Married but obsessed with ex

[julieg]

confused-

you are not crazy and not committing emotional adultery. you can't help the thoughts that are popping into your head constantly. you are not trying to think about your ex so how is this your fault??? i feel for you as i have the same dilema. it really sucks. we just want to go back to being happy but these thoughts keep intruding. i think its because there are so many things that prompt us to keep going back to them and it is so hard to counteract. a song on the radio, mental pictures, first experiences etc. maybe the poster who discussed congnitive therapy has something? (thanks) at any rate i think you can beat this thing if you really put your best effort into it.

[stillafool]

Stillafool, do you want to laugh? His W and I also "fought" over him 15 years ago, and he ended up marrying her when we broke up. He had asked me to marry him and I wanted to wait, so he dumped me and ran right back to her. I about killed me too. But six months after he got with her, he came back running to me and I turned him down. I had already met my H and was happy with him, but I never got over the hurt and the rejection and the lies the ex had put me through.

 

What killed the fantasy with my ex was that he was still acting like an imature 20 something year old. His W is like his Momma, taking care of him, but he goes out and effs everything that moves. He even has his profile up on a dating site, yet tells his W that she is his everything, loves her more than life itself, blablabla. Finding out that he is just a smooth talker that tells everybody (me and his W included) what they want to hear was a huge turnoff. My H might not be the smoothest talker, but he is as honest as gold and I can rely on him. He has never let me down, I have never had to worry about him running off with someone else. He is my rock, and I love him more than ever.

 

When I met my ex, I first noticed that he had aged far less gracefully than my H or I. He was not overweight or anything, but he had a soft body, no muscletone. When I hugged him briefly it just didn't feel right. I guess if I hadn't found out what a cad he is I might have fallen for all his smooth BS again, but since I knew what he was all about, I just listened to him and was amazed how he could lie so effortlessly. HUGE eyeopener. He also told me that his M as dead, no sex, just stayed for the kids, the usual BS. Of course I know that in fact they have plenty of sex and he tells her all the time that she is the love of his life. Can you believe this guy? I had always told him that I was in love with my H, that I simply wanted closure from him, so why couldn't he be honest with me about his M?

 

I feel horrible towards my H who has no idea that this ex was part of my life again during the past three years. I wish I could take every single mail I mailed to this liar, tryiing to understand his actions back then. What a waste of time. Good riddance. I don't understand this man, and I never will, and I'm done trying to figure it out. He is just that way and I'm glad I don't have to live with him.

 

 

Guest 2 that's what I've noticed about my Ex through our phone conversations he is just as immature as he was when he was 26. He is literally bragging about all the women who are chasing him. I find that hard to believe since he is now a 53 year old married man with 3 kids. But who knows, he is an attorney. I'm glad I didn't give him my email address or cell phone or anything. His W knows that he messes around as a matter of fact he took his other ex girlfriend before me out to dinner the night after he took his wife out for her birthday. He said the restaurant called the house to confirm the reservation and he said his wife "blew up" she was so mad. He still took his ex out to dinner anyway. I asked him did he get put in the "dog house" for it and he said "no, all you have to do is say you're sorry". My H would never treat me that way. He said he didn't want to sleep with the ex but can't promise me if we go out he won't try to sleep with me. Yeah right. Why would you upset the wife by taking her out and then not get any. He thinks I'm stupid. I am for even talking to him. I am so glad he chose her over me I don't know what to do. First of all I would be gone by now kids or no kids. He tells me how good he still looks - that he hasn't changed one bit. Unforturnately he hasn't grown one bit either. What's so funny is when we were dating back then he told me that he could play around as much as he wanted to when he's single but when he marries that's it - he will be true forever. That's one of the reasons I wanted him to marry me back then. I see that lasted exactly 6 weeks and he was on the phone to me trying to get me to date him again. He was even trying to date me a week after they got engaged. I believe once a cheater always a cheater. If a guy is cheating when you're dating him it's more than likely he will cheat one you get married. The thing is my H is 10 times better looking than my Ex (he may not be as charismatic and as smooth a talker or make the big, big bucks) but he's a prince. I know my Ex is screwing girls young enough to be his daughter also because he acts so immature. How are you married for 23 yrs. with 3 teenagers and still act like a 20 year old?

[stillafool]

confused-

you are not crazy and not committing emotional adultery. you can't help the thoughts that are popping into your head constantly. you are not trying to think about your ex so how is this your fault??? i feel for you as i have the same dilema. it really sucks. we just want to go back to being happy but these thoughts keep intruding. i think its because there are so many things that prompt us to keep going back to them and it is so hard to counteract. a song on the radio, mental pictures, first experiences etc. maybe the poster who discussed congnitive therapy has something? (thanks) at any rate i think you can beat this thing if you really put your best effort into it.

