My ex has a new boyfriend and I want her back

Hi everyone,

Thanks for reading this.

I ended a long term, toxic relationship in March 2019 and four months later started dating someone else. I loved spending time with this girl and she is exactly what I want and need in a long term partner but at the time, I had low self esteem and was going through a depression so I just couldn't give her what she needed. In our eight month relationship I broke up with her three times.

After the third time, she was resolute on moving forward - how could I blame her - even though her feelings were very strong for me. And she started dating someone immediately. Nearly five months later, she is still seeing him and she tells me that they like each other.

I have since realised that I made the biggest mistake of my life, that I am in love with her and and that I want to be with her. I have continuously expressed this to her so she knows how I feel. Over the last five months, we have also been consistently catching up and being intimate - no sex but still intimate. I am not proud that I am making her cheat on someone but the attraction between us, in every facet, is very hard to say no to. I love her so much that I just couldn't pass on the opportunity to be with her. I have been leading completely with my heart. As has she it seems. She is being very guarded with her words but what she has told me is that she has strong feelings for me and is seriously considering getting back together.

It has now been three and a half months since I first told her how I felt and since we started catching up again and she is confused and torn about what to do. It seems I am in her heart and the other guys is in her head.

The last time we saw each other we agreed to stop this as it is not healthy for either of us - she feels enormously guilty and I feel sick at the thought of her being with someone else without knowing when she is going to make up her mind. I need to move forward with other women if she can't make up her mind.

I feel like no contact is the only card I have left to play because for the last four months I have shown all my cards and perhaps if she feels like she has lost me, she may be forced to make a decision.

I guess what I am after is that this is the right approach? Any other advice would be great.

Thank you so much in advance.

DLK

The best advice that I can give you is to cut off all contact with this girl, work on yourself, tackle your low self-esteem and depression head-on. Look into finding a good counselor if you would like professional assistance as far as building yourself up.

Have you ever heard of the following phrase: "Like attracts like"? This applies to you in this particular case. This is a situation in which two, unhealthy-minded people are drawn together like a magnet. I can tell you this: the girl you are attracted to is not behaving as a healthy-minded person would. A healthy-minded person would recognize that three break ups within an eight month period is a huge red flag. A healthy-minded person would set and enforce appropriate boundaries when interacting with others while in a relationship. A healthy-minded person would NOT "seriously consider getting back together" with someone else while at the same time continuing her relationship with her boyfriend.

The main reason I advise that you immediately begin to work on yourself and get yourself to a healthy state of mind is so that you may avoid attracting unhealthy-minded people in the future. You were in a toxic relationship not all that long ago, there are many, clear signs that you are trying to pursue yet another one. I really and truly hope that you will take this advice to heart, otherwise, there is a good chance you will find yourself in another bad relationship.

Thanks for your response Jen.

I have come out of my depression and my self esteem while not where it was before my toxic relationship is in a much better place compared to where it was when dating this girl. So while for her I understand why these may be considered red flags for her, for me I have beaten the demons that were holding me back during our relationship and am certain that we would have a beautiful, fulfilling and healthy relationship now. So I don't feel this would be a toxic relationship if we were to try again and all I hope for is the opportunity to give this one last chance. Her actions tell me there is reason for optimism but I know for now I need to cut off contact as you said and move forward with my life. It is a painful reality for now.

Thanks again for your considered response.

DLK

I suggest reading everything Jen just wrote 100 or so times, while also setting up an appointment with a therapist.

You sound pretty self-aware, with a big heart. Good qualities. You also, being completely frank, sound so deeply programmed for toxicity in romance that you can't quite see it when it is, again, staring you in the face.

Odds are that when you're breaking up with someone three times in eight months that something is up with your internal wiring. Same goes for someone who takes back a guy that many times in that short a time—then jumps right into things with another guy, then proceeds to cheat on new guy with old guy. That's just a toxic stew. More stirring does not remove the toxins. It just makes them spicier, more fatal to our emotional health.

Neither of you literally know what it would feel like to be in a non-toxic relationship with each other because your glue is toxicity. Push-pull. No boundaries. No fidelity. No integrity. Pure impulsivity passed off as passion. This is what it's all built on, the coal firing the engine, you see?

In other words, of course you wanted her back the moment she got in with someone else. Of course that triggered the "awakening" you'd needed, the flood of feelings you couldn't access earlier, when she was right there in front of you with no barriers. Now you had the "safe" space you needed to feel and express them—a space where the odds of them developing into anything real and healthy were slim to none. Again, that's toxicity.

