anon807968

@Rose Mosse He said many times he loved me and didn't feel this way for years. I didn't think I loved him until last month. He was frustrated that I didn't reciprocate his feelings and was afraid I was stringing him along, and his insecurity caused many of our arguments. Anyway, I felt his words didn't mean much because I didn't really see love through his actions. I don't think I'm rigid and incapable of love like him. I yielded to many of his boundaries and wishes. I would've stopped talking to my sick ex. I put a lot more into the relationship than he did, because he's an emotionally high maintenance person and had a lot of issues in his life that I tried to help him out with. But since I couldn't shut up and accept his baseless criticism of me, i.e. accept him exactly the way he is, I suppose I was trying to change him too.

Update: I was weak and contacted him to try again. I missed him and I didn't want to start over and date again. I thought I get him to compromise with minimal contact with my ex (i.e. only news of major changes in his health). If not, I would agree to end contact very soon. We never got to discussing that and we ”broke up” again in record time, within 2 hours. When we met, he was pretty cold and it hurt that he moved on quickly. He went on a few dates and said he felt better by the second week already. He had little to say about our breakup, only that he felt better to not be arguing. I wanted to discuss our last break up and the issues, but he didn't want to because he said he had enough of arguing. He told me many times how I was wrong and what I did was wrong, but when I simply questioned him or tried to correct a misunderstanding of his, he perceived that as arguing and rehashing our old problems to upset him. He shut down the conversation and told me to leave, and snidely said good luck as I left. I was angry at first but then was so sad how he treated me so coldly and disrespectfully. I apologized and admitted my wrongdoings and what I could change, and he never did. I know how he treated me is not real love, and that he is incapable of truly loving someone else since he doesn't even love himself. He has quite a dysfunctional history of relationships, so it's odd how he thinks he knows what is best or important for a relationship. I should have listened to everyone's posts, but now I won't have regrets and can put him completely behind me. I blocked him everywhere, including email. I now accept that it's better to be alone than to be with someone like him.

You're right that's an excuse. I'm sorry you were abused. He never got therapy (doesn't believe in it) and he has low emotional intelligence. From a brief interaction, my friend thought he could be narcissistic.

This is very true. I felt I had to not mention things and suppress my opinions to get along with him. Right, I didn't know my ex had cancer until I reached out. I missed our friendship but honestly wanted a distraction from the previous breakup -- I didn't know if he'd reply to me. Well, good chemistry is hard to find for me, and I'm not young. But I know that shouldn't be a reason to stay in a bad relationship. Your post and others in this thread are helping me so much to stick to this breakup, thank you.

He has good points and we have good chemistry. He talked about breaking up but we'd only break up because I wanted to. He wanted our relationship more than I did for most it. He's an external thinker and I think he wanted me to dispel his doubts about our relationship. I feel I'm responsible for the major issues on his side -- that if I didn't lie, if I didn't want to talk to my ex now, if I didn't argue and just agreed with him about various issues (like it's wrong to want to be friends with exes), he wouldn't be so hurt, angry, and frustrated with me, and he would not have lashed out. I also thought I could learn to adjust to his strong personality and be less sensitive. He was abused as a child and has a lot of pain from his past, so I hoped if he felt secure I love him, that would resolve much of our conflict. I would be ok with my ex ending contact with me. I want him to be happy, and I'd be happy if he found a good woman. If my ex were not sick, I most likely would have ended contact again to stay with my bf.

I wish he were mature and secure. If he were in my situation, I would support him helping his ex. I kept asking him what would he do, and all he had to say finally was that he wouldn't do what I'm doing, and that he doesn't want to feel like he's a bad guy for wanting no contact. I did say how I'd limit my communication so he'd be comfortable. He agreed at first but changed his mind after a couple weeks. I never talked about my ex unless he asked -- it's not like I rubbed it in or acted differently like I was sad or preoccupied. I don't feel guilty I'm healthy, just was so sad and worried that my ex could die soon without any support. I care about him and want to help him, same as with any close friend who's alone.

Early on he told me he talked to his kid often. He had to move far away for work (jobs in his field are concentrated in our area), and he was bitter about his divorce, complaining men end up the losers and don't get custody even if the woman cheated. His child sent him a nice father's day card the previous year, so I assumed they have a decent relationship. I didn't ask many questions bc it seemed like a sore spot for him. He was very defensive about his past and felt like I criticized him if I asked more than a few questions. The day we broke up, I found out he last talked to his child 1.5 months ago. That was a red flag.

