She broke his heart 3 years ago and now that he's with me she wants him back?

[Luna06]

I recently was left by my boyfriend for a long-distance ex who came back into the picture three years after breaking up with him. We were together six months. This is a long one, but to get the best feedback I want to portray as much of the situation and background as possible. So, here goes…

 

I am 24 and graduated from college a year and a half ago. I had been single for nearly three years at that point, after being badly hurt in my first relationship. After some serious soul searching and introspection, I was beginning to toy with the idea of a new relationship, but wasn’t necessarily looking for anything. Within seven months, I had met and started dating “Nick.” He was my age and worked at the same company and in the same profession. We do not share buildings though so I do not see him at work.

 

Initially, I kept my guard up emotionally. I told him the relationship would never be serious because I was thinking of leaving the area to return to school. He said he was fine with that. I played this card whenever I started feeling uncomfortable and wanted to pull back from him. Nick and I talked about this problem at length. I had also been spending time discovering my bad patterns and fixing them. At the beginning of relationships I can get “cold feet” and feel engulfed very easily, and if I pass this stage, I tend to assume I will be with the person forever and get totally attached, which is how I get hurt in the end.

 

Nick was very understanding and we talked very openly. He told me about his older brother who had been killed in a car crash when Nick was 17 and the ineffective ways he had dealt with the loss. (None of our friends know about his older brother). I learned about his ex girlfriend “Sarah” in college, who he had dated for nearly two years. She had broken up with him several months before she left for graduate school, coincidentally in the same state in which Nick and I would soon take jobs a year and a half later. They spent some time getting used to being just friends so that they would not have to experience the break up and Sarah’s relocation all at once. Nick was very devastated and did not have another girlfriend again until me. This was unique common ground, as we had each been dumped by people who meant everything to us. Sarah went on to date other people, some of whom were less responsible and more the “rough type,” if you know what I mean. I believe she even dated someone else prior to relocating for school. Through the next three years, they remained pals and mutual confidantes. Nick refers to her as his best friend.

 

When Nick moved to the same state as Sarah to start work, they traveled to visit one another, but no relationship re-materialized, save for one session of “messing around” because “they were both horny.” Sarah finished grad school and took a job on the east coast. (Nick and I live in the Midwest). The company Nick and I work for is the same type of company as Sarah’s (in fact, a close competitor of my company) and she could have easily obtained equally prestigious employment at Nick’s company if she had intentions of returning to him. Doing the math, all this was about the time that I first met Nick, and about three months before we started to date.

 

After a few months of dating, things between Nick and I began to change for the better. The relationship had taken root and started to grow. We were getting along great, we were honest about everything with each other, we had learned of and accepted each others’ mistakes, etc. I started being able to see myself with this guy long term because he was such a wonderful person at heart. On top of that, he shared my profession, my religion, sense of humor, values, what more could I ask for? We both agreed (for me, with difficulty at first because of my fear of engulfment) that the relationship had the potential to become “serious” and he mentioned moving toward commitment.

 

Around this time I started to get uncomfortable about his contact with Sarah. She was constantly calling him from her new state. When she started dating a new guy, she constantly called Nick about their problems or to learn Nick’s opinion. My discomfort stemmed from the fact that my parents are going through a divorce due to my father’s cultivation of a friendship with another woman, which ultimately led to a long and drawn out affair. We got in a lot of arguments because Nick insisted he should have the right to keep Sarah as his best friend. He also discussed certain aspects of our relationship with her that I felt were innapproriate to share with an ex. I told him that I was being essentially robbed from developing the same kind of friendship and emotional rapport with him, but he disagreed. My argument was that cultivating that friendship to that degree was dangerous and increased the risk of feelings redeveloping between them and me getting hurt. He absolutely refused to compromise and insisted he had moved on and that they “do not work as a couple.” One night, when I was feeling particularly insecure after she called, I said, “I don’t know how much more of this contact I can take. I won’t take it.” He became very sad, teared up, hugged me and said, “I really like you.” His reaction convinced me that he was being truthful, and from then on I decided to drop the issue. We remained together.