I know none of that is fun to read, and I suspect you're building a counter argument in your mind. Been in versions of those shoes, I get it. But I do hope, for your sake, that you can continue to dig a bit deeper, to really stay on that self-reflective path rather than making her the antidote to your troubles. She's not. She's the opposite, a link to them, a fellow traveler with the same crossed wires.

With a little more self-work, I think you could see this a bit more clearly and, in that, you'll be more interested in connecting with someone with a truly open heart, rather than a heart that only opens in the shadiest of circumstances.

Her actions tell me there is reason for optimism

Let's break down which actions give you reason for optimism. Is it that she is cheating on a partner? Is it that she is guarded? Is it that, while being with one person, she is talking to another about getting back together? Is it that she took someone back multiple times who was nowhere near able to give her what she needed?

Because to many people the above is a pretty airtight list of reasons to not be optimistic about the chances of a successful romance with someone. I can see be excited, turned on, delightfully distracted by the consuming force of emotion. But optimistic?

You can turn all that into a different story, of course. The story about a connection like no other. A story in which you're cast as character of profound magnetism in her life, and vise versa. And in that story, sure, you can find some version of optimism—the version that slips dangerously close into the land of magical thinking, the land where we feel the richest of emotions only inside of fantasies at the expense of seeing, and living in, reality.

Again, I don't mean that to sound harsh. Just trying to get you to take a step one or two more inches outside yourself to see it all from the drone camera. You have the choice, right now, to learn from this entanglement in order to get into healthier ones in the future, or to keep holding onto the story that untangling it all is the answer to your emotional health and happiness.

Sorry to hear this. As long as she's with this guy it means she's not really with you. Yes, stop before you get hurt.

Thank you for your pragmatic voice Bluecastle. A word of warning that my counter argument is all heart, the only way I know to be. I acknowledge that you need to try and use your head and heart in these situations but I don't know how to not follow my heart.

I understand your point about me seeming to chase toxic relationships and I understand why this relationship may have been stuck together with toxic glue in the past but I see it as a relationship that can work if the timing was right. My view is that me breaking up with her three times was not healthy but was a result of my depression at the time, not our potential to be happy together. My view is that her taking me back twice and then coming back to me in the last four months while not healthy is a sign of her strong feelings towards me. And her moving on so quickly is because she wants to be meet someone and she sought someone else because I had proven in the eight months prior that I couldn't give her what she needed. I see how this has been unhealthy but given the strong feelings that underpin our relationship - this is not based on passion / lust - I am certain that given the right timing, we can have an incredible relationship. Are you saying that the baggage of the past cannot be overcome?

I am optimistic because if the past was stripped away and we were to start again, we have the ingredients for true happiness. The feelings, the values, what we want out of life etc. The cheating as mentioned above to me is a sign of her strong feelings and her heart being drawn to me. The fact that she is guarded while talking about the potential of getting back together - while seeing someone else - is because she is confused between her head and her heart. The fact that she took me back multiple times is because of the strength of her feelings for me. I know that your anger will be growing as you read this but how can I not fight for something I truly believe in? How?

Yes, this is my version of the story and yes I am aware that I need to be using a mixture of my head and heart to make a decision about what to do next. But right now my heart is pumping with love and a feeling I have never had before for anyone else. And I know that given the right timing, we can make it work. This is messy, I know. This hasn't been healthy, you are right. But I genuinely feel that fighting for something you believe in and if we are talking about forever then how can I give up on it?

Thanks again for your considered and pragmatic response.

DLK

Thank you for your pragmatic voice Bluecastle. A word of warning that my counter argument is all heart, the only way I know to be. I acknowledge that you need to try and use your head and heart in these situations but I don't know how to not follow my heart.

 

I understand your point about me seeming to chase toxic relationships and I understand why this relationship may have been stuck together with toxic glue in the past but I see it as a relationship that can work if the timing was right. My view is that me breaking up with her three times was not healthy but was a result of my depression at the time, not our potential to be happy together. My view is that her taking me back twice and then coming back to me in the last four months while not healthy is a sign of her strong feelings towards me. And her moving on so quickly is because she wants to be meet someone and she sought someone else because I had proven in the eight months prior that I couldn't give her what she needed. I see how this has been unhealthy but given the strong feelings that underpin our relationship - this is not based on passion / lust - I am certain that given the right timing, we can have an incredible relationship. Are you saying that the baggage of the past cannot be overcome?

