How do I overcome obsession on my girlfriend's ex?

[NeedMyMindBack]

I’m writing because I recognize now that I’m dealing with a really serious issue. I fell in love with this nice girl a while ago. When I met her, she told me she had been in an 18-year relationship that started from her late teens up till her mid-30s and that she tried to break up with the man so many times but failed and she always ended up going back to him even though she no longer loved him or wanted to be with him as far as 10 years into the relationship, but for some reason she always ended up back in his arms. But finally, she told me, she had broken up with him four months before we met and was done with him completely however he had not wrapped it around his head yet and was still calling for her. On the strength of this, I committed to the relationship as I was in love with her, I had known her for 3 years at a distance at work before we started talking at all, and I figured eventually the ex would leave her alone when he saw she was with someone else.

 

After about 2 months of being together, I noticed that her behavior was not consistent with that of someone who had broken up with their ex and was done with them. I noticed she was still overly concerned about him and did not cut ties or communications with him. This aroused my suspicions and one day I picked her phone to check their communications and discovered to my shock that all the while we had been talking, she was still talking to him also, asking him that they could still work things out, and she was actually chasing him to get his attention back into their relationship. This absolutely broke my heart to pieces and that marked the start of our relationship problems but this was only the beginning. Around that period, I also discovered that one day she had dropped me home and told me she was going home to sleep but actually went and spent the night with him. Her excuse was that she had gone to comfort him as he was suffering badly on account of their break up and she didn’t want him to lose his job as a result of his heartbreak. She did state that they had no sexual intimacy that night but they only slept on the bed as she helped him sleep. I have not been able to settle that as a truth ever, in the depth of my heart. That episode still hurts to this day.

 

I challenged her on these issues and she had no credible response other than stating that she did not realize that she was actually still chasing after him the whole time and it was not her desire to be with him but it was just a pattern of repetitive behavior and codependency. I gave her a deadline to stop all communications with him and this was when I discovered how much she still cared about him. She said she had never imagined that he would be out of her life completely; she wanted to retain him as her best friend but just not be his girlfriend anymore. I asked her how one could be best friends with someone she had dated and slept with for 18 whole years. How was that even possible?

In the process of trying to stop communications with this man, I discovered how much of her was wrapped up in him. The whole of her soul and spirit were wrapped in that man and it broke her heart to pieces to let him go. Before we started dating, she had told me initially that she had not loved him for the past 8 years but only stayed with him because he was crazy enough to harm her if she left him. I believed this totally but soon found out this was not true. To see her heart broken and her crying for days and nights because he would be out of her life broke my own heart also. If I had any idea that she still loved or cared for him that much, I probably would have left her alone, even though I was in love with her and wanted to be with her like nothing I had ever experienced. This was my second heartbreak, and the one that has turned out to be a very painful one since we have been together.

 

Over the next one year, she slowly got over him while I watched her in pain. Anytime he called her out of the blue, she would break down and sob painfully. All this hurt me deep to my soul even as I tried to comfort her. I did not realize at the time that I was already hurting and developing resentment towards her. I guess the biggest mistake that I made then was in trying to help her get over him, I made her break down their past 18 years together so she could gain clarity into things properly and in the process we discussed their sexual history. Now, that was a great mistake. The details of that information entered into my head and mind in HD images, the intensity, frequency, and depth of their sexual history together was insane. Insane. It then explained to me why she was so deeply soul-connected to him but it also destroyed my joy in the process. That information has tortured my mind ever since, it has destroyed my happiness and joy, and worse, it caused me to become obsessed with her ex and has literally affected me at my work and in every area of my life.

 

I have done crazy things ever since these things happened. I have stalked her ex on social media and in real life, I have done humiliating things like sending him messages on her phone pretending it was her sending it. I have reduced my dignity to rubbish and now I feel very bad. I’m still obsessed with her ex and I could not touch my girlfriend or have an intimate time with her without imagining her and him having passionate sex together. Sexual intimacy with my girlfriend is now a mind torture for me, even though it’s physically gratifying. In the end, it leaves me unhappy, dejected, angry, and bitter. I dream about him and her having sex, I mean, I’m just consumed in vivid, pornographic obsessive thoughts about him and her. This has caused me so much anguish and it has negatively impacted our relationship such that we are now on the brink of a break up. One of her lines still haunts me even now as I type “oh my god…we had a ridiculous amount of sex when we were young…” This information just destroys my happiness every time it plays in my head…which is, all the time.

