stuck between me and his ex-fiance - how do i deal with the hurt?

[Gwen25]

kittie and other posters,

 

i have a similar situation although i'm not sure how to label it. i broke up with my boyfriend of many years last spring. and voila, i meet this amazing man at work. we had so much in common, we laugh at the same things, think the same way. unfortunately, he had been in an off again/on again relationship with his girlfriend of several years at that time. so i thought, wow, here's a great guy but he's in a relationship, so i don't want to mess with that. but i always got these signals (even when he was seeing his gf) that he was interested in me. strong signals (nothing physical), just enough that even a dumb girl like myself could understand that he was interested. i was confused, but i didn't think anything of it, because i wouldn't want to mess up his relationship, no matter how unstable it was.

 

suddenly, this winter, i hear from him and he tells me that he broke up with his gf. apparently, they had been engaged for a while 2 years ago but split due to family problems from the gf's side. she even dated someone and was proposed to but left that guy. then they tried dating again after some time (starting around last summer) but the gf kept pressuring him into marriage. i guess he was just really confused about it due to his prior bad engagement experience with her, so he finally broke up with her over this winter to think things through.

 

that's when i come into the picture. we started talking and really, really enjoying each others' company. we dated, hung out at each others' places, we had talks til 7am! i felt like i had met my soulmate! it took us forever to kiss because he kept telling me that he still wasn't sure about his ex and that he didn't want to end up hurting me. i was initially hesistant also, but thought, well, he isn't dating anyone, so its not cheating. so i said that i understood and that it was fine by me to not kiss, that we could just be friends. so even though we weren't initially physical, we were still getting more and more emotionally intimate. so our relationship came to a point where we just couldn't resist each other. we just kissed though, nothing more happened. i wouldn't allow anything to happen unless the ex was totally out of the picture.

 

things were going great for a while, he even said that us being together reminded him of when he and his ex first started dating, before all the bad engagement stuff happened...meaning that he was so sure of them back then (implying that this was obviously up there as well) which meant a lot to me. because for me, this was the best relationship i had had.

 

then the ex told him that she was going to move out of state unless he decided to get back with her, she just wanted to leave the state if there was no future with him. so a few days ago, we ended our 'relationship' so he could take time to figure things out. i mean, he has a significant past with her, was engaged to her and had broken up with her to figure out if he wanted to marry her. for me, it was so painful to see this end...we were just starting a relationship. i haven't talked to him yet and haven't seen him either. i told him to get in touch when he did figure things out.

 

i guess i'm looking for advice from you guys about what to do if he choses his ex.

what do i tell him? i don't want to be a bitchy girl and make him feel guilty or yell at him...i think i'm more mature than that now. and although we have such a strong connection, i have this feeling that he will end up with her and that hurts me so much. i feel like something is so wrong in a relationship if a guy can feel so intimate with another person. feeling attracted to another person when you are in a relationship is different, but actually being intimate is something different (and i feel emotional intimacy is so much more powerful than physical intimacy - that is just instant gratification). i mean, how can you be so extremely close to me and then decide to get married to another girl the next day? he's a great guy and i know he didn't do this to hurt me. but what do i tell him that is still mature but tells him how i feel? although i still don't know what happened btw his ex, i just think i'm going to be hurt. i would really, really appreciate your advice.

 

thanks a zillion!

gwen

[jmargel]

Gwen even if he doesn't go with her, he's still not over him. I guess you can say you were the rebound. That's what usually happens. Also sounds like he probably did alot of comparing when he was with you, which wasn't fair to you.

 

It's probably best to break away from him, and in perhaps a year from now if he's not with her you two might meet up again.