 

I am optimistic because if the past was stripped away and we were to start again, we have the ingredients for true happiness. The feelings, the values, what we want out of life etc. The cheating as mentioned above to me is a sign of her strong feelings and her heart being drawn to me. The fact that she is guarded while talking about the potential of getting back together - while seeing someone else - is because she is confused between her head and her heart. The fact that she took me back multiple times is because of the strength of her feelings for me. I know that your anger will be growing as you read this but how can I not fight for something I truly believe in? How?

 

Yes, this is my version of the story and yes I am aware that I need to be using a mixture of my head and heart to make a decision about what to do next. But right now my heart is pumping with love and a feeling I have never had before for anyone else. And I know that given the right timing, we can make it work. This is messy, I know. This hasn't been healthy, you are right. But I genuinely feel that fighting for something you believe in and if we are talking about forever then how can I give up on it?

 

Thanks again for your considered and pragmatic response.

 

DLK

I agree totally with the brilliant minds from above. I have done this dance in my past as I have had some serious karmic relationship stuff to work out, and I can tell you that the addiction of this relationship is the high you are seeking and the fact is that you are waiting on your particular street corner (if you will), waiting for your dealer (her) to come back to give you a fix but she isn’t giving you an actual fix. She’s giving you a few breadcrumbs and you are still on the corner having withdrawals. A relationship like this is truly toxic and I promise that I am speaking from experience. If you two got back together (and I would bet any amount of money on this), it would be madly passionate and happily ever after for about a day and then it would go right back into old patterns. So, could you have that back? Perhaps you could. The question that I would be asking myself is, why am I hoping for it back? And I would also be conscious of the fact that you are both in an unhealthy place and so if you keep attracting each other, there is no way it can just magically BE healthy. That would go against the law of attraction. It would take both of you to work on yourselves and to get to a healthy place to come back together in a healthy and joyous union. She is also having no respect for her boyfriend and no boundaries whatsoever with either of you. All very big, HUGE red flags. You are seeking that fix, but I promise you, whether she comes back or not, she isn’t the answer. You are the only one that can give yourself the fix you are looking for.

Others have already said most of what I think needs to be said. To to add to the above...

Forgive me for being blunt, but I think you are still living in fantasy land and not seeing what everyone else can see clear as day.

my counter argument is all heart, the only way I know to be. I acknowledge that you need to try and use your head and heart in these situations but I don't know how to not follow my heart.

I read that as "I am emotionally unstable, I am unable to control my feelings and I cannot make sensible common sense decisions because I always do whatever I feel like."

My view is that me breaking up with her three times was not healthy but was a result of my depression at the time, not our potential to be happy together.

This is not how depression works. Your timeline above makes no sense (left a toxic relationship in March 2019, met a new girl 4 months later, you had an 8 month relationship with her? Are you writing to us from 2020?! Does Trump win again?!), so I don't know when exactly you think you had depression and when exactly you think you recovered... but honestly I think you never had depression, or if you did, you haven't really beaten it. Because your writing is coming across delusional and mentally unstable, so whatever the problem is, it has not really been resolved and you are just telling yourself that you are better because you desperately want to be with that girl, and you have convinced yourself that it will be different this time.

In fact both you and the girl are highly dysfunctional people who are not mentally mature or healthy enough to be in serious relationships at all, and being in one with each other is guaranteed to blow up sooner or later. I just hope if you do proceed, you do not bring any children into this world. Both of you are walking bags of drama and toxicity, no child deserves to be born as a result of such a relationship.

She is giving you a preview of how it will be if you did get back together. Expect her to cheat on you with the other guy.

You know, when I was younger and immature I slept with my ex while he was dating someone else as a form of revenge and to make myself feel.better about him dumping me for her. I felt smug, thinking "ha, he dumped me for you but who's he calling whenever you're not around??!!" It wasn't because I loved him. I wised up and stopped because it was wrong. And we never reconciled.

There's no anger rising on this end, rest assured. You're free to think, feel, disagree, and ultimately do whatever you'd like. I'm not here to win any debates, just to offer the best advice I have to offer.