 

I need help, I need it urgently. This ridiculous nonsense is eating me up every passing day. I am naturally a free spirit, but even strangers walk by me now and ask me why I look so sad. My old friends have asked me time and again why I have become so short-tempered and grumpy. Worst of all is that I’m distracted at work all the time. Except my mind is locked down on a task, I’m thinking about my girlfriend’s ex. She has stopped talking to him over the past year; she has done all I asked of her even though we still fight a lot, she has been transparent as much as but I find it hard to trust her again. She seems to have moved on from him. But I have not, and I have not been confident that some circumstance would not end up getting them together and they would be in bed before anyone could think straight. I have tried different things to help me with this, I have spoken to myself, I have done positive confessions, I have prayed and fasted…every time I get two or three days of being okay, eventually I suffer a relapse and start hurting again with those pictures plaguing my mind. It even threatens my productivity at work.

 

I need help, if anyone out there knows what I could do. Please offer me your kind suggestions. Thanks.

[Gary Snyder]

Stalker ex's are such a big problem, it's now listed in the dealbreakers handbook.

[Wiseman2]

It sounds like she was too involved and offered way too much information about him so that you were almost an outside party to their relationship drama. Obviously you know the creeping, snooping etc. has to stop.

 

But the real trick is finally making the relationship about you and her not about her and him. That shift will take some re-framing but you can do it.

I have stalked her ex on social media and in real life, I have done humiliating things like sending him messages on her phone pretending it was her sending it. I have reduced my dignity to rubbish

[overthemoon86]

She clearly was not over him when she started dating you... I mean to be comforting him and sleeping over his house while she is in another relationship.... that is NOT okay. If that happened to me, I would have broken up with her then. I don't think you have had a relationship yet. She has spent a year crying over him so how have you been able to develop a relationship with her? And making her recount everything with him? What good did that do?

 

To be completely candid with you, this relationship is not going to work. You are obsessing over the ex now and that person is now in the relationship with the two of you. That is not going to work.

[luca3434]

Get ....Out.....Now.....

[Mari]

 

I need help, I need it urgently. This ridiculous nonsense is eating me up every passing day. I am naturally a free spirit, but even strangers walk by me now and ask me why I look so sad. My old friends have asked me time and again why I have become so short-tempered and grumpy. Worst of all is that I’m distracted at work all the time. Except my mind is locked down on a task, I’m thinking about my girlfriend’s ex. She has stopped talking to him over the past year; she has done all I asked of her even though we still fight a lot, she has been transparent as much as but I find it hard to trust her again. She seems to have moved on from him. But I have not, and I have not been confident that some circumstance would not end up getting them together and they would be in bed before anyone could think straight. I have tried different things to help me with this, I have spoken to myself, I have done positive confessions, I have prayed and fasted…every time I get two or three days of being okay, eventually I suffer a relapse and start hurting again with those pictures plaguing my mind. It even threatens my productivity at work.

 

I need help, if anyone out there knows what I could do. Please offer me your kind suggestions. Thanks.

 

I don't know what advice to give you. She was clearly not ready to be in a relationship with you. If he meant that much to her then she should've waited to date and if she ended up with him then great. But for her to be with you, then sob and cry that she can't even talk to him is just not right. She's crying cause you asked her not to talk to him, otherwise she would. And if it was like that I would just hook the two back together as the decision to separate should've come from her. But if she's over him now then what does she really want? Does she want him, you, or something else?

 

As for you, I'm sorry you missed out on being with her when she was young and this guy was with her. We end up with the people that are available at the time, these two were available to each other and there's nothing you can do about it. If they're good for each other then they should be together given their 18 years of history, but if they are not good together and she is happy with you then do the best you can with her. Let go that she had a past with him, concentrate on what she can get now and if you're the better choice then give her your best. People can have 20 year histories but they still need love, if the person they were with isn't good for them and you're it then do better than what they had. I hope you can let her past go and concentrate on what would make things easier for her, and use that to feel useful yourself.

[shamona]

Thank you for sharing your story. I'm not exactly in the same situation as you right now, but I sure know what it feels like. The ex became a ghost and, to stop spooking her, it became to haunt you instead.

...Does she know that? Did you ever tell her openly and clear how you feel?

[nutbrownhare]

You don't trust her. She was clearly unavailable to you from the beginning, and now you and she are in a relationship which is every bit as unhealthy as their previous one.

 

For your own sanity, get out.

 

A healthy person would have left her after a couple of months into the relationship, on realising how involved she still was with him. You need to explore why you're remaining in a situation which is threatening to destroy every aspect of your life if you let it. Trying to control and change something you cannot - i.e. someone else's character and history - is crazy-making, as you have seen.

 

You've spotted her codependency; now you need to work with your own. After all, you have been involved with someone who was totally addicted to another person, and you've waited in the sidelines hoping they'll change. This is a spiritual malaise, and there are plenty of resources, both online and meetings in person, which will help you get through it.

[NeedMyMindBack]

Thanks everybody. The general opinion seems to be "Get Out".

I had known this for a while but I have been struggling trying to make it work, but it clearly isn't.

Thanks everyone once more.

All opinions have been helpful and I feel better somewhat.