 

During this time, Nick returned to his college state to visit friends and saw Sarah, as they share friends. He made a second week-long trip to visit a handful of friends again, with Sarah on his list of visits. During his visits he called me daily to talk and says he misses me. Out of pure coincidence, I happened to be on a business trip in the same area one week while he was visiting. I excitedly suggested I go with him to meet his friends, at least for dinner on one of the nights. The initial reaction I got was as if he had said, “You’ve got to be kidding me, what are the F*cking odds of this happening.” He seemed uncomfortable taking a new girlfriend to visit his friends from college and that this would overstate the degree to which the relationship had progressed. He expressed concern over things being “weird” between Sarah and I, because he had told her the way I felt about their communication. He said Sarah was worried about losing him as a friend as a result of me. I was very hurt by his attitude and did not see why he had such a problem with me joining him, Sarah, and her boyfriend for dinner. Later on he sincerely apologized and felt very bad for the way he reacted. He invited me out to dinner with his friends, but I turned down the offer, partly because of a schedule conflict and partly because deep down, I felt unwelcome.

 

Despite this incident, things continued to go great between us. I began asking him if he would consider long distance if I went back to school. One day when I was feeling rather insecure about potentially getting my hopes up too high, I told him I had decided that I was not going to waste my time in a go-nowhere relationship and I needed his answer right then and there. He acted like I was pressuring him into commitment, and from his point of view, I was. But I needed him to tell me whether long distance was a flat-out “no” or if he might consider it for the right person. He also asked point blank if I loved him. I was caught off guard, as we had not said those words before. I got defensive and said that was an unreasonable thing to demand an answer for after only a few months, or something along those lines. He then made the point that my question to him was equally misplaced after only this much time together. Nick had said in the past that he “didn’t do long distance,” but that we would see where our relationship was at when the time got closer to the point of me actually leaving for school. At that point, we would evaluate whether or not to pursue the relationship long-distance.

 

Now comes the shocker…

 

A week and a half later, I decided not to go home for Easter, and he invited me to spend it with him and his family in his home state. After arriving, as I was brushing my teeth, I overheard him in the living room talking on the phone. I heard him mention that he was at home and that I was with him. That detail apparently set the other person off, as Nick immediately and defensively tried to calm her by saying I essentially had nowhere to go for Easter. After he said her name, I went a bit numb. After he hung up, I approached him and asked him why she was so upset and that I had overheard their conversation. He asked me to sit down and said that two weeks earlier (he was on a business trip at the time), Sarah’s boyfriend had dumped her. Things had not been going well and Sarah had been wondering if she should even be with the guy. She had called Nick afterwards, very emotional, and confessed the following: She had been redeveloping feelings for him the last few times he had visited their college state. She had always found herself, after his visits, comparing her boyfriend to Nick as a “standard,” and she now had feelings for Nick again. She was essentially hysterical when she found out I was at his parent’s house and was so mad that she deleted his number from her phone (I later learned this from him). I asked why he had not told me sooner and he said he had felt terrible about it, but he did not want to tell me over the phone when he was out of town, and that he did not want to tell me during Easter at his parents - He would have told me after Easter. To this day, I believe him because I have observed nothing but moral integrity in this guy from day one, in all aspects.

 

I asked Nick to tell me if he still had feelings for her and not to lie. He took a deep breath and said that he thought he had moved on, but that this recent string of contact had re-awakened his feelings for her - feelings he claimed he did not even realize he had anymore. He said she was being extremely emotional and that he wasn’t sure her feelings were authentic. Out of my shock and disbelief, I said that in that case, perhaps the right thing to do was to break up immediately. He was upset and said that if he had wanted to end things, he would have done so during our last argument about the long distance potential. But he did not end it, because he saw our relationship “going somewhere.” His exact words were, “If I didn’t think this was going somewhere, I would have ended it then.”

 

The next afternoon when his parents weren’t around, we talked some more. I told him I had done some thinking and that I did not want to break up, but that he would have to make a decision based on his feelings and that I would trust him to do the right thing. I gave him about two weeks to think. I told him I was not going to sit around and wait for him to make up his mind like my mother had let my father do. I was either with him all the way, or not at all. The rest of the weekend went well. His family loved me, I got to meet some of his friends, and Nick and I spent a lot of quality time together.

