Jealous of ex's much younger gf, cheated

[Will am I]

11 hours ago, ShelBT said:

I was in a relationship with a man for 9 years.

I once heard the following words: "love waits, but not forever".

The speaker was teaching from a christian point of view about the process of finding a life partner. His statement: if they're not ready to commit after a couple of years, will they ever be ready? If you're in a relationship where the choice to commit for life remains in a "maybe" state for years, that "maybe" probably should become a "no".

And given your life goal of establishing a family with children, you do not have infinite time to spend on these "maybe" kind of relationships. There's the years spent together and the time spent healing from the wounds and the time spent finding the next eligible man. The speaker's point was that you basically have time for two or three of them.

So yes, I think you did well in breaking up. Should probably have done it sooner. And 9 years is a long time and there will be a deep sense of attachment. That's what's making you so vulnerable to him. 

Yet: his new choice of partner, a 21 y/o, is telling me one thing: he likes to keep his options open for another bunch of years. My intuition about your ex partner is that he will remain on that "maybe" list. Don't stick around forever and let him use up your precious years.

 

[Wiseman2]

11 hours ago, ShelBT said:

I’m 34. He’s 31.

 

Very sorry this happened. 9 years is a long time. You got together at 23/22? 

You've had almost a decade to marry, have a family,etc. 

He seems immature, like he's perpetually 22. Read up on Peter Pan syndrome. 

It's time to delete and block him and all his people from ALL your social media and messaging apps.

There's no point after being broken up for 1.5 years to keep hoping or keep communicating. 

[Alpacalia]

He has had you waiting for 9 years, now he has you waiting and giving him free sex.

It's time for you to regain your dignity and put an end to this.

[Will am I]

"Peter Pan syndrome". It actually has a name

I think it's also a sign of the times. Young people are overloaded with life choices and receive very little direction from tradition anymore; the current culture dictates we have to figure everything out for ourselves and make our own life choices. I believe this is generally good and yields a generation of authentic people. But like so often, good things magnified become dysfunctional.

I see a lot of non-committing hehaviour in twenty-somethings. Frequent job changes, career switches after only a few years, dating habits where commitment goes no deeper than one date at the time. Relationships like the one in this topic, where people walk the path into a permanent relationship yet shy away from the final step which is commitment for life. 

For you @ShelBT, work actively on grieving the broken relationship. The fact that you still desire to be around your ex is a sign that your grief over the broken relationship is incomplete. I'll add a Dr. Phil quote: "time heals nothing. it's what you do with time that counts." Research effective mourning, use friends and maybe a therapist to help you. You have a beautiful age to start a family, don't spend another 5 years before you even open up enough for the right man to come along.

And about getting it on with your ex: don't be like that. Effectively he's cheating on his current girlfriend when he is with you. Don't accomodate a chater. You deserve better.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Will am I

[Weezy1973]

You’re going to need to ask him the question about your future together and then act accordingly. If he says yes he wants to be with you, get married, and start a family together, great move forward. Anything less than that (and it will be), block, delete. The pain will subside but you absolutely have to move on from him if you want a family. Look into freezing some eggs as well.

[stillafool]

If you want marriage and a family don't waste anymore time on this guy.  He is a 31 year old man and still has a lot of time before he has to marry and start a family, you don't.  You've already spent too much time with him without getting what you want.  He isn't going to give it to you now.  Spend that time pursuing someone who's worth it.

[mark clemson]

15 hours ago, ShelBT said:

 I can’t imagine completely deleting him from my life now that he’s come back. 

Unless you feel quite certain he's going to a) actually come back to you AND  b) actually change and be ready to settle down, I doubt you'll get your needs met with this. I don't think you're in for much here but more short term "joy" from seeing him but long term disappointment. You're essentially being an orbiter/FWB.

It's clear you have a strong connection. This WOULD be great, except that you've learned and shown that you're unlikely to get your needs/LT goals met by sticking with this guy.

[Will am I]

Compatibility comes in different dimensions. Character fit is one dimension, matching life goals is another.

This situation sounds like the characters were a match, but the two partners just had different paths in life.

It’s probably harder to let go if your partner is a good character fit, but it’s incompatibility nevertheless.

[Rider on the Storm]

23 hours ago, ShelBT said:

He says he misses me being in his life. 

You could ask him to prove this by breaking up with his girlfriend and having her move out. See how he responds.

As the majority of others have stated, the odds of this working out the way you are hoping for is pretty slim. If he isn't interested in marriage and kids, and as long as his 21 year old girlfriend isn't overly crazy, it's unlikely that he will be willing to push her aside for someone who is 13 years older, wants kids, and who's seeking a commitment.