I understand the place you're in, in ways. Have dipped toes into these waters, as have most. I was never so "passionately" into my ex-gf, for instance, until she pulled away from me after years of being so very smitten while I myself was pretty distant. That passion was my unhealthy juju taking the wheel, an offshoot of the same unhealthy juju that allowed me to think it was okay to meet smitten with distance, to build a relationship on that wobbly foundation. I did end things after some months of turbulence—my healthy juju grabbing the wheel. Oh, but when I found out shortly after that she'd been cheating on me during those distant months? Yeah, that "passion" was back, more radiant than ever, at which point I was "certain," as you are certain, that between us were all the ingredients for the wildest, deepest of connections and most loving of relationships, once the nuclear fall out receded. The unhealthy juju grabbing the wheel again, and flooring the gas.

I am also very happy that I was able to observe those feelings without reacting to them or reaching out to her to "solve" the puzzle, and to listen to people, including people on this site, who helped me stay in observational mode, in healthy mode, rather than in engagement/unhealthy mode. Had I not? Maybe I'd be in a strange thing with her still, and a shadow of myself as a result, my heart experiencing a mere flicker of its "all." Or maybe I'd still be fetishizing and engaging with the strange, turbulent romance I slipped into for two months a year ago, instead of slipping out of it quick, the moment the strangeness revealed itself as the dominant glue. But no. I'd learned a thing or two about myself, had learned to stand down to my unhealthy juju. Strangeness lost its magnetism, its seductive heat.

So do know that what I'm saying to you are things I've had to say to myself, and things I'm grateful of others for saying even when I wasn't quite ready to absorb them.

What I'll add is that so long as you take comfort in the idea that what you're doing right now—with her, even expressing all this to us—is "all heart" and "following your heart" you're at the risk of enabling your own emotional instability rather than evolving into a more stable place. You're in for more turmoil, because you are conditioning yourself—are already conditioned, I think—to equate turmoil with love instead of what it is: an inhibitor to love, to the capabilities of human hearts, including your own.

Because that "all heart" stuff? I know it feels good to say, and a good thing to see reflected back at yourself when you look in the mirror. But it's just a dangerously romantic way of describing something that is "all head." It's storytelling to make up for where the actual story falls short. Remove the story, after all, and what do you have? You're got a mess that just keeps getting messier that more you try to clean it up. You've got a heart inside your chest that is choking on ashes while your head works overtime to call choking breathing.

When you're in a healthy relationship, a relationship built from healthy ingredients, it doesn't exist in your imagination. You don't need to take comfort in a story about being "certain" that "if the timing were right," plus all the "strong feelings," you could be in an "incredible relationship." You don't need to imagine "stripping away" the past and starting over, which is impossible and itself magical thinking, because the present is enough, nor do you need to take refuge in the "potential" because what is actual is simply satisfying and rich.

You don't need all that because you're just in it, you see? It is all heart, two full hearts having a blast, feeding off the health of the other, not a story of hearts and their capabilities being written by super-fried brains and buoyed on orgasms given and received in the shade.

When you genuinely want that, when you're genuinely ready for it and believing yourself worthy of it, something like what you're in right now won't be so potent. In fact, everything that is making it potent to you at the moment will be thing that make it less potent. It will be but a thin taste of the real thing—a humbling bummer to have to recognize it as that, but also not a bummer because it has whet your appetite for something deeper, realer.

All that is not to negate that you two share some kind of powerful connection and chemistry, or to say that it is "all" toxic and therefore meaningless; it's just also not negating where that connection has been built: in the shade, from a lot of toxins, and as such it's a detour from healthy, not a pathway toward it.

Think of it like drugs. I can gobble a bunch of mushrooms right now, go for a hike, and have a freakishly profound afternoon: wild thoughts and feelings, crazy colors, the landscape striking my eyes with interstellar beauty. That would all be real, in a sense. It would also be chemically induced. A fun, even meaningful and life-altering, experience. But still: very much just the experience of taking drugs and going for a walk. Were I to decide to make that experience my reality, my truth? Well, I'd be someone always on drugs, someone who needed to regularly ingest poison, or toxins, to feel complete, to find meaning, to "love" myself and what surrounds me.

You're high right now, I think, higher than you know or are willing to admit. The troubling part—but also not uncommon, and plenty human—is that you are reluctant to entertain that notion. Admitting it is humbling, and can be momentarily humiliating. But it is ultimately so freeing, and a free heart is a full one.

Not good. That hope is your ticket to a downward spiral. Best be realistic with yourself, have a nice pep talk in the car or in the shower or wherever is most comfortable for you and let her go. No contact is not a card to play. It's simply moving on and acknowledging that this is probably the poorest rendition of love or a relationship you'll ever get.