Best course of (in)action?

[series_of_misfortunes]

I'm (25M) studying at the same school as my ex-girlfriend, M, (23F) who just dumped me one month ago in October. We had a great serious and close 10 month relationship which started in December, which came crashing down due to a major f***-up on my part. I have another ex-girlfriend, K, who lives in a different city and who I was very close with (2 year relationship followed by 4 year long-distance friendship followed by 2 year long medium-distance situationship), but she stopped contacting me and was very hurt after I started dating M. I reconnected with K after 7 months into my relationship with M, since I wanted to see how her life was going and wanted to see she was happy. She seemed to be happy and open to sharing what happened in her life since we stopped talking, and seemed happy to reconnect. She did seem sad about the fact that I was still with M but seemed to accept it. This entire time, I communicated honestly with M about my previous relationship with K and how we reconnected, and we had set up fingerprints on each others devices since the start of our relationship because there was always 100% trust and honesty between us, so I made sure to always show the conversations I had with K to M, which were all platonic. M is very secure and trusting, so although she had some reservations, she always told me she doesn't have a problem that I had a past with K.

Fast forward to October, and K suggests meeting up with me for the first time in my city for a few hours to try and rebuild our friendship after we had been texting for 3 months. I checked with M if she's okay with it, and although she was nervous, she agreed provided she would be there the whole time. Two days before K is supposed to come to my city, K was on vacation for a week and tells me she missed her layover to another intermediate city, because she got a UTI from some random stranger she met the first day of her vacation, and the UTI was so bad she had to go to the hospital and became really sick. Of course I called her to ask her what was going on. Apparently a random stranger approached her on a bridge and made her feel really uncomfortable and like he was going to steal her bag, but somehow she still ended up over at his place and where he tried to do stuff like handcuff her immediately and put her way out of her comfort zone. They had another date 2 days later, and she told me about more stuff like her giving in to him not using protection because he was too naggy and controlling. This whole time, she tells me how she thought about me the whole time and made it clear she was still in love with me. I react calmly, tell her I just hope she's okay and that she will try to rebook her itinerary so that we could still make the visit happen. However, when I try to sleep that night, I have a very hard time processing everything she told me, and couldn't sleep. My ex M noticed and couldn't sleep either, and began suspecting I still had feelings for K. I told her I didn't know in that moment if I did or not, and that the situation was just a big shock to me, and I was also worried that K was very sick and might be with some weird stranger who was doing who-knows-what. After getting only 2 hours of sleep, M told me she has a limit to how much she wants to hear about my ex's sex life. Unfortunately, I still had a very hard time processing my feelings about the whole situation for the next few days, and I end up getting in a big fight with K after she told me she decided to stay with the stranger she met instead of trying to rebook her itinerary, and began expressing jealousy about the happy relationship I have with M. We both got very angry at each other and decided to not talk to each other any more. Afterwards, I was reeling from the loss of a very close friend. Meanwhile, M is feeling neglected that I am spending so much time dealing with the K-situation, even though I kept M updated about everything and hid nothing, and M tells me I'm letting my ex K who obviously still has feelings for me drive a wedge between our relationship. She bottles up her feelings for a few days to get through my birthday then dumps me a few days later, saying I hurt her pride by making her feel second to someone else for several days.

Although I do feel like the breakup was very deserved, I worked on various issues in the past month and focused on moving on from K, who I felt I was trauma-bonded with because of previous similar abusive behavior, that I hadn't noticed until I was finally out of the situation. I am currently very hurt because I feel like I lost a very good relationship with M due to what feels like a freak accident. Even though K never ended up coming in the end, and there was no actual cheating involved, I can understand why M thought there was emotional cheating, even though I didn't even know I had feelings (if they were feelings at all), and my behavior was mostly a combination of shock at the situation, an anxious attachment style, and grieving the loss of the relationship with K.

During the breakup, M was still very attached to me and told me she still wants to be friends after having some time and space and keep doing the things we used to do together, even staying the night at my apartment after the breakup conversation to cry things out in my comfort. A week later, I went to pick up my bike from her apartment but end up becoming emotional and ended up apologizing for the whole situation again and asking for a second chance, telling her I didn't really want to just be friends, which she refused, saying I hurt her pride. Then I backed off again, until she comes to pick up her belongings from my apartment the next week and starts crying the whole time saying she's so lonely and sad to lose me but she put herself in that position. I tell her that if we have the same feelings for each other why don't we try again? To which she responds that actions have to have consequences, and if we get back together then it would be like the breakup never happened, but we can't pretend that nothing happened. I was indeed a bit persistent which seemed to have pushed her away. I tell her I feel her hurt for the situation and I would give her the space and time she needed. She also started saying that she could see getting back together with me in a few months, and would still occasionally cry thinking about all the good times we had and what could've been. She even told me she was depressed and just very sad over Halloween about the fact that our relationship was over.