I'm sorry to say, but you'd be best served to see this for what it likely is. A booty call ..

I do wish you well.

[ShelBT]

18 hours ago, basil67 said:

To be fair, my partner and I have been defacto for 30 years, have two kids and are absolutely committed, so marriage isn't a given.  However, the difference between what we did and your boyfriend's approach is that we thoroughly discussed it.  And both of us would have married the other had it been important to them.   This type of understanding and care for the needs of the other is what was lacking for you.

"I like the way things are now" is indeed a non answer as it's a response designed to shut you down.  Because he doesn't share his deeper thoughts or feelings on the matter, a conversation can't be had.  It's the marriage equivalent of when mom says "because I said so".  He was just gonna shut down that conversation and not care one bit how you felt about it all.

I know you said he was the opposite of selfish, but don't you think it was beyond selfish of him to ignore your concerns?  To not even give you a discussion to help you understand where he was at?   Don't you think it's selfish of him to cheat on his gf with you?  And it's selfish of him to be using you for sex on the side when he knows that you care about him?

This guy is all about himself.  Please allow yourself to get pissed at him

Strange thing is that we had mentioned marriage and kids (presumably together) for years, but I guess as a “one day” sort of thing. We failed to discuss when either of us envisioned that “one day” to be and clearly we had different thoughts. But it’s not as of I just mentioned marriage and kids to him out of the blue after 8-9 years. 
 

it started to become an issue about 8 years into our relationship. I wanted to talk about it more seriously. He didn’t automatically shut me down about it and we held on for another year but he still didn’t want marriage and kids enough any time soon. Still. No substantial talks happened. He just “didn’t want that” over and over again. 
 

I was pissed at him for a while but I can’t seem to stay that way. Being around him again feels so good. It makes me so happy, but no the current situation isn’t what I want for myself. I also can’t believe I contributed to somebody cheating. I guess part of me still feels like he’s mine, or more mine that he is hers, so it wasn’t actually cheating. In reality I know that’s not true. 

[ShelBT]

17 hours ago, ExpatInItaly said:

You are going to get your heart put through a blender all over again, OP. 

He's very unlikley to dump his girlfriend and try again with you. He likes having you on the side, but not as a partner. Do you really want to go through the pain of hearing that? What's going on between him and his girlfriend and the nature of their relationship is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that you're allowing yourself to be downgraded to side-chick to a guy who doesn't want what you want. A guy with no integrity. A guy who had 9 years to get on board with you, and never did. You're making it way too easy on him to have his cake and eat it, too. He gets to go home to his girlfriend, and enjoy some no-strings sex with you. But you? You're all up in your feelings here and struggling. 

Raise the bar. Get this twerp out of your life and start focusing on doing things that are constructive, rather than self-destructive. 

I’m not denying that what you’re saying could all be true. I just don’t get why if he just wanted no strings sex he’d reach out to me after 1.5 years. If it’s true and that’s all I’m good for to him than I want to hear him say it. I’m going to make him tell me why the heck he reached out to me after 1.5 years when if he really needed sex with somebody other than his gf he could have easily found somebody else with absolutely no emotional ties. I don’t think he’s the type who wants to cheat just to cheat. He’s really not like that and I refuse to believe he changed that much since we were together. 

[ShelBT]

14 hours ago, Wiseman2 said:

Very sorry this happened. 9 years is a long time. You got together at 23/22? 

You've had almost a decade to marry, have a family,etc. 

He seems immature, like he's perpetually 22. Read up on Peter Pan syndrome. 

It's time to delete and block him and all his people from ALL your social media and messaging apps.

There's no point after being broken up for 1.5 years to keep hoping or keep communicating. 

Well I don’t think either of us was ready to get married for probably the first half of our relationship. I don’t think either of us imagined it’d turn into such a long term relationship when we first starting dating. But eventually, probably after 4 or 5 years together, I felt like I just knew he’d be the person I’d marry. I envisioned him as the father of my children. 
 

I hadn’t communicated with him since we broke up. He reached out to me. I probably should have ignored it, I actually tried to and succeeded for about 25 hours. It’s pathetic.

[Rider on the Storm]

1 hour ago, ShelBT said:

 I don’t think he’s the type who wants to cheat just to cheat. He’s really not like that 

Unfortunately, it certainly does appear as if he IS "like that". You're creating this alternate reality where he is trapped against his will with this younger, perky girl, but that it's actually the two of you that are destined to be together. This is common-place behavior for affair partners.