 

On Sunday, the long drive home was rather awkward. I slept or read most of the time, and he was very quiet. We didn’t really talk at all. When we got back, I helped him unload his car and we sat on the couch to talk. He said that he had used the drive to think through the situation. He said he did not know how to rid himself of the feelings he had for Sarah and essentially that it wasn’t right for him to be with me because of that fact. He had decided that we should “just be friends,” but that it “still hurt.” This was very emotional for him. He cried, and hugged me. I did not hug back, but I teared up. I was very uncomfortable and did not want to show my emotion, so I took it very casually and left immediately. He wanted me not to leave right away, but I wanted the hell out of there.

 

A week went by without either of us calling. (I told him that withdrawal facilitated moving on.) He then called me to invite me to a get together at his place that he’d had planned for awhile even though I already knew about it. After, I’d had too much to drink and he wanted to talk, so after everyone left I stayed. I don’t remember what all was said, but I had decided that I had sold myself short in the breakup and didn’t really make much of an effort to stop it, which may have caused him to think I was indifferent. So in my emotional state, I confessed to him that he had meant “as much to me as grad school” and that it took this breakup for his meaning to me to really sink in. I told him I would do anything to have him back, but not under these circumstances (the ex situation). I told him if I ever did love someone, the guy would have at least everything Nick had. I even asked him if he had loved me, and he said that things could have been moving in that direction, but that no, he did not love me. I was sobbing. I asked him if he was getting back with Sarah now and he said that he was “going to try,” but felt unsure about his situation because of the distance factor. We both cried and hugged for a very long time. He asked me not to drive so upset and to stay the night on his couch. However, I was so upset that after he went to sleep in his room, I snuck out and drove home.

 

I saw him periodically with friends over the next three weeks. I was constantly preoccupied with his status with Sarah, but I did not contact him. Three weeks after the breakup, I was going nuts and decided that I really needed closure and to be 100% certain that distancing myself and moving on were my best option. I asked him to talk after I saw him at a group event.

 

I asked him if he and Sarah were back together at that point, and he said that they "kind of" were, and that they in fact would be seeing each other that weekend at an event at their college, with their mutual group of college friends. He also gave me some additional detailed confessions about Sarah that he had not shared in the beginning. He said that even after they had broken up, he "knew" that she just wasn't ready to settle down, and that she needed to go date other people and go to grad school and live the life she needed to at the time, which she did. He said that when they were together, and even after they had broken up, he thought that through it all somehow they would “work through all the problems,” they would end up together, and she was "the one." When nothing of that nature materialized between them even after Nick moved to her state for his job, I assume that was the point where he may have started to accept the fact that they were over, because he finally started to date again after she left. He also said that when he began telling friends that they were in the process of reuniting (friends I have never met and who have never met me), their comments were, "Well, you always did seem happiest when you were on the phone with her." He told me that Sarah’s mother had thought that dumping Nick was foolish and wondered why Sarah dated the kind of guys she went on to date, rather than getting back together with Nick.

 

So I asked point blank if the chances were “essentially zero” of things working out with us. He said, "Pretty much, unless things don't work out with her, but then you wouldn't be interested anyway because you would feel second choiced." I was very upset at this point, so I agreed with him and said that I would not be able to be “second choiced” and that I could never be with someone who had done this to me. He said I deserved better and I agreed with him. He said repeatedly during the conversation that he felt like "the bad guy" and that he never thought he would dump someone for another girl, and he felt guilty for getting involved with me. (Why? I thought the feelings for Sarah didn’t emerge until she came crying back to him!) I got up from the bench we were sitting on and said I had heard enough (firmly, not angrily). He tried to stop me, but I said, "You have already given me the answer I needed in order to close this door. I had six months with you, and I am here. She is a million miles away. And that still wasn’t enough." He asked if things would still be ok seeing each other with friends, and I said they would be fine. (We do share many mutual friends.) Then I walked away.

