His ex

[Phantomlady]

And I will add in, because I know someone will say it...yes I think he is a good man for raising his child but he took the ex back whenever she wanted and did not stand up to her, ever.

I know this man has a lot of good points, really, I do know, which is exactly why I have gone back and forth about this so much, but you need to see it for yourself to know where I am coming from and how this ex plays him like a puppet and he willingly lets it happen.

When the things that are going on as I have described, trust me, it's hard to have a relationship with him without these issues coming into it, time and time again...it's tough.

What makes it even tougher is, he bends to all of it, can never say no, can never take the reigns. The ex and the child do walk all over him but again, he does not stop any of it.

[Gaeta]

And I will add in, because I know someone will say it...yes I think he is a good man for raising his child but he took the ex back whenever she wanted and

 

This was important information that you should not have been kept out.

 

Your original Post was full of worries but 10 of us could not see the source of that. If you had mentioned this my position would have been different. This is a real source of worry, not him and her having an occasional coffee.

[Phantomlady]

Sorry Gaeta that I didn't reply sooner.

He and I have been on and off for around a year and a half.

I have pulled back a number of times due to different things going on between us where it was not working right.

Someone mentioned him making me a priority and where I stand in his life, this is right on point as he and I have had arguments over that exact thing and why we separated before in the past.

He DOES place me behind quite a few things and often I will not hear from him but he has still spoken to the ex.

It does sincerely bother me that the ex is still kept in the know about all his goings on. I do understand that to a certain degree when co-parenting, that the other parent should know some things to a certain degree, but she knows mostly everything there is to know.

She could tell you if he's working or not, if he's dating or not, if he has been having a rough time in his life, etc.

That's far more than what I would deem as normal.

I have tried talking with him about this many times and letting him know that I am not comfortable with it, but he just passes it off.

I do end up feeling like it's a love triangle.

It's one thing to be friends with an ex, but it's another to stay this close.

I also get the feeling as well, that it's something in his psyche about her, he seems to want to please her constantly and because she was fooling around with other men when they were together, it's like he wants to constantly want to "catch up", be validated by her, have his self worth built up on if she will still see him and be around him.

I get that impression very strongly.

I have once again taken a leave from he and I and am really considering us not working this time as it has gone on too long now and as many have said here, it's not going to change.

Their child really doesn't come into it to be fair. Yes, they can be difficult but when it comes right down to it, he is a father and their relationship does not make a huge difference to he and I one way or the other.

It's more or less how HE uses the excuse of the child, to keep contacting the ex.

I do feel I have been more than tolerant and have tried very hard to be understanding and I realise that you all can't see it to it's full scope with what I have written, but it's frustrating.

He refuses to detach properly from the ex, and I do know the difference between friends and this situation, and it goes well beyond that.

I think I am leaning very strongly on taking a leave from this relationship.

[MJJean]

Someone mentioned him making me a priority and where I stand in his life, this is right on point as he and I have had arguments over that exact thing and why we separated before in the past.

 

He DOES place me behind quite a few things and often I will not hear from him but he has still spoken to the ex.

I

 

These two sentences alone are more then enough cause to permanently end the relationship. You deserve so much better.

[Phantomlady]

Thank you MJJean, I know you're right and I am now staying away from him.

After a year and a half, I know it's not going to change.

I have tried talking to him about it, I have taken the back seat hundreds of times, even when I know he is spending time with the ex and is not getting back to me.

I have tried to understand it, but when it comes right down to it, it's not going to get better and I need to find someone now who really is over the past.

[MJJean]

I really do hope you find a gentleman who is willing to put you first. It's absolutely ridiculous to continue panting after an ex, especially years after the split.

[Sunkissedpatio]

He and I have been on and off for around a year and a half.

I have pulled back a number of times due to different things going on between us where it was not working right.

Someone mentioned him making me a priority and where I stand in his life, this is right on point as he and I have had arguments over that exact thing and why we separated before in the past.