He had the choice to leave and so did I, so I'm not sure he was actually controlling in this matter. When we started dating, he never told me to stop talking to my ex (I made that decision so he wouldn't break up with me and I agreed he was right). But I guess it was how he gradually imposed his demands on me as our relationship progressed. Anyway, he was controlling in other ways, e.g. he didn't like what I read/watched for entertainment, or that I occasionally chatted with male coworker friends I knew for years. I stopped mentioning a lot of things to avoid snide comments and arguments. He even wanted to break up if I took a job that he thought could affect how often we saw each other, yet he took a job that moved him out of state. He was already this controlling and verbally abusive in 10 months, scary to think how he'd be if we were married. I won't go back, and fortunately we have a clear dealbreaker now. I do need to take time to myself and understand why I put up with his abuse.

Yes, I stopped making excuses for him and realized that he's an abusive jerk. He is a hateful person and would say mean things about other people, excusing it as jokes, and he finally turned that hate on me. My bf insisted for a long time that my ex lied about having cancer, because it was too coincidental that he was diagnosed shortly before we reconnected. Didn't even believe me when I showed him test results. Nice, huh? Fortunately, my ex is responding well to medicine so he's out of the woods for now.

Funny thing is he thinks I was doing the push/pull and played games. He said I was distant for most of our relationship. I did have my guard up because of our frequent arguments. I broke up with him many times because I was fed up with the pattern of our arguments -- I'd tell him he said something that hurt/upset me, but he'd get defensive, dismiss my feelings, attack me, and make himself the victim. But then I'd miss him and reach out to make up half the time because he has good points like he can be sweet and loving. I also forget the bad easily.

@bluecastleThank you for your thoughtful, insightful response. Yes, we both tried to make it work despite obvious incompatibilities. We did love each other and maybe we were hooked on the drama of breakups and making up. I cut out my ex because I lied to my bf once and didn't want him to dump me. Long story short, I lied about when my ex and I last emailed. Not that I had anything to hide, and I showed him my emails so he could see for himself. I was just conflict avoidant and felt uneasy about his reaction. I convinced him to not dump me after I said I'd end contact with my ex. I really regret that I lied. I understand how I hurt his feelings and broke his trust. But he has trust issues because of his past -- he couldn't trust me and imagined other things about my character/values to question. I tried to make up for it since then, putting up with his interrogations and accusations for months. Yet he'd disregard that I forgave him for lying to me for several months about a potential dealbreaker. I do need to work on my boundaries. I don't have much experience with relationships and my bf made me feel it was wrong and I'm abnormal to want to stay in touch with my ex. He was verbally abusive and I think I got brainwashed into making excuses for him. Fortunately, my ex having cancer made me strong enough to finally end the relationship, as I saw that my bf was not worth cutting out my ex.

My boyfriend and I just broke up after a tumultuous 10 months. He doesn't believe exes, or even men and women in general, can be friends. My ex and I are good friends after a long-term relationship that faded to a platonic friendship for the last several years. He lives across the country, and I don't want to get back together with him, so he was no threat to my bf. I cut off contact with him a few months after I started dating my bf to comply with his boundaries. I was sad and felt guilty to hurt him abruptly, but it seemed reasonable to do for a new relationship. My bf and I broke up and got back together many times. After our last, nastiest breakup that seemed final to me (he called me bad names, said he didn't want to hear from me again, and said he was going on dates again), I reached out to my ex to reconnect as friends. He told me he recently found out he has cancer. It sounded very serious, and since he has no support network, I wanted to provide emotional support -- to listen to him if he wants to talk/chat so he doesn't feel alone. My bf reached out to get back together, so I told him I talked to my ex and about his cancer. He said I was a cheater for going to him the instant we broke up, that he had always been on my mind during the relationship (I may have missed our friendship for several months but I got over it as I fell in love with my bf). We managed to reconcile after he accepted me communicating with my ex with boundaries and for no more than 1 year, but he kept changing his mind while I offered less and less communication to compromise. We finally broke up after I got tired of the ultimatums and other issues. My bf said I lack empathy for not caring about his feelings, while he talked about his dates and reaching out to an ex-girlfriend to hurt me. He keeps in touch with an ex-wife apparently because of their children, but he's not transparent about it and who knows what they talk about (she wanted to reconcile after their divorce several years ago). He's not even close to his child, he lives far away and talks to them infrequently, so why does he need to get updates from the ex-wife instead of talking to his child directly who is old enough to have a serious conversation? Frustrated by his rigidness and double standards. Am I so unreasonable or selfish for wanting to give temporary emotional support to my ex? I would think serious illness is a mitigating circumstance.