As much as you don't want it to be the case, the odds are astronomically high that you were his booty call and nothing more. If he truly loved you (like you wish that he did), he wouldn't have turned down marriage and kids with you after nearly a 10 year relationship. He's with a girl now that's 13 years younger because that's where he chose to be, unfortunately.

I know you don't want to hear this (and I can understand that), but the longer you allow yourself to be strung along, the more it's going to hurt when you do rip this band-aid off.

Demand better for yourself.

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by Rider on the Storm

[Alpacalia]

1 hour ago, ShelBT said:

I’m not denying that what you’re saying could all be true. I just don’t get why if he just wanted no strings sex he’d reach out to me after 1.5 years. If it’s true and that’s all I’m good for to him than I want to hear him say it. I’m going to make him tell me why the heck he reached out to me after 1.5 years when if he really needed sex with somebody other than his gf he could have easily found somebody else with absolutely no emotional ties. I don’t think he’s the type who wants to cheat just to cheat. He’s really not like that and I refuse to believe he changed that much since we were together. 

Putting that all aside OP.

Think for a minute.

This man broke your heart.

Sadly, some men don't fully understand the difficult emotional place they push their exes into when they have sex. When an ex-girlfriend is still in love with him, as it seems you are, an ex-girlfriend can easily misread this.

Plus, I mean he is living the life, he has the best of both worlds. 

Fortunately, this error can be reversed. You need to put a stop to any future physical relationship between you and your ex boyfriend. At least in the short term.

Explain that despite enjoying intimacy with him very much, make it clear that you can't put yourself in that place emotionally anymore. If he cares about you, he'll completely understand.

What you need to do now is to get out of this "needy" rut that you're in and become a normal, mature adult. It’s really simple: if he does want you back, he’ll want to break up with his current girlfriend for you.

It's okay to still love your ex, but right now it's not healthy for you to be with him.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Alpacalia

[ShelBT]

1 hour ago, Rider on the Storm said:

Unfortunately, it certainly does appear as if he IS "like that". You're creating this alternate reality where he is trapped against his will with this younger, perky girl, but that it's actually the two of you that are destined to be together. This is common-place behavior for affair partners.

As much as you don't want it to be the case, the odds are astronomically high that you were his booty call and nothing more. If he truly loved you (like you wish that he did), he wouldn't have turned down marriage and kids with you after nearly a 10 year relationship. He's with a girl now that's 13 years younger because that's where he chose to be, unfortunately.

I know you don't want to hear this (and I can understand that), but the longer you allow yourself to be strung along, the more it's going to hurt when you do rip this band-aid off.

Demand better for yourself.

 

No I don’t think he’s trapped against his will at all. I’m sure it’s really nice to have a gorgeous, young woman who probably has relatively few problems in life, isn’t interested in being tied down herself, and is probably pretty willing to do whatever he wants her to do. I don’t think he’s hurting there.

I won’t sleep with him again while he’s in a relationship. After I came down from the initial high it didn’t make me feel good at all.

 

[ShelBT]

1 hour ago, Alpacalia said:

Putting that all aside OP.

Think for a minute.

This man broke your heart.

Sadly, some men don't fully understand the difficult emotional place they push their exes into when they have sex. When an ex-girlfriend is still in love with him, as it seems you are, an ex-girlfriend can easily misread this.

Plus, I mean he is living the life, he has the best of both worlds. 

Fortunately, this error can be reversed. You need to put a stop to any future physical relationship between you and your ex boyfriend. At least in the short term.

Explain that despite enjoying intimacy with him very much, make it clear that you can't put yourself in that place emotionally anymore. If he cares about you, he'll completely understand.

What you need to do now is to get out of this "needy" rut that you're in and become a normal, mature adult. It’s really simple: if he does want you back, he’ll want to break up with his current girlfriend for you.

It's okay to still love your ex, but right now it's not healthy for you to be with him.

I think you’re right. 
 

Im not going to continue any sort of inappropriate relationship with him. When we’ve talked since he reached back out to me it hasn’t been any sort of inappropriate sexual talk, sexting, nothing like that. It was like “friends” except for the time we had sex. I don’t think I can commit to completely deleting him from my life completely. I just have to develop some strong boundaries. 
 

 

[ShelBT]

9 hours ago, mark clemson said:

Unless you feel quite certain he's going to a) actually come back to you AND  b) actually change and be ready to settle down, I doubt you'll get your needs met with this. I don't think you're in for much here but more short term "joy" from seeing him but long term disappointment. You're essentially being an orbiter/FWB.

