Ex Still In Touch and Makes Me Confused

[adonis_boy]

Apologies for the long read, I felt like pouring my heart out here and I really hope to hear some advice. Summary for the bored readers:

 

- Dated a woman for 2 months, acts hot and cold, wants to take things slow and I accept to be patient and go with her pace

- Acts cold to the point of disrespecting my feelings and me, I feel like she has some other issues and dragging me along, I confront her

- She admits not having the same feelings for me, not excited to see me, she is happy on her own

- Finally, she brings up her long-distance ex, with whom she has been constantly in touch with after their so-called 'break-up', even when she was dating me. She says she still cares about him and has hopes for the future that it can work out.

- I say goodbye, move on until she starts texting me randomly. She keeps contacting me out of the blue, writing e-mails and messages on whatsapp. I politely reply but keep it short.

- I am confused about how to deal with this and the best way to keep myself from getting hurt again.

 

I dated a woman for 2 months. Since the beginning, she told me she wants to take things slow because she was hurt in her previous relationship. I respected her decision and took things at her pace. She asked me to tell her if she acts distant. I asked her just to enjoy the process and let things develop naturally.

 

Throughout our "relationship", she always acted hot and cold. One day she was all over me, telling me how comfortable it is being with me, how it feels like ages she has known me, how she is the happiest next to me, etc. and the other day, she was distant as hell, rejecting all my advances, physically distant as well. I confronted her about this and told her I cannot be myself when she is acting like that and asked her to talk to me if it is something about me so that we do not have hurt feelings and waste each other's time. She said it is about her past relationship and she needs time to accept a new person into her life. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and understood her point.

 

Towards the end of 2 months, her hot&cold behavior came to the point of disrespecting me and pushing me off the limits. One night, we were watching a movie and all of a sudden, she jumped out of the sofa, took her phone and started texting a man on Whatsapp in front of me, telling me that she did not like the movie. This disturbed me a lot and I asked her if there is something she wants to talk to me about.

 

First, she admitted to not having that 'spark' for me and she does not miss me or look forward to seeing me when I am not around. I asked her if there is anyone else and she said no. I asked her why she did not tell me at the very beginning and why she came up with excuses of taking it slow or telling me those beautiful things. She said she wanted to give us a chance and see if it works but it did not and maybe her feelings were because of that. She also said she is very happy with being alone and not having anyone in her life right now. She said she knows she cannot have it all but she would really love just to have me around to talk and spend time together with emotionally committing to anything, because it feels very nice and comfortable. I tell her I have feelings for her and it is not possible.

 

After talking about this for sometime, the topic somehow came to her ex. Luckily, this helped put a light on her feelings a lot. They lived 1 year together, 1 year long distance. During long distance, he had to stay away because of visa problems and to be with his daughter alone, because he cheated on his wife before.

 

She was the one spending effort to keep the relationship alive and got exhausted. She decided in her head that it is over, gave up trying but they never had a closure. They constantly kept in touch and he even visited her in March, when they acted and said goodbye like lovers. Turns out that she was still talking to him when she was dating me, with him telling her about changes he is making in his life, which are exactly the same that they planned together and giving her hope and confusion. Finally, she admitted to me crying that she still cares about him.

 

After hearing all of these, with all my sincere feelings, I told her that she needs to heal and focus on her life now, have closure with this guy and move on because she is confused and it is unhealty. Then I said goodbye, hugged her, thanked her for all the good things and left. She quickly gave me a kiss on the lips before I left crying, which I did not want and hurt me like hell.

 

3 days later, when I am slowly accepting the breakup and moving on with my life happily, focusing on meeting new people, I receive a text from her wishing me good night and good luck for an upcoming dance class. This text brings sends shivers down my spine and puts me in the post-breakup mood again. Not to sound rude, I send her a casual text, thanking her and wishing her a nice evening. However, all the question marks of 'Is she wanting to get back together?' start invading my head.

 

After this, she sends me another 'Hope you are good, have a lovely day.' text the next day and another silly 'thinking about you, read this in the news and this article reminded me of your project kind of e-mail the day after. To all these messages, I reply with a few sentences and never initiate contact apart from that. I also make a little sarcastic joke saying that she can just ask me if I am ok, she does not need to come up with excuses about my project.

