Will it happen again?

[Transplant]

Greetings all, it has been a wee while since I've posted; something like seven months.

 

My ex broke up with me many months ago, and after several 'idiot guy gear' mistakes, I went NC and ended up moving from the US to Dubai. Me ex still had my memorable things, university garb, etc. (feel free to reread previous threads for the run-down) and wouldn't return them. I received a message several months into my new life in a new country from her telling me she tried so many times to send me my things back but simply couldn't because they were the last things she had of me and she didn't want to let go. We started communication slowly again and all her feelings resurfaced, including varying jealousies, insecurities, desires to be with me, etc. She had no idea I was living a different life in a different part of the world. Eventually it all spilled out. I am back in the states for a wee vacation and she stopped by my place with my stuff and immediately embraced me; she treated 'us' as if nothing had happened. We were not only lovers on the verge of marriage, but each other's best friend. She stayed the night and we became intimate once again. The next day she stuck around and maintained the demeanor to my parents that we've remained together; she was holding my hand and kissing me on the cheek in front of my parents and made my parents skeptically fall in love with her all over again. She knows I am set to fly back to Dubai in a little over a month's time and after she left my house, she told me plainly, 'I don't want you to go'.

 

Since that night our communication, on both ends, has been littered with the soft intimacies and secrets of aged lovers. I'm not sure what to do or how to handle this. She is not someone that can move her life as she has a child and joint custody. She doesn't want another guy, though she knows me extremely well, to break her and her child's heart. I understand this entirely but my fear is that if I begin to build a new, or more accurately, remodeled life with her, she'll extricate herself as she did once before. I do not have a problem giving up my life abroad but I'm not sure if I can hold her with the same degree of trust as I once did. We've addressed the risks involved and are now at a passive frustration; frustration of her letting me in once again and me changing my life again for a possible heartbreak ending.

 

My feelings for her have remained static throughout and this continues to unsettle me greatly, as I've desperately wanted to dismiss her entirely from my thoughts, feelings, from my new life. Even though I was 9,000 miles away, she crept into my life.

 

Keep well all -

[somegoodman]

The truth is you can't trust her. Just throw that notion out the window. There is an old Spanish proverb: "Beware a bad woman, and place no trust in a good one".

She will stay with you as long as she feels she has something to gain from the relationship. The minute she doesn't, or finds someone "better" she will be gone again. It is up to you to decide whether it is worth it to try and keep her around.

Notice how she was able to flip the "love" switch back on just like that? Women love opportunistically, men love idealistically. When you were no longer useful to her, she left your castle for another. You can take that as an indication of her character, but really any woman will do so. The only thing preventing her is a lack of better options or resources within her grasp.

Ask yourself what she has to offer you and try to sublimate the romantic notions, because they are not even a factor in her mind.

[Transplant]

Many thanks for this - I deal in international law and business acquisition so my whole adult life has been experienced through an opportunistic and logical lens. However, sublimating romantic notions (as you so rightly put), is noxiously foreign to me. My father, a somewhat emotionally detached man, perhaps said it best in regards to this development, "There's always a way in dealing with these sort of situations: don't" -

 

Even idealistically speaking, my white horse may not be impressive enough or my shiny armor shiny enough for this one, nor am I perhaps fit to bear it; it wasn't before, so assuming it would be different this time 'round may be as ridiculous as assuming a gold fish has any idea of what homesickness is. Perhaps the saddest thing is how conditioned I am to not really be surprised by anything she says or does. One day it could be, "Let's move in together" and the next, "I don't want to see you again." Hardly the substance of a storybook ending.

 

Thanks again.