The problem is, how should I moved forward when she still seems to be giving me hope of reconciliation in the somewhat near future? I asked her several times if she said that just to let me down more gently and she told me that she's not planning on catching feelings for me again but it could happen once her subconscious is convinced such a black swan event couldn't happen again, but only after she loses her current feelings for me. A big issue is that we have to see each other every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, because of shared classes and shared social groups on those days, and are both very close to a mutual friend. We stopped texting regularly (only for logistics) in those first few weeks. We both discussed splitting up those social events and classes to avoid seeing each other but decided not to because it would be too impractical. We are trying to be friendly to each other but I am definitely trying to draw nearer while she is pulling back more, even though being friends was her idea. She recently invited me to her birthday party next week because it truly does seem like she wants me to still be in her life in some way, she's just not sure how, and she says that she needs distance as long as she has feelings. For example, we got coffee last week (which turned into a relationship talk again), and at the end of the conversation I asked her if I could give her a hug. She said OK, as long as it was a 1-second friend hug. We did that, but the day after we called and she said that she felt too many feelings, so no more hugs until she loses more feelings for me.

I am stuck in a very confusing situation where my ex didn't dump me due to lying or loss of attraction in the normal sense, but more due to a black-swan event that she described as a wildcard to our otherwise very good relationship, making it difficult for her to believe something like that won't happen again. She says she really just needs time to sort it out but also doesn't want to give me false hope we would get back together. There is also no third person involved on her end (yet). I am wondering if we both need to do a very uncomfortable and impractical clean break or if we should just slowly rebuild rapport via texting about common interests and meetups or doing common activities like bouldering together (which she expressed interest in continuing to do with me), now that we are one month into the breakup, in order to rebuild trust. Especially because she is the one who asked for space and time, I am now not sure if I should go to her birthday party next week because I don't know if it's better for me to try and go and have a good time around her to work it out and show that I can respect her boundaries, or try and move on internally and facilitate that by not going. It is hard for me to let go because she did nothing wrong to me, and I feel guilt for my role in the situation. My ultimate goal right now is reconciliation and reflecting on what went wrong to fix the relationship we had, since we both agree it was basically a very very good and close serious long term relationship where we spent almost every night together and planned most meals together as well, and made each other happy.

Edited November 22, 2024 by series_of_misfortunes

[Gebidozo]

First of all, 10 months is really not long enough to evaluate any long-term relationship. It’s just the first stage.

Second, how can you possibly characterize this relationship as “great” and “close“ if you were still entangled in your feelings for your former ex?

Third, I hope you understand that she doesn’t want a reconciliation with you. Hopefully you realize that her saying that she still wants to be friends is just a common way to soften the breakup. Please don’t be in denial and accept the fact that this relationship is over. Your best course of action would be to leave her alone and focus on yourself.

 

[ExpatInItaly]

19 hours ago, series_of_misfortunes said:

I am stuck in a very confusing situation

I'ts not confusing. 

You always had poor boundaries with your ex K. Your most recent ex realized it was because you still had feelings for this other woman, and rightly let you go. She's trying to be gentle with you now, but it's done. There is likely just no coming back from this, since you showed her pretty clearly where your feeling were with your other ex. 

19 hours ago, series_of_misfortunes said:

a very very good and close serious long term relationship

I don't mean to minimize your relationship, but 10 months is not very long. You two tried, and you weren't prepared to let go of your past. It was best for both of you that this relationship ended. Next time, exercise better boundaries with women from your past - or don't date others until you are well and truly over them. 

[Leihla_B]

Your story is a prime example of why, speaking only for myself, will not involve myself with anyone who is still involved with an ex, in any way, shape, or form, beyond shared children. 

I would take the lesson and never position anyone you care about so badly again. Finish old business before starting new business, or you'll sink your opportunities with anyone who owns a shred of self respect.

I would consider this ex to be done, and I'd be civil whenever our paths cross, but nothing more.

Head high, we all learn by living.