 

I spent the weekend letting the situation sink in. What had happened finally hit me, and it knocked the wind out of me. I felt like he had the upper hand and I didn’t like it one bit. On Monday, I sent him an email requesting that he not contact me “until I have established a real relationship in which I am not treated as a void-filler and a backup.” On Thursday, I bagged up all the gifts I had ever received from him, drove to his apartment, and hung the bag around the door knob. Since then I have completely avoided him. No phone calls, no email, no instant messenger. In fact I blocked him on instant messenger because seeing his screen name was driving me nuts.

 

That was a month ago. I saw him at the company softball game last week and requested our friends to ask him to keep his distance. This didn’t keep him from finding an excuse to add in his two cents when he overheard me say something. Pathetically, I found his ex’s MySpace page and she still has her profile set to “Single,” two months after Nick and I broke up. Based on this and on what I hear from our friends, they’re still in the “kind of” back together state they were in a month ago. I don’t get it. If they were going to get back together, wouldn’t they have already done so??

 

I am in between feeling hurt and wanting him back, but so much would have to happen. What I am so confused about is, at Easter he said that if he had wanted to break up with me, he would have done so when she first confessed her feelings to him if he had not thought that him and I were “going somewhere.” Now, he has done almost a total 180. I have gotten some clarity on this point, because he was apparently waiting to see if she was just reaching out to him in emotion and desperation in the wake of her break up. Now he seems to be convinced that her feelings are authentic, based on the fact that she told him her feelings have been reemerging over some months, not just all of a sudden. This whole thing to Nick is now a validation that hanging on for three years were the right thing to do. I thus predict that, having closed the door on me, he is going to put his entire being into resurrecting things with her, who left him in the first place.

 

The only thing that keeps me feeling better right now is to convince myself that he is not doing the right thing, that things will not work between them, that he will realize his mistake and go through the necessary grief and withdrawal process to abandon his old hopes and expectations with her, and that as a result of it all he will be naturally drawn back to me because of how open and honest and respectable we were about everything. The fact is, if they are truly going to work out, one of them will be forced to commit to a relocation. The last I heard from him, neither of them was ready to do that. They will also have to work through whatever problems existed with the relationship before.

 

Anyway, after all that (if you’re still reading),

 

What should I do? - Move on, try to be friends again, stay in the “no contact” state?

What about Nick and Sarah? What do you think of their relationship? Will it last?

Wouldn’t they have gotten officially back together after two months have passed now?

Why did Sarah return to Nick after three years, when she could have had him back when they were in the same state? Did she truly just not realize what Nick meant to her until now? Or is she just looking for a quick fix? This whole thing is eating away at my thoughts and draining my energy.

 

Thanks

Luna06

[HoTung]

Hi

 

I know its hard and really sucks

 

I think you should move on - he clearly has put an ex before you even when their relationship is not clearly back on. could you handle being second best? You will always wonder when she is going to call back.

 

It is easier said than done i know that

 

As to contact - do whatever makes u feel better. NC is so hard. I have been in contact with my ex and sometimes i feel fine but usually a few days after i feel rubbish as i hope things will go back to how they were

[i_win]

"Initially, I kept my guard up emotionally. I told him the relationship would never be serious because I was thinking of leaving the area to return to school. He said he was fine with that. I played this card whenever I started feeling uncomfortable and wanted to pull back from him. Nick and I talked about this problem at length. I had also been spending time discovering my bad patterns and fixing them. At the beginning of relationships I can get “cold feet” and feel engulfed very easily, and if I pass this stage, I tend to assume I will be with the person forever and get totally attached, which is how I get hurt in the end."

 

First of all, this probably really stunted the relationship in a negative way and I don't think it could develop like most normal heated relationships do in the beginning. Try to work on this issue so that the next relationship you get in will be blissful. There is always an element of risk when you start up a relationship. A risk of giving up yourself and not having it work out and your feelings crushed. But you need to be willing to give things a shot because having this barrier up at the beginning is confusing to the other partner and unfair to yourself to not want to feel anything.

 

As to your questions:

 

Move on. Stay in no contact. You need to be completely out of the picture. Any interruption into Nick and Sarah's life will just end up hurting you and they will both look at you as an annoyance. Find someone that doesn't have a Sarah who is just always there. I think it's safe to say that Nick always had feelings for her throughout your relationship and the strength of these feelings varied. I don't think he ever got over her essetentially, and as the dumpee, it is usually harder because he didn't want the relationship to end in the first place! I think Sarah is just using him as an in between boyfriend and Sarah always knows he'll come when called.

