Losing Love Again

[ash11ae]

This is going to be a bit lengthy, so please bare with me.

 

I am 24 years old. I did not date anyone (with the exception of casual dinners & kisses) until I was 19 years old. Then I dated a man I worked with. I gave him my virginity. We were together for nearly two years, by each other's side constantly (working together and spending time outside of work). We were going to move in together, and when I was 21 years old, he passed away unexpectedly. It felt as though I died with him - the only person I had ever loved, who had ever loved me, understood me. He was my everything.

 

I did not date anyone again until almost two years later. I had started talking to a man online through a mutual friend. He was overseas and was struggling with an unhappy marriage and the previous loss of a child. He immediately started expressing feelings for me, and I felt things for him, but realized how wrong it was and cut all ties. Several months later, I heard from my friend he was getting a divorce. I wrote him expressing sympathy and wanting to be friends, and we started talking again. He lived several hours away but he came to meet me finally and we connected immediately. We jumped into bed together and continued dating after that.

 

I really felt love for this person. I felt like everything was finally going to be OK, and like I was with someone who understood my broken heart and could help me find happiness again, and I could help him, too. We had a lot of good times together, but it was hard because we lived so far apart.

 

He started traveling again and expressing interest in moving around. I had a life to re-establish. He got involved in a feud between myself and my best friend at the time. Everything came crumbling down and I broke up with him. We continued talking for months, and stayed friends, though we fought constantly, but we always said "I love you" to each other, talked about being together, had sexual conversations, etc. Though he really hurt me sometimes, I could not bare to let him go.

 

About 6 months after we broke up, he came to tell me he was moving 3,500 miles away. We spent the evening and the morning together (but did not have sex) and it was like it always had been. We kissed and cuddled, and he cried at the thought of never seeing me again, but I knew he had to leave for his own good. He was miserable where he was. I wanted him to be happy. He said he wished I had asked him not to leave, but I felt that would have been selfish. Two days after he said goodbye to me, his ex-girlfriend called him. They had not talked in 13 years. She lived where he was moving back to, and a week later, they met up again.

 

After he moved, he continued expressing his love for me, and asking me to move and live with him. I thought about it, but was scared. I needed security. This was in January. We have been talking ever since, he even told me that we would work on our relationship long-distance and arrange for me to visit before I ultimately moved. He said he wanted to be mine and wanted me to be his, that we were meant to be together.

 

He spent time with his ex-girlfriend, but insisted nothing was going on. Slowly the truth came out - he had feelings; they had kissed; they were exploring the possibility of dating. Then I discovered he was lying to me and that they had been dating all along. For five months he led me on, all the while dating someone else. He would even tell me he was in the mountains with no reception on his phone while meanwhile he was at a cabin with her and introducing her to his family.

 

The very worst was when I came onto this forum yesterday and saw him writing about how much he loves her, and asking for advice on how to move their relationship forward after they had made love. It has left me feeling nauseous. Especially considering I found this the day after I received a card from him which said, "I can't change the way things are between us right now, but soon we will have time to just be together. I love you and I promise things won't always be so complicated." He wrote that he always loved me and that things would get easier.

 

How could he send me that card and lead me on for months, telling me he loved me, asking me to marry him, live with him, etc? I tried to cut ties or say we would just be friends because he admitted to being in love with this other woman, but he'd always insist he loved me, and if I hung out with another man, he would suddenly bombard me with text messages and show interest again.

 

I suffered a terrible loss that made it almost impossible for me to love again. It was extremely hard to let someone into my heart, and to have physical intimacy with them again. It has been one year this week for me, since I was with another person. And in the meantime, he has been giving his love to another woman. If he died, she would be his last, but if I died, he would be my last. This leaves me feeling incredibly abandoned in the world, like I have no ties to anyone. Like I do not matter. Like I am unloved and unwanted, just a pawn that he used when his real girlfriend did not pay enough attention to him.

 

Tonight I blocked his phone number. I kept trying to say goodbye to him, but he kept telling me he loved me, was in love with this other woman but also in love with me, etc. Said to sleep on it and we would talk tomorrow. He is leading me on, again and again. I have to break free. I hurt so badly.

 

Part of me wants to call this woman and tell her what he has been doing, but I know that is the wrong thing to do, and would only hurt three people, not help anyone. So I suffer alone.

