Ex not moving on (long)

[plutooonium]

Last summer I broke up with my girlfriend of one year. We had begun dating the summer before, where we met both working at an all-girls summer Girl Scout camp. It was a relationship that just sort of happened, there was no build-up, there was no chasing or intimate bond prior. One evening we kissed, and we just stuck together after that. Throughout the year I became aware of how very different we were at the core. She was a few years younger than me, a senior in HS, and though I've only ever dated my age or younger, I had never felt the age-difference more than in this relationship. One particularly sore point in the relationship became her mother, because even though she had come out to her mother a year before we got together, I was her first girlfriend.. So her mother seemed dead-set on breaking us up; we weren't allowed alone in a room together, she wasn't allowed on the phone late at night, and in fact had her phone taken away from her for doing so. She had a very different personality than me, which is normally not a bad thing, but I just couldn't pretend I was okay with many of her immature actions and how she treated me like she knew me better than I knew myself, when I felt very differently on the subject.

 

Around March, I met someone with whom I had a very strong connection and attraction to. I worked with her at my year-round job, and while I crushed hardcore from a distance, I had no idea that she had any feelings for me until after I had decided that my current relationship was not going to work out.

 

Now, I have been broken up with, and I have broken up with people, and neither one is easy. At the time, I didn't really have a clear explanation for her as to why I didn't want to be in a relationship with her anymore, I just knew that I was unhappy, that my life was stagnant and I didn't see myself moving forward or growing with her, and that it was time to end it. So I did. But I know that I didn't explain it well enough to her. And to top it off, we were both set to work again that summer at the Girl Scout camp. Which started in 2 days. It wasn't the best timing, but when is it ever?

 

So we didn't speak for a few weeks. And one day she comes up and asks if we can talk about it, and we tried, but... it came out to the same thing. I didn't really know what to say. By this time, I had found out that this girl I worked with and crushed on outside of camp, really liked me back, and we have been dating ever since. It has been over a year now and our relationship is going stronger than ever, I'm really happy, I'm much healthier, I've lost 40lbs being more active with her, I feel so much better about myself and my life.

 

Now for the reason for my post:

 

I'm not working at camp this summer. It is the first summer I have not been at camp since I was six years old, and I wanted to come back and visit some of my friends, but they're all telling me that I should come another day, come next week, try next session, because my ex is back again this summer, and is apparently still really depressed about our breakup. I was the music director at camp, so I was the one carrying my guitar around 24/7 singing with everyone, and apparently whenever she hears a camp song, or hears my friend sing something I used to sing, she walks away crying or gets upset, I don't know. I understand how much it hurts to have a relationship end, especially the way I ended it, because I hadn't explained it well and she apparently hadn't been expecting it so it took her really off-guard. It has been over a year of no contact and now she's making it extremely difficult to come visit my home-away-from-home and all of the friends I've made there, and in my opinion she's being really immature and it's beginning to make me angry.

 

Some may say I don't have the right to be upset with her because she's still hurting, she's more than entitled to her feelings, and I would definitely agree to an extent but at what point to I say, listen, I won't let you ostracize me from a place where I grew up, you need move on, for yourself and for me. For me because I want to be able to come visit with all this drama going down, and for her because at this point she is the only one stopping herself from being happy. We are not a part of each others' lives, I have never played games or tried to rub it in her face that I'm happy and apparently she's not, NONE of that. I just wanted her to move on, and it doesn't seem like she's doing that. Should I try talking to her again, to give her a better explanation, now that I have a better grasp on what went wrong? Or should I just keep doing what I've been doing, living my life with one foot forward, hoping that eventually she'll do the same?

[catfeeder]

No, 'the talk' doesn't solve anything, it only serves as a setback for the person who's grieving--and it won't get you what you want. If you want access to your old friends, offer to meet them outside of camp. You can't blame your ex if the people you consider your friends aren't willing to split their loyalties with you--that's between you and them, not the ex.

[QuirkyCute]

Nobody can tell you what to do. If you want to go to your "home away from home", then go. You don't indicate in your post that your ex has personally asked you to stay away, only that she is terribly upset about the breakup (reasonable and understandable given the way you ended it, by the way), so I believe your anger at her is misplaced. She hasn't done anything to you for you to be mad. Your friends are the ones protecting her feelings, and if you don't feel that's fair to you, you need to speak up. Again, your ex hasn't done anything to you (according to your post), and you don't need to be mad at her for what your friends are trying to influence/tell you to do.

 

She isn't "ostracizing" you from camp, she isn't the cause of the drama. You're blameshifting. If you don't plan to ostracize yourself, don't ostracize yourself. If you don't plan to cause drama by going, don't cause drama. Go, visit. Do what you want. You say you aren't a part of each other's lives. Okay, so why do you care so much how she feels/acts? It seems to annoy you just HEARING about how she is. I don't see where she's wrong, or why you're mad at her.

 

If you choose to go, leave the ex alone. No "talk" (nothing you could say could make any difference now, anyway), no nothing. Let her be.

[plutooonium]

what you both said is very fair, thanks for your honesty and for your advice.