 

I try to stay aloof and unaffected when she contacts me on whatsapp 3 days ago, at midnight, asking if I am awake and how I am doing. I tell her I am good and ask how she is. She tells me all is well but she cannot sleep. I feel like this conversation is going nowhere and she is just looking for a random chat and I tell her I would like to go to sleep after cracking a little joke about sleeping late and making her laugh. I also tell her the remedy would be to get a good night hug but it is such a pity she does not have one. She asks she feels hugged all the time and would that count and I say you will have to wait and see. We wish each other good night and end the conversation.

 

After this talk, there was no contact. Now I find myself checking my e-mails and phone constantly to hear something from her. I badly want her to come to me and say she wants to work things out and she regrets what she said. At the same time, I want to move on and be myself again, like I was before she initiated contact a week ago. It is very difficult to resist not sending her a text or calling her but I am doing my best to stay strong.

 

I have no idea why she is keeping in touch and still contacting me and it exhausts me emotionally to constantly think about that. I have been very open with her about my feelings since the beginning, I was all over her. It surprises and confuses me that the woman who admitted to not thinking about me all the time is now trying to keep in touch every day, sending me texts to show that she is thinking about me. Maybe she is now missing what she cannot have? She looks very confused herself and this is also messing with my head.

 

I do not think I should live my life hoping that she will want to get back together but at the same time, I do not want to abandon the possibility that she might be hinting at something with her contact. After reading many posts about this kind of situation here, I know that the other person will do whatever it takes if they want things to work again: not by random texts or emails. They will want to sit down and talk about it. I would very much appreciate your opinions on this.

[Tanzi]

In short ... she still wants her ex and you are a rebound. She doesn't prefer to be by her herself, she would prefer to be with her ex.

 

If she needs time to accept a new person in her life then she simply isn't over the "old" person in her life and isn't ready to be in a relationship.

 

You were right to end things and to try to move on. Now, however, she is lonely and she is looking for comfort etc. If you carry on providing her with these things she will continue to take them from you ... but it will be at the detriment of your emotional well-being.

 

She has been trying to fill a void by placing you where her ex once was, despite not being over him and despite not having a spark for you. She "plays" at being in a relationship because she is desperate to fill that void - sometimes she is in the mood to play, at other times she isn't. She doesn't want you back - she still won't be over her ex yet. She is lonely and she is seeking companionship. She can't offer you what you want so don't fall into the trap of hanging around just to help ease her lonliness because should her ex want her back or she meets someone else you will find yourself surplus to her requirements.

 

There is nothing here for you emotionally other than pain and you need to try your hardest to let this go.

[louisecar]

the best thing to do is go no contact. if that means deleting her on networking sites etc then do that. trust me it helped me so much aftr i broke up with my ex. whenever he broke contact it only upset me. it really helps you move on. she is just keeping contact to stroke her own ego and make her feel better about herself. but you dont feel better do you? so do what you need to

[Tanzi]

There is nothing here for you emotionally other than pain and you need to try your hardest to let this go.

 

... and by that I mean by ignoring her contact or, if you think it would help you, respond by telling her that for your own sake you would prefer to have no further contact from her. You have to remember that she actually benefits by having some form of contact from you whilst you do not. She is thinking of you when she contacts you, only herself.

[Tanzi]

I meant "she ISN'T thinking of you"!!

[adonis_boy]

Thank you for the advice everyone. I wrote her an e-mail yesterday and told her kindly that it would help me to stop contact until I move on, then I will be able to be friends. I also told her that if she however wants to make things work again and if I am available for such an option, she knows how to reach me.

 

She replies and says the following:

- She does not want to give things a second chance because she does not want a romantic relationship right now. She is happy with being free and building wonderful friendships.

- She is over her ex and keeping him in her life is her decision. She does not have feelings for him anymore and this does not change the above fact.

- She is open for a possibility of a friendship with me and she will give me time and space until I am ready for that.

- She kept contacting me because she thought we are friends.

 

I would appreciate any comments on this.

[Tanzi]

Staying "friends" is of no detriment to the person choosing to move on because it doesn't offer them false hope or hurt them in any way. For the person who has been left behind, however, it just prolongs the process of acceptance and healing. As you said, despite saying you initially wanted to be friends, her contact was nevertheless confusing you .... and not because of anything she particularly said but just from the contact itself. That said, I can understand why you would hang onto something like "thinking about you, read this in the news and this article reminded me of your project". However now you know it basically means nothing. So should she feel like reaching out when she needs a friend, you know how to take it.

 

For your sake, have zero contact, is the right thing. Now she has now made it plain and clear what she wants. The most she can offer is friendship and that is not something that you can handle right now. So until then you need to start - and stick with NC - so that you can start learning to let go.