 

I have only ever loved two men, and the first left me when he died, and the second left me and lied to me for another woman. I am heartbroken. I want so badly to have a relationship with someone again, but I am scared it will never happen, and afraid of trusting anyone again.

 

What do I do?

[crazylove]

Hi there,

 

I'm so sorry to hear what you are going through. What this guy is doing is totally unfair, and i'm afraid that you really need to cut all ties with him. He's manipulative, and selfish. Do you really want a guy that's been lying about sleeping with another woman for the entire time he's been away?

You do the right thing blocking his number and going NC. It's going to be difficult... you clearly like this guy, but all he's going to do is bring you down.

Please please move on so that you can find love again with somenone that deserves you.

This is a great place to post instead of contacting him, and letting out all your feelings if you have to.

[ash11ae]

I don't just like him, I love him. He is the only person I have loved or been with in the three years since the death of my boyfriend.

 

I have been trying so hard for the last five months to maintain a relationship with him, long-distance. I have tried to fix all the things I know I screwed up before. I even humiliated myself by posting pictures of the two of us on Facebook, only to find out that he had posted pictures of him and this other girl and hidden them from me, which made all his friends and family think I was a crazy person!

 

I know what he is doing is wrong, and I know I should just cut ties with him because it is never going to change. He wants to be friends but I know all that will happen is I will wait around for them to break up, and any time I go out with anyone he will get jealous and make me feel like we are more than friends again. He wants me to be his but he does not want to be mine.

 

It's just so hard to let him go. Even now, I want to call him and cry and scream and ask him how he could treat me like this, like he does not care about me at all, when he claimed to have loved me so much.

 

I don't think he even realizes, not only has he betrayed me, he has also betrayed this other woman he claimed to love so much. In the time that he has been dating her, he has been asking me to move in with him, telling me he wants to have sex with me, sending me naked pictures online and doing things on webcam, telling me he and this girl are not compatible, that she does not make him happy, that he and I are meant to be together, that I've always been the one for him...

 

Then he wonders why it is so hard for me to have a normal conversation with him, instead of arguing about these things all the time, and he rubs in my face that this other girl does not do that to him, but he doesn't realize, if she knew he was doing to her what he has been doing to me, she wouldn't want anything to do with him.

[ash11ae]

And even after everything he's done to me, I would still probably be with him if given the chance, and what does that say about me? That I don't have much self-worth, that I am OK with being someone's second choice and last resort? She sees him one day a week, and the other 6 days a week he is on the phone with me. I'm the backup long-distance secret internet/phone girlfriend.

[ash11ae]

I told him, "If you love her, be with her. We will be friends." I gave him so many opportunities to spare my feelings, but he chose to keep using me instead. Whenever I told him I couldn't talk to him anymore, he'd cry about "losing his best friend." If I am his best friend, then why do I have to find out he slept with this woman on the internet, after he lied to me repeatedly about it?

[crazylove]

If I am his best friend, then why do I have to find out he slept with this woman on the internet, after he lied to me repeatedly about it?

 

 

He's not your friend. Simple.

 

And even after everything he's done to me, I would still probably be with him if given the chance, and what does that say about me? That I don't have much self-worth, that I am OK with being someone's second choice and last resort? She sees him one day a week, and the other 6 days a week he is on the phone with me. I'm the backup long-distance secret internet/phone girlfriend.

 

Exactly. Move on...and fast!! The only way to get over this guy is NC. You have a choice. Make it.

[Starman8]

You need to really work on developing self respect. Work on loving yourself and make yourself happy. That's the ultimate way of attracting someone healthy. Never accept anything but the best.

 

You essentially told this guy you'd accept table scraps from him when you said "If you love her, be with her. We can still be friends". He obviously took full advantage of that.

 

Lose this guy for good, no matter how you feel. He is never going to really love you or probably anyone else the way they deserve.

 

You've let you're heart guide you for too long, it's time to get your brain involved.

 

No excuses. Only accept the best.

[ash11ae]

You are both right.

 

I realized today, everything in our relationship has been a lie. At least for the last five months. Last year, when we dated, I was so sure that he was this wonderful person who'd been hurt in life. I saw him cry, I saw how hard he fought to show me he loved me. I was convinced that he loved me. That he was a good person with a kind heart.

