lecocole

Yes, I'm worth a lot more than that and deserve to be at peace in any relationship I have. That's why I left.

You're right, I definitely learned my lesson and I'm taking this time to reflect on my actions and better myself. I need to work a lot on my self-esteem. Thank you, everyone, for your advice.

By his family I meant his mom and siblings, his kid and ex are from where I live.

He arranged a talk in person with her to discuss her behavior. He thought it was unfair that she was constantly picking fights, insulting, and mistreating him and wanted to know the reason. That's when she confessed to him that she was acting up because she still had feelings. He told her about me, but she already knew and told him there was no need for him to tell her that. They started arguing, him saying that in the three years of them being separated, she never apologized, tried to fix things, or expressed a wish of getting back together, so she didn't believe her feelings were true because they only showed up when he was trying to start a new life. I listened to this because he had me on call, and I was able to hear everything. I wanted proof, so I recorded the whole thing. I was worried about some kind of reaction or spreading of lies on her part. This was after we broke up. When I broke up with him, he said to me that he understood my decision and he felt sorry he dragged me into his mess, so he decided to make his separation official via a legal document that they both signed, which stated the date of their separation (three years ago), custody agreements, and alimony. They didn't have any of that before.

I met his friends and saw them quite often. He never had a problem with us dating in public and being seen by his friends and colleagues. His family is from out of town, so I didn't get to meet them, but they knew about me. We only dated for 5 months, so I wasn't introduced to his kid. I went to his new place numerous times; I stayed there many weekends. I didn't go to his old place where his ex lived. She knew about me but never contacted me and didn't want me to reach out to her. Our relationship never was very serious; we definitely dated, but for half the time, I was unsure of us being together. It never really took off from there.

I'm facing a moral dilemma. My ex was a guy who, when I met him, still lived with the mother of his child (they were not married). They had been broken up for 3 years and lived together to take care of their son, their house was huge so each one had their space and barely saw each other. I got solid proof that he was telling me the truth. I never got to talk directly to her because she wasn't interested, but I had text messages, voice recorsings ans I listened to one of their conversations (I know it's wrong, but once I secretly listened to one of their conversations where she confirmed that they had been broken off for three years and nothing had happened between them in that period of time. My ex never led her on and was clear from the beginning that they were not getting back together.). That's how I confirmed that they were over and nothing had happened between them in those three years. He provided the proof I needed to consider dating him; that was one of my conditions. The other was that he moved out, which he did a couple of weeks later. Everything was okay until she started acting weird with him shortly after the move, fighting him over money and other random stuff. I got suspicious, so they talked again and she told him that she still had feelings for him. After that, I started questioning everything, and we eventually broke up because I didn't feel comfortable with the whole situation. When we started going out, he assured me that his ex was over him and that I didn't need to worry about that. To be fair, I don’t think he lied to me. That’s what he thought because during their time living together while separated, she never said anything or tried fixing their relationship, and he was clear with her that they were over for good. Now I feel conflicted with myself. I feel awful, to be honest. I know it was a weird position to put myself in in the first place, because who would date someone who lives with their ex right? But it's not that strange to me because my parents have lived like that for more than 13 years already, so I guess I kinda normalized it and thought that it was possible for an ex-couple to live like that with no feelings involved. Apparently, this wasn't the case so I felt guilty. I think it was wrong not to talk to her directly (she knew about me but we never spoke to each other) but I just didn’t really see the point. I got proof that they were over and they didn’t get along; she didn’t want to know anything about his life and barely agreed to a couple of conversations face to face with him. Do I have to feel guilty? Am I a homewrecker?