It's clear you have a strong connection. This WOULD be great, except that you've learned and shown that you're unlikely to get your needs/LT goals met by sticking with this guy.

And orbiter. Ouch.

[ExpatInItaly]

3 hours ago, ShelBT said:

I just don’t get why if he just wanted no strings sex he’d reach out to me after 1.5 years. If it’s true and that’s all I’m good for to him than I want to hear him say it.

This is unrealistic. Nobody is going to come out and tell you that you're only good for sex.

You are going to continue to stand in your own way if you make excuses for yourself not to cut him out of your life. You can do it. You don't want to, but you can. And as long as you don't, you're holding yourself back and contributing to your own misery. 

Plus, no new man is going to want to date you if your ex is still lingering in the background. Think about what exactly you'd be giving up here for a guy who isn't giving anything up for you. 

[mark clemson]

36 minutes ago, ShelBT said:

 I don’t think I can commit to completely deleting him from my life completely. I just have to develop some strong boundaries.

I wasn't trying to be mean with the use of "orbiter".  It does seem to fit to a certain extent (IMO at least).

I think you should consider how much of an impact letting him "stay in your life" in this way will realistically have. Having orbiters, or being one, can interfere with forming new relationships, e.g. the emotional bond component, since the "other" person isn't really 100% gone. Indeed something like this may be part of why you've lacked interest in new BFs.

Consider whether you might be better off ripping off the band aid here.

An alternative might be to fully resolve that there will be no relationship with him ever again (and thus you have no choice romantically except to look for others). For some people that might work to prevent the "orbiter interference" effect. Not sure if that's you, though.

[ShelBT]

12 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

I wasn't trying to be mean with the use of "orbiter".  It does seem to fit to a certain extent (IMO at least).

I think you should consider how much of an impact letting him "stay in your life" in this way will realistically have. Having orbiters, or being one, can interfere with forming new relationships, e.g. the emotional bond component, since the "other" person isn't really 100% gone. Indeed something like this may be part of why you've lacked interest in new BFs.

Consider whether you might be better off ripping off the band aid here.

An alternative might be to fully resolve that there will be no relationship with him ever again (and thus you have no choice romantically except to look for others). For some people that might work to prevent the "orbiter interference" effect. Not sure if that's you, though.

I hadn’t been in touch with him since our breakup. I didn’t contact him at all. He is the one who reached out to me not too long ago. I mean, I do get that allowing him to stay in my life in some fashion might not be the healthiest idea as far as being able to move on, but I’m not sure it qualifies me as an orbiter. I hadn’t talked to or seen him in over a year and would have continued to do so if he hadn’t gotten in touch with me. I know, I didn’t have to respond to him but I chose to anyway. 

[ShelBT]

1 hour ago, ExpatInItaly said:

This is unrealistic. Nobody is going to come out and tell you that you're only good for sex.

You are going to continue to stand in your own way if you make excuses for yourself not to cut him out of your life. You can do it. You don't want to, but you can. And as long as you don't, you're holding yourself back and contributing to your own misery. 

Plus, no new man is going to want to date you if your ex is still lingering in the background. Think about what exactly you'd be giving up here for a guy who isn't giving anything up for you. 

Well screw it im going to ask him anyway just to see what he says. Maybe he will admit he just wanted sex. Who knows. 

[ExpatInItaly]

Just now, ShelBT said:

Well screw it im going to ask him anyway just to see what he says. Maybe he will admit he just wanted sex. Who knows. 

Will his answer really change anything, though?

If he says yes, then what?

If he says no? 

[ShelBT]

21 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

Will his answer really change anything, though?

If he says yes, then what?

If he says no? 

I don’t really know, but I feel the burning need to ask just to see what he says.

[ExpatInItaly]

12 minutes ago, ShelBT said:

I don’t really know, but I feel the burning need to ask just to see what he says.

This is probably your ego speaking, wanting to know if you still mean something to him. 

But the truth is that the relationship died a long time ago, and he has a girlfriend. Decent men don't do what he is doing now, and he is highly unlikely to leave her for you. So even if he tells you it isn't just sex, it still leaves you nowhere. 

Ask if you want. But understand that his answer, whatever it may be, doesn't change the bottom line 

[ShelBT]

I texted him to ask why he reached out to me after nearly 1.5 years of no contact. So no response for now. He’s probably screwing his barely legal girlfriend. But he was texting me today so I’m sure he’ll respond soon enough.