 

But people don't really change that quickly, do they? One of my friends said that if he is like this now, then he has always been like this. And maybe that is true.

 

This morning I was late for work because I was hanging over the toilet dry-heaving uncontrollably. Not by coincidence, the last time I threw up, it was also after he did something like this to me. You are probably wondering, "Why did you keep chasing him?" And I don't know why. I guess I wanted to believe that he needed help, and I could help him. That all he needed was someone who really loved him to change his bad behaviour. He fed me excuses about being scared I was going to hurt him again.

 

I called him today to tell him what I thought of him. I needed to get it out. He asserted that he has had every intention of being with me, despite still pursuing this other girl, and that he is confused.

 

What is there to be confused about? He has asserted he loves her, wants to be in it for the long haul. The only thing he's confused about is why she doesn't want to have sex with him or spend more time with him, and then there I am, simply me, with loving open arms ready to take him any way he comes.

 

I loved the person that I was with last year, and I love the person that I thought he was. But the person I love is not a real person - it's a character he made up with all his lies and stories. I'm still not sure if he is really so messed up emotionally, that he gives his heart and his body away so easily and sabotages his own relationships and is never happy with anyone, or if he is just a cruel person with no remorse for anyone but himself. He does not care how his actions affect others. He only feels sad when he is hurt.

 

Regardless of what kind of person he is or isn't, he is not the person that I thought he was, and he does not love me. He loves another woman. Another woman who, despite dating him for five months, refuses to sleep with him or commit to any kind of relationship that he desires. He is nothing to her but a friend who buys her things and gives her physical and romantic attention whenever she wants it and everyone can see it but him. She is using him the same way he has been using me all this time. Maybe he is better suited for a relationship like that, because as you said, I don't think he is capable of truly loving anyone the way you are supposed to love someone. Maybe he can't love someone deeply and faithfully because no one has ever loved him that way. Except me. But by the time he realizes that, it will be too late.

 

And what really gets me is I can't believe how much love and sympathy I still feel for him when he literally does not care about me at all.

 

I guess it's time to accept that and move on and find someone who does. I am a great girlfriend and someone will be very thankful to him someday for throwing me away.

[Starman8]

The right guy will not be confused, he'll want you, plain and simple. Best wishes!

[ash11ae]

I know that... I will be everything to someone someday, I hope. And I will give them everything in return.

 

Thank you!

[ash11ae]

Can I ask your guys' opinions on something?

 

WHY did he do this?

 

Why would anyone deliberately hurt another person like that? Especially one who loves them so much? Especially when he knows how it feels. He's been cheated on himself...

[Starman8]

I'm not entirely sure why. My ex was the same way. At first she told me how great I was and that she'd never met a man like me before. She'd tell me how she'd been unlucky in love in the past and wasn't treated right. Then after awhile she changed and started doing the craziest things that seemed totally against what she had claimed she was all about.

 

I think it comes down to a person's self image. If someone finds themselves in a position that does not fit their self image, they will often unconsciously sabotage the situation. Sort of like lottery winners that eventually find themselves in worse financial situations. They didn't feel like they deserved it, so they somehow got out of it.

 

She would always shoot down compliments I gave her on her looks, or tell me I could only be a figment of her imagination, or once said she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then all the sudden she was flirting with guys halfway across the country that were clearly losers and she had no business talking to and eventually she dumped me for one that she's in a long distance relationship with today.

 

I don't know if this fits your ex, but I believe it to be true for many. People just won't take something they don't feel they deserve.

[ash11ae]

I think that is so silly, and so stupid...

 

If you love someone, and you don't feel you deserve them... why not TRY to deserve them? Why throw it away just so you can be kind-of, mediocre happy with someone who isn't what you want, who doesn't love you the way you want to be loved?

 

I lost both my boyfriends, before they died or abandoned me, I mean... and when I got the second chance, I never ever ever gave up trying.

[Starman8]

It does seem silly, but it happens on an unconscious level. Just something that I've heard from several people in the field of psychology that I thought rang true to my ex in some ways.

 

Also, some people I think are just hardwired for relationships and some are not. Like you, I have always done everything I could to make a relationship work, keep it interesting, and to not take what I had for granted. But none of that matters if your partner isn't on the same page as you.

 

The best you can do is stay true to yourself and your own beliefs. I settled for less than I truly wanted in the past and it burned me every time.