active part of her friend group, that is a problem. 

Completely spot on. I guess that’s kind of where my hesitance comes too. I was completely right to worry about this guy, but she always dismissed me as being overly jealous and that I had absolutely nothing to worry about with him. 
 

on the other hand, as you mentioned she did block him. So it shows she’s at least trying to move forward. I guess the hardest thing too is imagining her with someone who did validate my gut feelings and who I genuinely hated for the longest time.

[Phoenix13Nash]

4 hours ago, Wiseman2 said:

Sorry this is happening. Why did you break up in the first place?

Were those things ever resolved?

Why did you get back together and who initiated that?

On/off relationships are about unresolved conflicts alternating with dependence on each other as backups when forays into dating/relationships with others don't pan out.

She'll probably keep this guy on the back burner as well in case your getting back together doesn't pan out or the same old conflicts appear when the rosy glow wears off... should be pretty soon.

Thanks for listening man. A lot of it had to do with our lives going in different directions. I was heavily focused on graduate school and she was studying for her credential program. It just got to a point where we were both always busy and we ended up frustrating each other by not meeting expectations. 
 

they’ve been resolved since then. As I mentioned in the post, everything else is perfect with her. I would say this new relationship is infinitely better than our old one. But this thing is just hanging over me. 
 

she reached out to me but she said she reached out to all her exes because she didn’t want regrets between anyone. Didn’t reach out to her hook up. I threw the idea about dating again after our initial conversations showed that spark again. It was kinda sad I wasn’t the only guy she reached out too, but I’ve accepted that already. 
 

agreed about the whole comfort and familiarity. I’ve dated before but none of them had that same spark. Anytime something happened with those relationships, I always caught myself saying “i really miss C....”. 

[Phoenix13Nash]

9 hours ago, DKT3 said:

It should not concern in the sense that it happened when you two were apart. However,  this guy has always been there, hanging around and you suspect that she was involved with him.  

Here is the problem,  you believe she cheated on you with this guy, her hooking up with him solidified that thought. 

My personal opinion,  if she actually cheated on you with this guy its highly unlikely she would have told you about the weekend since she knows you were suspicious of it before. 

The real question here is why restart a relationship with a woman who you don't trust? There is no way she can ever prove she did cheat with the guy, and you will likely always feel she did.

Completely agree with everything you said. To answer your question, I’m with her because I feel like we do have a spark and connection. Everything else is good and I feel like both of us have grown in the past three years. I guess you can say this whole situation just validates my insecurities about this other guy. I’m not jealous about anyone else or care about her past otherwise. But this guy just brings up negative feelings and resentment for me. 

[Phoenix13Nash]

2 hours ago, oldtruck said:

 

how did this one month break up happen?

whose idea? was she a b**** to get  you pissed off so you would break up?

i believe that she dated him then and was physical with him if not all the way

then still in some way.

 

i think the opposite. she admitted to the minimum. we just hooked up one 

weekend when you were separated long term. the ploy is she tells you a

truth freely without you having proof then you will feel that she is being

truthful and not hiding anything else. this is  known as trickle truthing. TT.

 

the saying trust your gut because it is never wrong. well we all have seen 

this to be true in other stories.

 

this OM was not that into her, though he was enough to give it a sample.

i do not think that you have to worry about him. though for peace of mind

she should block him.

 

as to getting the truth hounding her will not guarantee she will confess.

for she will not want to risk your current relationship. and at this point i

would not recommend a polygraph test. people make bad decisions when

young. 

 

i believe two things. first, that she broke up with you for that month so she could

test ride that OM. second, that she broke up with you so she would not cheat

on you. if she did not cheat on those other two OM it is safe to assume that

she will not cheat on you now.

 

also a good sign is that she  volunteered to block this OM. 

 

edit to add she needs to block and go NC with all three of them. then you are

good to go.

She didn’t try to do anything about making me break up. She said she needed time to focus on herself. But it was a couple years after this time (like right before our 3 year break) that I found out she got him a special gift during the one month break.  She claims it was a giveaway she did but again, of all people, why did he win? it just seems to validate my gut feeling. 
 

and completely agreed on everything. She blocked him and showed me voluntarily, so I think she is willing to move forward with us. But I think she did have more going on with him and the break / break up was a chance to see if something was there. 

[smackie9]

Instead of expressing your feelings about it here, she needs to hear it from you. If want this relationship to have sustainability this time around, you both have to be on the same page about honestly and letting the other know how you are feeling about things in your relationship.

[zouzbd]

with all my respect to all opinions ; i strongly believe that you relationship with her is superficial ; because if you were bonded together ; you wouldn't feel what you expressed nor would she have plan B behind your back ; IMO , you need not talk about it again ; love and emotions are not written or said ; they are are engraved ; just go with the flow to see if you both evolve to a deep relationship or not.

that's my 2 cents 

 

best