 

Their relationship? I don't think it will last. Sarah is using him as a quick fix and Nick idealizes her because she's the one that got away. Long distance is also going to add to the idealism that they have for one another since they don't get to see eachother on a daily basis and their bad sides...just occasionally and everything stays fun.

 

I don't think you should care what happens with them. Find a guy that wants to put you #1 and doesn't have some girl who still sticks around.

 

That was a really long post I think you could have summed it up more and more people would read and respond

[iloveyoumorethanyouknow]

I think you should just stay away from him for now. Don't contact im or anything or it will hurt you more in the process. Seriously, you don't need a guy who's unsure about himself. He didn't want to break up with you, but he's trying to fix things with her not with you. You deserve better than this. Don't hang on to a guy who hurt you and who will only continue to hurt you. Don't be second choice. That's messed up. Stand your ground. You can do without him. He'll realize what he lost sooner or later. As for their relationship, who knows where it will go. You shouldn't worry about it anymore because it'll only hurt you if they do succeed in having a good relationship. Sometimes its better to leave things the way they are and not dig any deeper. The reason why people leave, is because there's someone better.

[orangesoda]

1. NC and move on. Don't try to be friends. You may work together but that's it. No contact outside of professional needs.

 

2. It doesn't matter what your ex and his ex are or are not. You have to concern yourself with taking care of you, and not pay attention to them.

 

Although if you want my opinion, Nick is setting himself up to get screwed again - his ex's BF dumped her, so she turned around and went after him, because he's comfortable and familiar and safe - only to find out you had taken her space. We all want what we can't have - so she played the 'I have feelings for you again' card, and Nick ate that up like a starving dog. I think once their old problems resurface, she's going to Deep 6 him again. And he's being contradictory to you - if he doesn't do long distance, isn't that what he's jumping into now? Because she works on the east coast, and he's in the mid west? Huh?

 

3. It doesn't matter if they're officially back together - the only thing that matters is that you and Nick are officially NOT together. So you should move on.

 

4. I think Sarah turned to Nick because her BF just dumped her and she was looking to for someone to make her feel safe and loved again, and Nick was the guy who was too naive to set boundaries with an ex - and he let himself get roped in. So now his ex, who dumped him before, has now caused his next relationship to go sour. It's sad that he doesn't realize how much control she has over him. I have a bad feeling he's going to be completely ruined if she uses him as a rebound to get over her previous BF.

[BeStrongBeHappy]

Hi Luna...

 

I don't have a crystall ball to tell their future, but i can give you some general thoughts on this based on my experience and your story. There could be several things going on here.

 

First, there are some people, especially men, who just won't do a long distance relationship because they don't get much sex. But that doesn't mean that they won't have one 'steady' girlfriend and another girl on the hook in another town.

 

It sounds like they both knew they weren't ready to settle down, and he wasn't ready to give up sex for a long distance relationship, so while living apart, their solution was to stay emotionally close, but date other people. I would not guarantee that he wasn't having sex with her when he went to see her, even if they were both cheating on their local partners, you and Sarah's boyfriend. So they kept that relationship on the back burner while apart, but still kept it very active emotionally.

 

The other thing that could be happening is that he has always wanted her to be the one, but she has not wanted to settle down or commit to him and move where he wanted to live. But as soon as she has no local boyfriend, she reverts to making him promises, or reeling him in closer.

 

Or both of them could be the types who want whatever they don't have. As soon as she saw the door closing with him getting serious with you, she has to have him. As soon as he breaks up with you, she's in control again and puts on the brakes. So there is a good chance they have a toxic, enmeshed, but not necessarily healthy relationship.

 

He could have broken up with you because he realized you were catching on to the fact that their relationship was not as platonic as he claimed. He knew he couldn't keep both of you on the hook much longer, so he made the safe choice. He can still find other girls to date locally and pull the same thing on them... still have a relationship with Sarah when he's in her town, but still have steady sex and a local girlfriend when at home.