 

Julieg you are correct. The thing that helped me is after a while of thinking about the good times with him you stop and start thinking about the bad things he did. You start thinking about the disrespect and hurt that he inflicted upon you and it finally turns to anger. If you are like me and Guest 2 you see them after the years have passed and find out this person is nothing like the one in your fantasy. You may see that the best thing that ever happened to you was that person walking out of your life.

[Confusedmarriedchic]

Julieg you are correct. The thing that helped me is after a while of thinking about the good times with him you stop and start thinking about the bad things he did. You start thinking about the disrespect and hurt that he inflicted upon you and it finally turns to anger. If you are like me and Guest 2 you see them after the years have passed and find out this person is nothing like the one in your fantasy. You may see that the best thing that ever happened to you was that person walking out of your life.

 

I wish he was the one who had broke it off - I think that might actually make this easier. I was the one who ultimately ended the relationship because I was still in high school at the time and didn't want to get tied down before I went off to college. He never disrespected me in any way and never really treat me badly. Anyway, I broke up with him my senior year. A while later he started dating someone else and I realized I had screwed up, but by that point I was afraid it was too late so I never told him how I really felt. So, after I graduated I moved away, met my H and the rest is history. At the time marrying him seemed like a good idea, because I did (and do) love him, and thought that the feelings I had for the ex must have been false or something and that they would go away eventually. Now, I feel like had I not been such a dumbass, scared of committment back then, we possibly could have had something serious as we aged and matured. Now, there's just the feeling that I totally screwed up and the only person to blame is myself. I still have the fantasy though that he feels like I do, like we belong together,and that someday we'll meet again and for one reason or another will both be single, and then can pursue our relationship without anything tainting it. I would never want to see him again unless we were both single because I'm afraid that something bad might happen, and I never want to be a cheating whore to my H (or the other woman, for that matter).

[stillafool]

Yeah and I get stupid enough to believe that if he had married me (because he wanted to call it off but I said no) he would not cheat on me because we were meant to be together. I wish that were true but it's not.

[stillafool]

I was the one to end mine too and it was hard as hell walking away but I had to. It was useless to go on because of the pain. He chased me relentlessly but I still said no. I'm glad I did now.

[consternation]

It sounds to me like you are fantasising about your teenage bf bcoz you are deeply unhappy or unfulfilled in your current life for some reason.

[Zeeboo Zebuloo]

You never really forget your first love. That's how it's supposed to be...it's like a giant warning sign for all future relationships 'PROCEED WITH CAUTION' Otherwise? You'll keep making the same juvenile mistakes over and over and over with the same type of person forever and ever. Heck, I know someone who's always lovesick, dramatic, and intense like that...always blindly chasing after the same sort of sorry loser-and that person's life is a pitiful wreck too. For serious? It's the 'white-hot youthful passion and innocence all fused into one glorious rush' that you miss...not the 'love'! Love is tripping over someone's pee stained underpants over and over and still enjoying them no matter what. THAT'S LOVE, Baby! So I don't blame you for dreaming about a more beautiful & 'magical' time. However, make no mistake about it-those days are gone forever! So, when you're ready? You let those memories 'rest'...and then forgive yourself for growing up and moving on.

[Guest2]

I used to think the same about my ex - I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life "pushing" him away from me, convinced that if I hadn't turned down his proposal, we'd be together today. I blamed myself for pushing him into the waiting arms of his ex-GF. And boy, did he badmouth her when we were together - how gullible and unattractive she was, that all she had going for her was that she was nice, how I was his one and only. That's why I was so stunned when he MARRIED her!

 

It took a lot of snooping on my part to find out that this man is a pathological liar and a serial cheater. His W adores him and he tells her the same BS he told me -that she is the only one for him, blablabla. Yet he would have jumped my bones the second we met again after 15 years apart. He even told me then how his sex life was dead, how he wasn't really happy, just stayed for the kids - all just crap to get me to sleep with him. He was probably stunned when I kept him at arms length the entire time we met - and he was trying hard, getting VERY suggestive. That pig, and then he goes back to his W and tells her how she means more to him than life itself.

 

I have a ton of "evidence" in writing how he cheated on her with another girl, and I've wondered if I should send it to his W. Probably not a good idea, but boy it's been tempting. He is fooling his entire cirlce of friends, family and work collegues with this phone image of him, as a honorable and up-standing guy who really is sleazy beyond belief.

 

What did I ever see in him? Well, I was young and naive and he was the smoothest talker and best kisser. A dream come true - only that he was a Fata Morgana and not a truthful and real person. That part of it still hurts, that I fell in love with someone who basically just used me to boost his ego and show me off to his friends. I cried my eyes out and was in such agony when he went back to her and married her. I begged God to bring him back to me.

 

I guess God had good reasons for not answering my prayers.