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I feel like I’m second best - he’s been telling his ex he loves her


SarahP

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A couple of weeks ago I had an insecure moment and checked my boyfriend’s texts. We’ve been together almost 6mths and although we argue a lot, we have a pretty good relationship - or so I thought. I saw a message to his ex girlfriend. It was dated 3wks before - on New Year’s Day. In it he told her that he misses her every day, he can’t move on and he loves her with every beat of his heart and always will. He called her princess (which he had been calling me for a while) and signed off by saying he loves her very much (which is how he usually tells me he loves me). It turns out this wasn’t his first message to her. There seemed to be quite a few messages to her but I only read the ones that were during our relationship. The first was just before xmas wishing her well, sending xmas greetings and telling her he misses her every day. The second was the day after that asking her to stay out of his town as it was awful seeing her as he can’t move on. The third was the one mentioned above that destroyed me to read.

I confronted him about it and he told me that he bumped into her at a concert and had to leave as it messed with his head seeing her. He then got drunk and sent her the message to stay away as he couldn’t deal with seeing her. I at first believed this to be a lie - world’s biggest coincidence to suddenly message someone and then bump into them the very next day. We discussed it and I believe that it was a coincidence as he’d been given a free ticket to attend rather than my original belief that he’d purchased it knowing that she’d be there. She’s moved on and was there with a new partner.

 

When I first confronted him about it he lied and said he hadn’t messaged her. I gave him another chance to come clean and he still lied. I told him I’d seen his phone and he straight away deleted the number and the messages. I didn’t see him actually do that though - he just said he did. He told me it started because he wanted something back from her. There was no message about that and I asked him if he was lying and he said no - so either there were more messages he’s deleted or he’s lying about the message content.

 

He can’t give me an explanation why he messaged her and told her all those things that hurt me to read. He told me he doesn’t love her - but if he didn’t, why would he keep telling her he does in messages? He says that what sometimes happens is that he has a dream about her and it’s very vivid - he then feels incredibly guilty for being the cause of their breakup (he’d been texting an ex - surprise surprise. So she dumped him). He needed counselling to get over their breakup and got himself into a lot of debt while he was depressed. I’m helping him out currently with repaying the debts so now feel like I’m locked into the relationship until he pays me back.

 

He was incredibly upset while we talked it through and said he’d do anything to make me understand how much I mean to him and how much he loves me and wants me in his life for the foreseeable future. Since this, he appears to have little patience with me when I feel insecure and get upset. He doesn’t seem to understand that he made me feel like that and I can’t get over it in a day. He wants me to just get over it and move on (mainly because it makes him feel bad) - but I don’t think I can. I feel like he’s only with me because he can’t have her. She doesn’t appear to have replied to any of his messages so I guess she’s blocked his number. It seems to me that if she’d replied, he’d have kept up the conversation. He admitted that if I hadn’t found the messages he would never have told me he was continuing to message her.

 

What’s even more odd is that this isn’t a recent relationship - they broke up in 2013!!!

He’s very inexperienced relationship-wise and a bit immature despite being 38. I’ve been in a long term relationship, married and divorced so have a totally different background for understanding how to behave when you’re in a relationship. But he can’t use this as an excuse. Neither am I accepting the fact that he’d been drinking the night before all these messages were sent. They were the morning after - not when he was under the influence. And it hurts me to know that when he’s drunk or hungover, it’s not me that he thinks about. He actively ignores me when he’s out with his friends whereas a few months ago he would have been calling me during his night out.

 

I’d be interested in any comments about whether I’m right to feel second best and if I’m just being too insecure - my ex did pretty much the same thing to me and I don’t want this to be a re-run of me feeling worthless and insecure all the time (my ex truly did want to be with his ex rather than me though).

 

 

He’s promised not to message her again and as far as I know he has no way of contacting her now he’s deleted the number. He’s a very emotional person and I wonder if he doesn’t love her the way I’m thinking. He told me very early in the relationship that he loves me - maybe he just feels things easier than I do.

 

I also discovered he has an active tinder profile which I didn’t know about. He swears that he hasn’t used it and deleted it. I never had any reason to suspect he was lying to me before I found out about the messages and profile. He always came across as loving and truthful.