He DOES place me behind quite a few things and often I will not hear from him but he has still spoken to the ex.

It does sincerely bother me that the ex is still kept in the know about all his goings on. I do understand that to a certain degree when co-parenting, that the other parent should know some things to a certain degree, but she knows mostly everything there is to know.

She could tell you if he's working or not, if he's dating or not, if he has been having a rough time in his life, etc.

That's far more than what I would deem as normal.

 

 

Well first of all Phantomlady I'm sorry so many gross assumptions were made here including those who were claiming you had no right to anything in this relationship because you had been sleeping with him for 2 months. WTF!? I don't know how people come up with these thing sometimes...overactive imagination I supposed...

 

What a horrible way to have relationship with someone and to have their ex partner know everything about your partner and possibly you too, would be enough for many (me included) to jump ship a long time ago.

 

The fact you have been trying to make this work for a 1.5yrs to no avail, all the things you have described about this relationship and your partner's inability to make that distinction and draw a healthy line between his past and your present is more than enough reason to get out. You haven't been a priority to him, heck you don't even have a place in your own relationship with him because his ex and daughter come way first before any of your needs.

 

You must love this man a lot which is why you kept this going for as long as you did but you are beating you head against a wall expecting a different result. Leave this relationship. You are too immersed in it to understand that this is NOT normal, and most separated couples DO NOT function this way.

 

There is having an amicable friendship for good of co-parenting and then there is this.

 

I wish you strength to cut off this insanity once and for all.

[Phantomlady]

Thank you so much SunkissedPatio, I really do sincerely appreciate your advice.

I understand to a certain degree that people assume things because I have only written bits and pieces and have not written out the entire story (if I did, it would be pages!) But I really do appreciate that you've been able to understand where I was coming from and what I was meaning with out judging or criticising or assuming.

It makes it tough to explain one's story when you're having to combat what other's are assuming and you spend the majority of the time explaining the truth and all these guesses as to who I am or what I meant or what my motivations were or who I am actually upset with.

First I was a raving lunatic jealous over his child, then I was being hateful about the child, then I was only dating 2 months and pressuring him to change every single thing then I was jealous of ex and not understanding family and that I was younger than him by a lot and not a parent myself and so on, it made my head dizzy.

I have been divorced from a long time marriage and we do co parent, so I do understand the norms and I feel my ex and I can still co parent and it not be so messed up as this situation.

I also understand boundaries and what is just not being able to let go of an ex.

And at 45 and trying with this man for a year and a half, I think I've had enough.

I have given him an immense amount of patience and understanding and too many chances that barely any sane woman would be giving.

I do care for him a great deal, but he is not playing fair and his ex really does play him like a puppet and no one is going to stop that.

This situation just does not work for me anymore and it's become more than tiresome. I realise relationships take work, but not to this degree and feeling like I am constantly running behind him.

I do need to take a leave and find someone who really is done with the past and can move forward.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Phantomlady

[kendahke]

Someone mentioned him making me a priority and where I stand in his life, this is right on point as he and I have had arguments over that exact thing and why we separated before in the past.

He DOES place me behind quite a few things and often I will not hear from him but he has still spoken to the ex.

 

That would be me. Trust me, I speak from too much experience on this point.

 

Always look at what they do and not what they say. He can say anything and do the exact opposite.

 

If this is an on-again-off-again situation, then there is clearly something that is a common thread that's been running through this relationship for 18 months that he is refusing to address and you're hoping will vanish on its own. That tack usually never works.

 

The offspring is an adult now--if he was going to fix that dynamic to where it would not make anyone he dated feel unimportant and emotionally disposable, it would have been done long before now because he would have taken a moment to see how he wanted the rest of his life to play out and what size role you were going to fill to that end.

