Reconciliation good idea? (Long)

[MyHeartTakesOver]

A big part of my healing from the break up is deciding whether, if the conditions were right and my ex came back doing the 180 (I have a strong feeling that he's going to do this), I would/should take him back.

 

I'd like to discuss what happened before and after the break up and if anyone could offer their objective insights I'd be grateful as they may help me think through whether taking him back would be a good idea and that would help me focus my thinking/healing. Also writing this out helps.

 

The first thing to understand is that, in spite of what I'm about to describe, there was, and is, genuine, real love on both sides. I suspect that love is addictive on both our parts but it is real nonetheless.

 

My ex is 20 years older than me and this was a same sex relationship (he's bi, I'm gay). It lasted three years and was immensely stormy. He cheated once and begged forgiveness so I gave it to him because I know how sorry he was for the pain it caused me and was disgusted with himself for causing it. I never cheated but I am, by my own admission, a difficult person to live with. The relationship often felt strained. We have very different views on all the important things. I'm a hardcore romantic and he's a hardcore rationalist. For me, sex in a relationship is sacred because it is the most intimate expression of love between two people in love. For him, sex only has the feeling it is invested with and is nothing special in itself, so it's "as OK having that with people you don't love as it is having lunch with them". He wanted an open relationship, I wanted the full Romeo and Juliet/Dracula and Mina set up. This caused huge contentions in our relationship as did his tendency to think he knows everything and my tendency to be melodramatic.

 

The day before the break up; we had arranged to watch a film when he got home from work. This film he didn't really want to watch but I did. I told him I could watch it while he was out if he preferred, he told me to wait till he got home and we'd watch together. This appealed to the romantic in me. We had dinner and set down to watch. He got drunk (I'm practically tee-total) and fell asleep. I felt an overwhelming sense of emotional unavailability (this was a constant feeling when I was with him) and went to bed leaving him on the sofa.The next day, he asked why I was being cold. I told him. He refused to see any wrong in his behaviour and it escalated into a full row with him walking out the room and me throwing the keys of the house across the floor. I left the house we shared.

 

In the days that followed, I felt a mixture of desperate low but at the same time like I'd been freed and the miserable, controlling person I'd become in the relationship had died away and left me to be the person who I am. I also felt relieved at the idea of not having to deal with him anymore. We had limited contact with each other but met a couple of times including once where I begged him to reconsider the break up.

 

During this time, I suspected that he was in contact with a girl he used t owork with (she's two years younger than me) as she, despite being engaged, made moves on him and he, being the attention whore he is, liked this. I knew they'd be in touch with each other. What I didn't know was that they had started a relationship with each other five days after the break up. This came to light about six weeks after the break up when he invited me to his house to celebrate what would have been our anniversary. In the six weeks between the break up and that weekend, we exchanged messages talking about what we'd need to do to get back together.

 

While he was cooking I opened his mobile and saw a series of texts between him and this girl confessing undying love and talking about me. He said to her he was going to break the news to me after the weekend. I confronted him on these and hell broke loose. I said some very, very unpleasant things and he said that he was in love with this girl, was no longer in love with me and that I would one day thank him.

 

We parted under very bad conditions. That was the second weekend in July. In the time since then we've had a lot of contact/meet ups with each other, all of it positive. He's apologised, cried and said he wasn't in his right mind when he said he wasn't in love with me and that he still is but that the pain of his guilt and the tension of relationship before the break was too much to bear. I told him that I love him and always will.

 

The girlfriend moved into our home with him during the weekend and that has left me feeling pretty low. For that reason I chose to go no contact. Still, he called me Saturday evening to tell me that he loves me very deeply and will always be there for me. He's texted numerous times since then saying the same thing. I've not responded to him since Saturday.

 

My key thing here is if, during the next few days, he comes to me and says "this was all a mistake, lets get back together" and agrees to relationship counselling should I say yes to that? Are the differences between us too great to be bridged? I've felt far more stable and myself since initiating no contact, is that a sign of something I should be paying attention to?

 

Having people I can dissect all this with is very valued

Edited August 21, 2012 by MyHeartTakesOver
Typos

[soccerrprp]

Not a good idea to reconcile.

 

1. Bi + Gay is always a recipe for disaster. The bi-partner will always have inclinations to satisfy the hetero in him. Thus, his wanting of an open relationship. He craves what you do not find acceptable.

2. He's cheated, promised not again, but still holds values, needs that are not compatible with your own...cried, promised again...hmmm, a pattern?

3. Let a girl in. Go back to #1 and #2. He has no problems hurting you knowing that you do not approve

4. 20-years differences. No matter what people say, somewhere along the line, the huge age difference will creep up, though this is the least important of your issues

5. You know you can do better. Someone who is much more compatible to your needs.

 

Good luck.

[MyHeartTakesOver]

Thank you.

 

My feelings are so volitile. I'm yo-yoing all the time.

 

I know him well and I know that he'll get in touch with something that looks like a 180 (too proud to come up front about it). The key thing for me is if I took him back I'll always look at him and know that he sold us out for the first silly girl to pay him any attention. I'll always see the man who said he loved me forever and a few weeks later when I reminded him of it said "people change". A man who told me I was the best, most meaningful sex he ever had and then told me he was not "sexually in love with me". A man who told the girlfriend I didn't know about all the details of my heartbroken phone calls and pleas to make things work.

 

This is a man with no sense of honour. He admitted to that once but added that it was because he didn't know how to handle his feelings for me, that he was unstable (of course he refused any real attempts to help him in this area). How could I possibly take him back after all that?

 

But I do love him very deeply. I love his intelligence and his sense of humor and his love for me. I love his smell and the old green shirt he'd wear around the house. I miss the sex.

 

I love a man who's actions have made it virtually impossible for us to be together. I hate him so much for that.

[soccerrprp]

Your feelings for him are clearly visceral, but he has shown otherwise. You have to try to move on...sorry.

[MyHeartTakesOver]

Your feelings for him are clearly visceral, but he has shown otherwise. You have to try to move on...sorry.

 

You're right.

 

If/when the 180 comes, it will absolutely kill me but I'm going to say no.

 

Wow, that just hit me. It really is over.

[TaraMaiden]

((((Hugs!!))))

 

Visceral. Extraordinarily good word...

 

"The scientific approach to life is not really appropriate to states of visceral anguish" .

(Anthony Burgess) Edited August 22, 2012 by TaraMaiden