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I don't think you should be thinking of yourself as second best, but I do consider your boyfriend to be extremely manipulative and point blank, a liar.

 

He still has feelings for his ex, and there's no reason for him to have a Tinder profile because he's in a relationship with you. For him to justify to you that he has a Tinder account, but doesn't use it is complete BS. He shouldn't have Tinder, period.

 

Do you know how he met his ex? Did they meet through Tinder?

 

Also, please stop loaning him money. You're assisting someone who doesn't deserve your help!

 

I'd drop this guy, OP. He's bad news.

 

There are so many red flags here, I don't know where to begin.

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Your "insecure moment" was the rational part of YOU trying to get yourself to wake up and face reality. You look at him like he's a helpless wounded bird, but he's got you and his ex wrapped around his little finger. You ought to give him a little more credit because he's very sly. He lies to your face, makes empty promises, and basically does whatever he wants because he knows you'll chalk it up to his supposed emotional incompetence.

 

You've really backed yourself into a corner here. How much money does he owe you?

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Break up with this manipulative jerk as soon as possible. As to the money try to get a lawyer into it but if it's not possible I'd say that your mental health and self worth is more important than that money. Block, delete and try to find a support system that helps you keep away from this person.

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my ex truly did want to be with his ex rather than me though

so does this one.

 

i'm very, very sorry you're going through this.

 

unfortunately, six months may not have been enough to catch on to the fact he was still invested elsewhere. he obviously sees no issue with it, and does a great job rationalizing his involvement with his exs to himself- and expects you to not make it a big deal that he has persistent feelings for someone else, and pursues them.

 

it's amusing, and fairly standard of someone who transfers their unmet desires neurotically from person to person to have them idealize their new partners and declare love eagerly and early in an attempt at regaining what they feel they've lost with the previous one, via proxy so to speak. And because it's a feeling they've displaced from someone onto someone else, the "replacement" doesn't fully "replace" the ex, who is quickly romanticized and idealized again... and his rationalization aside, he is well aware of that, and acted on it. In short, it's not that you're "second best", that is sanitizing it. You're literally with someone who is still very much hung up on his ex- and it appears he is looking many places, tinder included, to compensate for not being with her. He doesn't love you, he doesn't even like you enough to question the appropriateness of his feelings for others, or his behavior.

 

if, at 38, he can tell himself, and you, that this investment in his exs is something you should simply accept, and "enjoy" his lack of commitment to you like nothing at all disturbing is taking place, you can be sure you're not in for anything pleasant if you stay- unless you meant and wanted to get involved with someone who isn't certain beyond all doubt you're what they want.

 

 

he is neither loving, nor truthful. he is sentimental- and yearns a lot of sentiment from others- and the longing isn't for you, outside of how much comfort you are offering (and i dare say, because you're literally paying for his "pining for the ex" in money as well).

 

you're going to be beyond miserable if you settle for someone who doesn't want you nearly the same as you do him.

 

if there is a 38 year old out there who just suddenly resolves his mirror-stage fixation simply because someone who feels strongly about them deserves the same in return, rather than because they recognize it themselves it'd be a prerequisite for any talk of love with anyone new...they're doing a darn fine job flying under the radar.

 

this one is nursing a lost attachment with no wish to give it up.

 

i really hope you leave, before you internalize his behavior as proof of being unfit for, or unworthy of more.

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You need to get rid of him. Even if he never messages her again, that doesn't solve the bigger underlying problem: he doesn't love you or respect you at all. He loves your bank account.

 

Stop paying for anything, and find a guy who isn't in love with his ex. And do not pay the next one's debts either!

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Thanks for your reply. The tinder thing was upsetting to me as he’d previously been very unhappy that I hadn’t deleted my online dating account early enough in our relationship. He made a big deal of deleting his and I do know he wasn’t using it as I used to periodically check he wasn’t online and he never was - he’d even let me check it when I asked a couple of time’s to ensure he wasn’t messaging anyone. He never was but I’ve since found out how easy it is to delete the evidence if you keep on top of doing it. As he didn’t use that dating account I found it reasonable that he didn’t use tinder either. He did delete it once I complained about him having it.