 

If he's taken that time to think on this and you're still being held off at bay, then this is as far as this train is riding. If a man doesn't want to you fully integrated into his life, usually that means that there is an emotional tie he's refusing to cut in order to complete that integration... and I'm leaning towards he's not emotionally over the ex and that's why even after the offspring is grown, he's still allowing himself to be woven into the dynamic by the two of them.

[Sunkissedpatio]

Thank you for the kind things you said Phantom, as long as you get some takeaways to help your situation that's all that matters. We are all guilty of making assumptions here, some take it a lot deeper than others and can really make the person in a situation feel worse than they are already feeling.

It happened to me when I first came here people made assumptions and said things that were mean-spirited under the guise of "tough love" but you realize that some people tend to project a lot of their own issues when they are seeing other situations. And for the handful of "tough lovers" there are a ton of really cool and very insightful people around here.

 

Context is everything.

 

I'm sorry you have reached the end of your rope with this, it sounds like your guy has made his decision and he wants things on his terms only and that is not how you build a successful relationship. By accepting that you will always be the outsider looking in because the more time goes by the more he will feel like "why do we have to change this dynamic, you've accepted it for years so it isn't going to change now?"

 

Who knows maybe you end it and by being apart he finally comes to his senses and decides to give the relationship a fair go with boundaries in place. But you won't get far if you stay with him.

[kendahke]

but he took the ex back whenever she wanted and did not stand up to her, ever.

 

That is because he loves her and losing that emotional investment with her is more frightening.

 

What else would make someone continue to stick with someone who has treated them so badly for years? Psychotic hope is what's got that afloat.

[Phantomlady]

Thank you Kendahke, you are exactly right, he kept promising that he would change and make changes with this situation but his words are just that, words.

He wanted both situations and he wasn't willing to change anything.

 

And you're right as well SunkissedPatio.."he wants things on his terms only"

Unbelievably true, I could go on and on how much this point really is true.

If anything, I feel like a right cad letting him drag me along for so long believing that somehow I would become a priority and somehow I would be part of his life and family as well to this degree.

But I always felt like the stooge girlfriend who could wait in line or be shelved whenever he liked.

My needs and wants were always ignored and it took me this long to finally see it.

I was the outsider and he would have me around when he didn't have something else going on and I was to suck it up.

But I just can't suck it up anymore.

[Phantomlady]

It amazes me if anything how he still wants to please his ex after the stories he told me about her.

She was (according to him) horrid. Cheated, lied, slept around, passed off the child and expected him to look after them all the time while she went out partying and fornicating.

She was physically abusive and left marks on him and so on.

How is it that someone can be so desperate to want to still please this person all these years later?

I actually do understand psychologically how the abusive system works and how to victim feels they need this person and how desperately they want to be validated by them and how they never stop wanting to be accepted and deemed worthy by this type of person.

But it runs deep and it never goes away with him.

She calls and he goes running.

You can't fix that, and it's not love, it's some kind of mentally damaged relationship that just will be messed for life.

I need to get away from both of them.

[kendahke]

It amazes me if anything how he still wants to please his ex after the stories he told me about her.

She was (according to him) horrid. Cheated, lied, slept around, passed off the child and expected him to look after them all the time while she went out partying and fornicating.

She was physically abusive and left marks on him and so on.

How is it that someone can be so desperate to want to still please this person all these years later?

 

psychotic love is something...

 

I need to get away from both of them.

 

In the end, I think you will be far happier away from him. Might not feel pleasant for a few weeks, but it will pass and someone worthy of you will enter your life and you'll never have to wonder about their loyalties, etc.

[Sunkissedpatio]

It amazes me if anything how he still wants to please his ex after the stories he told me about her.

She was (according to him) horrid. Cheated, lied, slept around, passed off the child and expected him to look after them all the time while she went out partying and fornicating.

She was physically abusive and left marks on him and so on.

How is it that someone can be so desperate to want to still please this person all these years later?

I actually do understand psychologically how the abusive system works and how to victim feels they need this person and how desperately they want to be validated by them and how they never stop wanting to be accepted and deemed worthy by this type of person.