 

I was someone's out of town girlfriend for a while, where he lied to me about his local girlfriend, pretending he wasn't in a relationship with anyone. I eventually discovered he was not only in a relationship, but living with her and lying about being available to me. So you can't really be sure what he was telling Sarah about you, regardless of what he told you about her.

 

But i really do think that you behaved wonderfully and very maturely through all this and made the right choices. No, you shouldn't be second best, nor should you agree to be jerked around by him or his ex-girlfriend. If you feel this is unresolved, and you still think there might be potential there, you might have one last talk where you tell him that IF he has changed his mind and IF he agrees to totally put her out of his life, you would consider trying again, but if she isn't a closed book, you are history. There is no point trying to be his friend when you have all these emotions going.

 

You sound like a lovely smart person and deserve to have someone who is all your own, and TRULY available for a relationship, which he has never been regardless of what he pretended to be.

 

If he prefers Sarah fine, so be it, but you have better things to do than wait around for him to waffle back and forth some more. He's had his chance, and if he didn't take it, then for your own good move on.

[i_win]

Oh man, you're good. You read that situation perfectly. I agree wholeheartedly with this.

[Luna06]

Wow, these have been some fast and great replies despite the length of my post! Sorry about that..

 

I have essentially heard the same things from people I talk to, so it's so wonderful to get affirmations from all of you. No one I talk to thinks they are going to last either, and that I should maintain NC. What really sucks though is, as long as I know he's screwing up and keep getting confirmation from others that he's screwing up, it's going to be tough for me to get closure. It would be one thing if their dynamic and the power imbalance wasn't so completely awful. If they were obviously meant to be and loved each other as equals and she wasn't rebounding and hadn't abandoned him for three years, it would be SOO easy for me to move on. But I keep telling myself he'll realize his mistake and learn from it and that keeps me comforted...

[i_win]

You don't want to be with someone who finds it so easy to get rid of you at the first sign of a better opportunity. Even if he does come back, you don't want him. He doesn't really love you and I don't think you really love him. They do happen to make good men out there, find one that will love you and make you #1.

 

Be strong, I would ignore him at all costs if he tries to come back into the picture and my guess is that he will.

[redhearts]

Woah. Thats a lot, you are very smart, handled it well, wrote this very well. Your very mature.

 

I too agree with orange soda. I mean to me its disgusting, he went back to an ex after she went around with a few guys and what not-- then kind of used you to hell maybe even get back at her, but ended up liking you.

 

It'll be good to do no contact, because you don't want to end up in Sarahs shoes or worse..

 

So be strong, I can already tell your a strong and smart woman.

 

Forget him, you'll find someone 10x better than him! Who will love you 100% and give it his all to you.

[Luna06]

Wow, thanks. I can't believe there are perfect strangers out there who will take the time to read other people's grief and give advice for free. You are all the best.

Nick has a lot to learn, and I think the time frame required for him to do that is so long, I will have started seeing someone else anyway. It's really sad for him, but hey I guess that's life. I have done stupid things analogous to what he did, only with more casual dating scenarios, not a full-fledged relationship. He doesn't have the insight I have. It will probably take her dumping him for that to happen, plus a loooong time and personal work.

[Luna06]

Yeah I agree. For us to work, it would have to start over from square one. I mean we would have to naturally be drawn back together, fall for each other, etc. etc. At least after all this damage has been done.

It's kind of ironic that at first we were both cool with things being not serious but that we ended up actually being pretty well compatible. Life throws you a curveball sometime I guess and you have to learn from it but it is so damn hard.

[redhearts]

At least you handled this very well and aren't moping around being pathetic, basically.

 

I'm shocked as to how great you handled this, how strong and smart of a person you are!

 

You seem like a great girl and the next guy you date will be very lucky to have you!

[Luna06]

Hey,

thanks for all the helpful advice. I wanted to let everyone know that "Sarah" actually came all the way to the midwest to visit "Nick" for Memorial day weekend. She still lists herself single on myspace, I am not sure what to think of this, and frankly I don't really care because regardless of whether or not they are serious, mutual visits are going to be part of the picture. It's now been two months to the day since Nick and I broke up and I am getting sick of this preoccupation. Anyway, I have started hanging out with other guys and thinking of casually dating. I'm moving on. It's still tough, but I'm getting there.