I don’t know how he met his ex but it’s possible it was online dating. It seems guys on the site I met him on just rely on it to go from one relationship to the next. He was in a relationship with someone else between meeting me and getting dumped by his ex so I know it’s not a rebound - he takes a long gap in between relationships. But I do think he’ll likely always love her in some form.

 

I lent him a small amount of money but won’t lend him the other £2000 he needs to pay off his debts. He’s been happily paying small portions off over the years but since we met he’s wanted to pay more off as he knows I’m not willing to stay in the relationship unless he pays them off as soon as possible. I don’t think that spending money on himself to get over a breakup is a reasonable thing to have done in the first place.

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I lent him a small amount of money but won’t lend him the other £2000 he needs to pay off his debts. He’s been happily paying small portions off over the years but since we met he’s wanted to pay more off as he knows I’m not willing to stay in the relationship unless he pays them off as soon as possible. I don’t think that spending money on himself to get over a breakup is a reasonable thing to have done in the first place.

 

But it's not only him paying them off, is it? It's you too now.

 

Whose idea was it to have you help pay down his debt? And why did you agree to that with a guy you've only dated 6 months?

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Hi annia, thanks for your reply.

He’s paying huge interest amounts on the money he owes so I lent him a small amount of it to help him out. I truly believe he’ll repay it whether we’re together or not. Friends of mine do not believe it and think he’ll ‘do a runner’ with it. It’s worth pointing out that none of the said friends have actually met him to know this about his behaviour.

He’s trying to pay the debts off earlier to show me that he’s capable of managing his money and being a responsible person for the future.

 

I do think I enjoy caring for partners and this leads me to help him financially aswell, which I could kick myself for now as I only found out about the lies two days after lending him the money.

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Unfortunately it was my stupid idea. I enjoy helping people and have lent money out in the past without any issues. I deem him to be more trustworthy than my previous lendings.

 

I mentioned that he should pay me a small amount of interest and he agreed. I have also kept from him that I could easily afford the small amount I lent him. He has offered to lend me money in the past when he thinks I’m short and I’ve always declined.

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Please get off this chaotic merry-go-round with this loser who is only using you because you are being too good to him.

 

He's lied to you now multiple times. He's using you for money and sex. Then he breaks down, tells you all the wonderful things in the world, looks at you with sweet puppy dog eyes, and the cycle starts all over again.

 

Count the money you've lent him as a total loss. And do not give him one more cent.

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You’re right Jibralta, I do look at him like he’s helpless and he has lied. I do believe he knows that I’ll forgive him and he’s not improving his behaviour because he doesn’t have to.

 

He has always been willing to talk things through and try his best to explain himself, but I don’t think he truly understands how upset he’s made me.

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Thanks for your reply RainyCoast, I think you’re right about him being sentimental. He seems to feel the need to cling on to something. A lot of his feelings for her seem to be borne of guilt. He feels responsible and is effectively just feeling sorry for himself when he has a ‘down’ moment.

When he messaged her originally we didn’t see each other for 5wks due to his working pattern and then turned down the chance to see me at xmas because he was depressed (he always is at xmas apparently). I saw him the day before he sent her the lengthy message about always loving her so I don’t think he has any excuse for that message other than being horrendously hung over - it’s clear to me he spend the first day of a new year focusing on someone else. That’s incredibly hurtful - especially knowing the loving message he sent me an hour before probably didn’t mean anything.

 

What I found so shocking is that I always believed his feelings for me were far stronger than mine were for him. So to see the messages was a total surprise. He did admit he’d felt some insecurities as my ex had tried to contact me a couple of months before and he also felt that I was secretive about who I spend my spare time with (I admit I was a little secretive about this).

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I don’t think he truly understands how upset he’s made me.

 

Unfortunately, I believe the truth is much uglier than that: He doesn't care.

 

He doesn't care if he upsets you, or if your feelings are hurt, or if you worry when he doesn't contact you. He is willing to talk things through because you are willing to believe whatever he tells you rather than face the fact that ugly, heartless manipulators do exist and you have chosen one. You have confused a jerk for a decent human being..