But it runs deep and it never goes away with him.

She calls and he goes running.

You can't fix that, and it's not love, it's some kind of mentally damaged relationship that just will be messed for life.

I need to get away from both of them.

 

Wow this is really telling of the emotional and mental state he is in. I was going to say he is so sucked into the abuse that he is willingly allowing the abuse to continue because he can't even see his part in it himself. This is way more complex than anything you could hope to ask for and he deliver.

 

Just like he can't fix that and it isn't love, you can't fix that either and there is little chance for a healthy future with someone who is this intertwined with an abusive past. How infuriating for you.

[MJJean]

It amazes me if anything how he still wants to please his ex after the stories he told me about her.

She was (according to him) horrid. Cheated, lied, slept around, passed off the child and expected him to look after them all the time while she went out partying and fornicating.

She was physically abusive and left marks on him and so on.

How is it that someone can be so desperate to want to still please this person all these years later?

I actually do understand psychologically how the abusive system works and how to victim feels they need this person and how desperately they want to be validated by them and how they never stop wanting to be accepted and deemed worthy by this type of person.

But it runs deep and it never goes away with him.

She calls and he goes running.

You can't fix that, and it's not love, it's some kind of mentally damaged relationship that just will be messed for life.

I need to get away from both of them.

 

Have you explicitly said these things to him? I say explicitly because men can be dense.

 

DH had two relationships before me. One of them with B and the other with M. He failed to detach with B, staying friends, but functionally still dating. They talked every day or near to it, went out with mutual friends together, hung out and watched movies, etc etc. M ended her 6 month relationship over it. She started dating DH's friend, I met DH, met the friend and M, and M told me herself why she dumped him.

 

DH and I went rounds about that friendship. He stopped spending time with her after we got serious, but they still talked a bit too much. For me, that's defined as once or twice a week to once or twice a month, depending.

 

I told DH I wanted him to end the friendship, I even told him why M dumped him. He said that I had no right to pick his friends. Which, by the way, was what she told him when he told her I put my foot down.

 

One day I had an epiphany. I told DH he could be B's friend. He was absolutely correct. I had no right to tell him who he could be friends with. I do, however, have the right to decide whether or not I want to be with him based on who he chooses as his friend...

 

He hasn't spoken to her since. This was around a decade ago, give or take a year.

[Phantomlady]

I had said the exact same words to him...nearly word for word.

He still uses the same excuse, but she's my child's mother and I have to talk to her! (this is also why I went on about the "child" being 22 and that it really does sound like a lame excuse at this point).

I have even gone into further explanation that it does not need to be talking or being a apart of one another's lives to the degree that it is.

It doesn't change anything.

I'm glad it worked out for you and I really do wish that this situation would be similar, but after a year and a half and nothing changing, I realise that the only thing left to do now is to leave.

He can remain a slave to this situation, but I don't have to be.

[MJJean]

Sometimes people who come to forums are very clear communicating with us, but a lot more vague in communicating with their SO's. Flat out saying it was kind of my Hail Mary. Maybe he just doesn't get it... Maybe no one told him how much of a problem this can be for new SO's... Maybe if she said it in very explicit and plain terms he'd have a light bulb moment....

 

Guess not.

[Phantomlady]

I do appreciate the advice just the same though!!!

Yeah, this situation isn't going to be solved anytime soon, so I have distanced myself from him and will continue to do so.

I think writing and hearing the replies on here has really helped me see that.

[MJJean]

I do appreciate the advice just the same though!!!

Yeah, this situation isn't going to be solved anytime soon, so I have distanced myself from him and will continue to do so.

I think writing and hearing the replies on here has really helped me see that.

 

As the forum folk say, you can only control/change yourself. You gave it an honest try. You even went as far as to post on a forum for advice. Clearly you cared very much and were willing to put some work in. Too bad he's still hung up on his ex. His loss. Some lucky man's gain.