vertigo

i know this is a very old post to be bumping right back to the top, but elbandido's reply has been so much use to me in the last few months that i thought it would be good for others to see it. all the best to everyone going through this s***!

hi i'm in the same position. together for 1.5 years. work together. did everything together, breakfast, lunch, coffee breaks. she spent the whole relationship begging me to move in and marry her. i refused. in the end we split, mutually (i thought). She made me swear not to see anyone at work. Then 3 weeks after the split she's seeing a guy in my office. I see them around sometimes. It was a sunny day yesterday so i went and sat out in the park and they were there, just as we used to be, lying together, looking really into each other. i said hi, walked past and ignored them. It's so hard to move on, somedays i'm fine others i want to kill them both! I have to see him all day every day. Me and her had some contact but it got quite bitter and now she seems to not care what i see or what anyone else at work knows about the whole thing. She sometimes mails and it inevitably turns into a row and she always says "i thought you'd be cool with this by now..." which makes me even madder! It's so hard. Everyday i wake up dreading work, every day i go home angry and confused. It makes it so hard to get over. It's good to know that others are in the same boat tho.

thanks for the advice her being with this guy has really knocked my self esteem because, having been in 3 relationships (with little or no break) over the last 10 years, i think i largely base my self esteem on being loved by someone else and seeing myself as someone who is able to be special to them. her saying i was the love of her life/would i marry her etc... made me feel great about myself but then 3 weeks later she goes off with this other guy and has basically pulled the rug from beneath my feet. it's revealed to me that i have very little self esteem when i'm on my own, and made me feel pretty worthless. on a separate note i am genuinely worried for her too. i still do love her and care for her and her son and her behaviour is completely out of character. 3 days before she got with the new guy she contacted me by email, we ended up rowing and i ended up saying that she was too pushy and would never be happy. she broke down into tears. then a few days later they're together. now i know she has her life and i have mine but i'm really worried she'll do something that will hurt her and her little boy. sorry, i'm pretty confused by all this. it's all very new to me and very very raw.

i do regret it to a large part, but i'm just not ready to settle down and be in a family for the rest of my life. for the first few weeks i was in real denial but now i realise that i do miss her and still love her. but i don't want the relationship back. i just don't know what to think about how she is behaving. could she really have got over me this quickly? we agreed we'd never see anyone from work out of respect and she went back on that, plus she's already exposing her son to another man, something the woman i knew would never have done. i just don't know where i stand anymore, what was true and what wasn't. if she loved me so much how could she be doing this with another guy, here, at work, already!

Hi, i'm new here so thanks in advance for any advice. I've just spent a year and a half with a woman. We were in love, she much more than me (or so i thought). Over that time she repeatedly told me how i was the love of her life, how she'd never felt so strongly for anyone etc... She was desperate to settle with me forever and we split up a few times because i wouldn't move in/marry her. Over the past 6 months i completely stopped making any effort with her, we still had fun and great sex but i forgot her birthday, valentines, went on 4 holidays without her and refused, despite constant pleading, to move in. Finally she became unhappy with the situation and we split because we both admitted we would never provide what the other wanted. After the split we were very close for 2 weeks, still acting as tho we were together, then i went away for 2 weeks and came back and she was totally different, very cold and uninterested. Despite this she still initiated some contact with me by email. i asked if she was seeing anyone and she said she'd met someone she liked and was only not seeing him out of respect to me. we ended up rowing. Last week i discovered she has started seeing this guy from work (we work together). This has completely destroyed me. Suddenly i feel like everything she said was a lie and like our whole relationship was a sham. She has a little boy and was always careful to protect him. I was like a father to him and suddenly i hear that she is taking him out with her new guy. This is completely out of character too. I don't want to get back with her as i realise it wasn't right, but at the same time i feel completely hurt and betrayed. I walk round work hoping to bump into her, but now am trying to initiate no contact. I just feel so hurt by her behaviour it's tearing me up.