 

I guarantee that the moment you put your foot down, he is going to suddenly 'draw the line' and accuse you of being unfair or irrational or anything else negative that he can think of. He will no longer be willing to talk things through once he sees that you won't accept his lies. He won't be willing to listen to anything you have to say. So be prepared.

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Usually someone who is displacing feelings for one person on another person isn't aware of doing it. His affection may have appeared genuine and intense to you, because that was how he may have been experiencing it at the time, as devoid of insight as the next hysterical bleep, which makes him so much more wrong for you. Needless to say anything unresolved persists, leaving you with a guy flagrantly wanting his ex.

 

If he was at some point completely devoid of insight, you have since made it clear it's a problem, and he has made it clear it is "your problem to suck up and deal with", much like his debt.

 

He isn't even the standard user who goes i'm sorry, I just realized I'm not in fact ready for a relationship after having gotten the validating experience of you falling for him. He is insulting every belief you have about reciprocity and investment and genuine affection in a relationship, and your expectations of at least not being played like it's something to repress while you play girlfriend, and he sobs about wanting a different one.

 

Selfish, self-centered and self-serving users get sentimental too, and evidently, that's far from love, and far from really caring about others.

 

Feeling guilty for having lost a partner over an ex, and "loving her" to make up for it. HA!!!

 

No, really!!!!! Tell him you're leaving so he can start "loving you out of guilt for having lost you over an ex".....

 

while you block him and move on...

 

Just like the last one did.

 

He must enjoy this pattern profoundly to keep repeating it.

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Hi annia, thanks for your reply.

He’s paying huge interest amounts on the money he owes so I lent him a small amount of it to help him out. I truly believe he’ll repay it whether we’re together or not. Friends of mine do not believe it and think he’ll ‘do a runner’ with it. It’s worth pointing out that none of the said friends have actually met him to know this about his behaviour.

He’s trying to pay the debts off earlier to show me that he’s capable of managing his money and being a responsible person for the future.

 

I do think I enjoy caring for partners and this leads me to help him financially aswell, which I could kick myself for now as I only found out about the lies two days after lending him the money.

 

But a valuable man would have refused your money, especially at 6 months of dating. You're not caring for him, you're enabling him. It's HIS responsibility to pay HIS debt. You're not married to him nor you're not his mother so at 6 months of dating you shouldn't be involved in any of this debt thing. Mothering a man won't make them respect you.

 

I know the issue here is his thing with his ex, but this is also important and it's worth thinking about why you're doing and allowing this, especially at the beginner stages of a relationship. Even if there wasn't this problem with the ex, you shouldn't be paying him anything.

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Thanks for your reply RainyCoast, I think you’re right about him being sentimental. He seems to feel the need to cling on to something. A lot of his feelings for her seem to be borne of guilt. He feels responsible and is effectively just feeling sorry for himself when he has a ‘down’ moment.

When he messaged her originally we didn’t see each other for 5wks due to his working pattern and then turned down the chance to see me at xmas because he was depressed (he always is at xmas apparently). I saw him the day before he sent her the lengthy message about always loving her so I don’t think he has any excuse for that message other than being horrendously hung over - it’s clear to me he spend the first day of a new year focusing on someone else. That’s incredibly hurtful - especially knowing the loving message he sent me an hour before probably didn’t mean anything.

 

What I found so shocking is that I always believed his feelings for me were far stronger than mine were for him. So to see the messages was a total surprise. He did admit he’d felt some insecurities as my ex had tried to contact me a couple of months before and he also felt that I was secretive about who I spend my spare time with (I admit I was a little secretive about this).

 

Even not getting the time or effort to be with his girlfriend in 5 weeks is a red flag. Stop allowing this. He's not interested in you more than you being his bank account and someone to have around when necessary. This has nothing to do with your self worth. You seem very nice and kind, but he's a jerk and you're letting him take advantage of you and enabling him. Take the focus out of his thing with his ex and think about how he acts towards YOU and in the ways YOU'RE enabling him and making it easy for him. Stop excusing him, he's not a baby. He knows what he's doing. If he can't take responsibility for his actions and be a proper partner, than the only thing left to do is dump him, delete and block him. Leave him be to be a jerk to his ex or a future woman who lets herself fool by him. At 6 months of dating you've dodged a bullet.