Luna

[Suzanne1281]

Hi Luna,

 

Oh how I wish I had read your post when it came out. I am going through such a similar situation. His ex's name is even actually Sarah, they were long distance, AND the bomb dropped for me on Easter Sunday too when he told me he was torn about his feelings. They were long distance, she cheated, they had a ton of problems and broke up. Months later he dated me, but apparently his feelings never went away for her and they kept in contact. I won't get into my whole story. But I wish I had read your post when it came out because it's very inspiring to see how maturely and strongly you handled it. Honestly, I'll keep reading your post and everyone's replies for strength to get through my situation because all I've done for two months is mope and the times he and I had contact didn't help a thing. His status on myspace is still "single" and he has no status on Facebook nor are there any new pictures of them...but I have no clue what is happening. My fear is that he's waiting for her "big move" here for the summer. I agree-it is so hard. I'm starting to see new guys too and hopefully time and time away from him will heal. Like you, we have a lot of mutual friends and I don't bring it up to them so I dont' ask them to keep him away from me.

 

Like you, I had issues in the beginning about getting close to him too quickly because every guy I've dated for the past ten years has done this same thing to me. It only took me about 2 months to really trust him and know I wanted a serious relationship but by then he had apparently slept with his ex again.

 

Like you, she decided to make another move for him and move here AFTER she found out about me. She also freaked out on him when he told her he was really with me and that's when he basically left me. I don't see how it will work when he told her he won't isolate himself from his friends for her (she hates his friends). If her status still says single, I wouldn't worry about it working out. And after reading this thread, I see how important it is for girls like us to just go NC and move on even though it feels impossible to do that sometimes.

 

Also, if it's any comfort to you, one of my best guy friends did this. He was dating a new girl and getting really into her when his ex whom he'd had a lot of problems with called him and said she was too jealous. They started going back out, had the same problems and it just did not work out.

 

IT's been two months for me too and I'm just so sick of being worried with it.

 

How do you handle the mutual friends situation now? Do you ignore him or just act cordial?

[spazmy]

Suzanne, you are not going to believe this. My ex is also called Sarah!

[Luna06]

Hi Luna,

 

Oh how I wish I had read your post when it came out. I am going through such a similar situation. His ex's name is even actually Sarah, they were long distance, AND the bomb dropped for me on Easter Sunday too when he told me he was torn about his feelings. They were long distance, she cheated, they had a ton of problems and broke up. Months later he dated me, but apparently his feelings never went away for her and they kept in contact. ...

...

How do you handle the mutual friends situation now? Do you ignore him or just act cordial?

 

Hi - Sorry I have not checked the forum in a long time. To answer your questions, I completely ignore him unless it is necessary for me to interact. At first I would give him the cold shoulder if he tried to, but it was really beating a dead horse especially since I was starting to stop caring- I had begun to accept the situation and the fact that he was not over her. My advice for you is to stay no contact- don't even arrange coincidence encounters. If you must communicate about something, do NOT take advantage of the opportunity. My experience early on was that contact and conversations just made me feel worse. After awhile, I stoped caring so much and now I can handle being in his vicinity with our group of friends.

 

About the myspace/facebook status-

My opinion has always been, if it's not facebook official, it's probably not official (at least for my generation). "Sarah" is still listed as single on myspace, after over three months. She upddated her status to single right away when she was dumped, and single she remains. She has two facebook profiles- one of them says single and the other is not specified. Yeah- I am moving on, but the curious ex is still in me and I get the urge to know what their status is.

 

As far as I know, Nick has not referred to Sarah as his girlfriend, and knowing him this means they are "dating" but not "together." This doesn't surprise me, since it was Nick's effort to actually resurrect the relationsihp. Sarah was just livid at him for having me over at his parents' house, and the fact that that could mean we were, *gasp!*, serious!

 

Anyway, I really hope you are feeling better. It helps to get out and meet new people and try new activities. It's slow at first, but I have really expanded my group of friends and my activities. I even joined link removed to get communicating with different guys, just on a casual basis. It's really uplifting and helps you realize the ex isn't the only one out there for you.

 

Luna