 

6 months of dating it's the honey moon stage... it's not suppose to boyfriends to be lying, texting ex girlfriends, paying his debts, not seeing each other for more than a month... NO, NO, NO. You're worth more than this. This is plain dysfunctional.

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Unfortunately, I believe the truth is much uglier than that: He doesn't care.

 

He doesn't care if he upsets you, or if your feelings are hurt, or if you worry when he doesn't contact you. He is willing to talk things through because you are willing to believe whatever he tells you rather than face the fact that ugly, heartless manipulators do exist and you have chosen one. You have confused a jerk for a decent human being..

 

I guarantee that the moment you put your foot down, he is going to suddenly 'draw the line' and accuse you of being unfair or irrational or anything else negative that he can think of. He will no longer be willing to talk things through once he sees that you won't accept his lies. He won't be willing to listen to anything you have to say. So be prepared.

 

He'll try to gaslight her (he's already done so) and accuse her in order to make her feel guilty because he knows this works... he'll try to take her into a guilt trip. I've been her with an abusive manipulative liar and I lost 3 years of my life in that relationship. I hope she just leaves this jerk for good before she wastes any more time with him.

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Annia,

The 5wks break was excusable as we live a few hours from each other and neither of us drive so the public transport route is pretty horrendous for him. It involves 2 trains, a bus and a long walk - he was working on my days off Work so we had to miss out on a few weeks plus he couldn’t afford the transport costs for two of those weeks. He prefers for him to do the commuting rather than have me do it. At the time I was furious with him for not seeing me but I understood his reasons eventually.

 

He does a lot for me while he’s visiting, he cooks and cleans for me and generally anything that means I get an easy life while he’s here. I certainly feel loved and cared for but now the doubts have crept in and I know he lied, I can’t help but wonder if he’s looking at me as a way to get an easier life. He’s desperate to have kids in the future and I wonder if he just doesn’t want to waste time trying to meet someone else and I’m an easier option.

 

We’ve had a lot of chats recently as we’ve argued more and more over the ex gf issue. I’ve pointed out to him several times lately exactly what you’ve mentioned in your reply that we’re supposed to be in the honeymoon stage at this point, not arguing and lying. He agrees that it’s not a great sign but if he wasn’t all in for our relationship he’d have walked away by now as he did with the relationship before me (he lost his home and money due to that breakup so certainly isn’t bothered about sticking around for personal gain).

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We’ve had a lot of chats recently as we’ve argued more and more over the ex gf issue. I’ve pointed out to him several times lately exactly what you’ve mentioned in your reply that we’re supposed to be in the honeymoon stage at this point, not arguing and lying. He agrees that it’s not a great sign but if he wasn’t all in for our relationship he’d have walked away by now as he did with the relationship before me

 

but he isn't all in!!!! he looooveeessss his exxxx.

 

thing is you can talk until the cows come home, he isn't over her, he isn't "all in to you" at all, and he just wants you to bloody suck it up and stop nagging him about it already.

 

keep talking and he'll just get you to drop every bit of intelligence, fairness, decency and self respect, and succumb to being "in the wrong" for having hoped you'd be someone's certain choice, and accept this hurtful, selfish, manipulative and exploitative nonsense.

 

he isn't walking away because he has nobody to walk away to apparently and isn't too happy to be alone while heartbroken and broke if he can have it differently -

and you provide financial relief, and settle for being unloved, feeling unsafe, unappreciated, and are in love with him and caring, and make excuses for his disloyalty as well. can i have you available while i text and pine for someone else as well? wouldn't that be convenient, i have c#ap you could help pay for too. is that what you are willing to have?

 

are you starting to feel like you're looking for love in a #h0re-house yet??

 

seriously, you could roll a potato across a busy town square and have it hit someone who'd be a better partner.

 

i know you're hurting tremendously now and every bit of you wants to see this in ameliorated form, but you'll do yourself a disservice if you don't treat it as what it is.

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