Staying with Ex's Family...NC??

[catlover27]

This is long...and complicated... Please help I need an outsider's opinion.

 

 

 

First things first, I dated my best friends brother. Bad idea, I know. We’re both college-aged and kinda dumb. Mistakes happen. Problem is, I fell hard for him. My best friend encouraged the relationship because she thought we were a good fit. She said there wasn’t any other friend she could imagine she would be ok with dating him. They are still close as siblings, and I am still just as close with her. His parents and family still get along with me and welcome me into their home.

 

I barely paid attention to him for most of the time I knew him, I considered him off-limits because of his relationship to my friend, and thus he didn’t even register as someone I would consider dating. So some of the information I know from his past is from his family and wasn’t biased by our relationship. He apparently had a crush on me before I even went on a date with him.

 

He has historically has really, really bad luck with girls. I only know vague details, but it sounds like his only serious girlfriend (~a year ago) was physically violent with him. From what I know, I’m the only girl things has gotten kinda serious with since. To be honest, I don’t think he ever worked through the issues from the last girl, but instead bottled it up and isolated himself. There were red flags: (1) on the third date, he asked me if I had any crazy exes I needed to worry about. I explained that no, my exes and I are on good terms, and they are across the country at different colleges. He seemed genuinely worried about this. From what I’ve gathered, his ex’s ex got into a physical fight with him in the past. (2) He claimed all the girls from his past were crazy, and that he had to block them completely. From what I know, this is all fairly true. I haven’t pushed the topics since. He’s a bit of a lone wolf, and didn’t really talk to anyone other than his family, his co-workers, and me. He would joke about how he didn’t know many people, and I think (?) he wishes he had more going on, but all the people from his past were too much drama and stress.

 

We were never officially boyfriend/girlfriend, this lasted between January-April. We were officially going on dates and seeing each other though and were exclusive. He said he wanted to be official, but he needed time and space. I understood, I didn’t want to rush either. He was ready to be sexual before I was, but he was patient with me and told me if I wanted to wait til we were official it was okay and we would wait til I was ready because he genuinely liked me and wanted this to go somewhere. I explained that I needed to wait till I felt more emotionally secure. We had some really nice dates and a lot of movie nights and we never had any fights. We weren’t head over heels in love or anything, but we definitely had a connection. He was very gentle and understanding of my needs and boundaries. He was genuinely interested in learning about me, and my friends, and my life. And remembered things I told him. For most of the relationship, he pursued me more than I him.

 

About three weeks before we ended it, I was finally ready to have sex with him. I explained my lack of experience and I didn’t want to disappoint him (and that I haven’t been sexual with anyone in a long, long time since my ex). He was fairly understanding. He was really gentle with me and wanted to cuddle with me afterwards, and I never told him but I was emotionally overwhelmed and felt like I was going to have an anxiety attack, so I made him take me home because I had “somewhere to be in the morning”. I feel guilty for not telling him, but he was genuinely happy about us taking a step forward and I didn’t want him to feel bad or seem like I was ‘crazy’. We continued our relationship, but I know I kind of emotionally withdrew and I feel guilty about it.

 

About a week later, he tried to introduce me to his grandparents. A few days later, my mother was in town and I, spur of the moment, asked if he wanted to meet her. I explained if he didn’t want to, it was okay. He agreed without hesitation, and the dinner with my mom went smoothly. I was out of town with my mom for a few days afterwards, and he called me and texted me daily, so I don’t think this scared him off. In fact, I think he was genuinely excited for where we were headed relationship-wise. He told me I was on his speed-dial and was jokingly upset when I said I only had my family on mine. And that he had told all his co-workers about me.

 

Immediately after me being out of town, we went on a weekend trip with me, him, my best friend, her boyfriend, and four mutual friends of me and his sister. The day before the trip, he insisted on me meeting his extended family, so I did. It went well, they were all very excited to meet me. The first day of the trip was fine, I ended up feeling sick at the end of the day, and he took care of me. The second and third day, something was off. I’m not sure what was, but we were very disconnected with lots of small miscommunications. No fights between us. Some of the others got into a physical fight, which didn’t help my emotional security and anxiety. After my friends fight, I never explained this to anyone, but I got really upset and didn’t really know how to talk to anyone, even the him and kinda broke off from the group for awhile. He found me after I started crying, and tried to comfort me but I just dismissed it as me feeling sick again, since I didn’t want to create conflict. He seemed unsure of how to handle me at this point (the first time he’d seen me cry) but tried to comfort me and take care of me. My other friends admitted to me that they could tell something was off, too, and that he seemed distant, but I have no idea what it was that was off. Maybe witnessing the fight between my friends set off bad memories in him.

 

The last day, I met more of his extended family when we got back, and afterwards he explained he needed space after spending the last four days with me. I could sense something was wrong, and got upset, but told him it was okay, because I didn’t hold needing space against him. He apologized if it felt like he was kicking me out and I told him it was okay (It was. Even if I seemed upset, I didn’t hold him needing space against him). He could definitely tell something was up with me, because he got really gentle and kind to me before he left. I didn’t really talk to him to give him space til a couple days later. I apologized for making him feel bad for needing space, and explained that I had some friends visiting town that weekend, and I would like him to meet them. He kinda panicked and explained that he didn’t know his weekend plans. I said okay, just to let me know. The rest of the week, he was too busy to really talk or see me, and explained he was busy on the weekend because he had a weekend trip on Saturday. I offered for him to meet me on Friday, but told him it was no big deal if he didn’t, and he said sorry but he was too tired. I felt something was off, but I let it go. On Saturday, while he was out of town, he started texting me casually. The next day, I asked him to meet me in person to talk about something important, but not bad, and he came over Monday to talk.

 

The reason I wanted to talk? In a couple of weeks, (now only a few days from today) I would be leaving to go out of town for four months for a work opportunity, and I didn’t want to go into it without knowing where we stood. We never spoke about it because I hadn’t had a chance since I was offered the job. He thought at first I was debating on whether to go because of him and he told me I should go to the job. I told him the decision was already made regardless of him, I decided I was going weeks ago and I just wanted to know if we could make the distance work, because I was willing to try short-term distance. I had accepted that we might mutually agree not be able to do distance because he needed more time, but I still needed to know what to expect. He told me that after the trip, he didn’t know if he liked me enough. That he did really, seriously like me at one point, but for some reason it was fading now. I was devastated and confused, since literally up until the trip, he was acting obsessed with me, talking to me constantly, talking about the future, meeting my mother, meeting his whole family. But within 48 hours, for no discernable reason, he had doubts. I asked him why he introduced me to his family less than a week ago, and he said he really really wanted it to work at the time. I told him I respect his decision to end it (I do, I can’t force someone to love me), but kept asking what was wrong, to give me a reason, or what caused him to realize it. He said he didn’t really know. I asked him if he needed space or time, and he said he didn’t think anything would change soon and didn’t want to waste my time. He said “It’s not you, it’s me”. He told me if I needed anything, I could always come to him, and asked me if I hated him now. I told him that I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t understand. I asked him what went wrong on the trip, he said nothing, other than my friends who got into a fight being *******s. One thing he said that really upset me was he compared our relationship to our best friends relationship, who dove in head over heels after the second date and historically she does that in relationships. It pissed me off, because a month ago, I asked what direction we were headed and he told me he wasn’t like my best friend, and needed space and time. It felt unfair for him to expect a relationship like my best friend’s, when we weren’t my best friend. He couldn’t expect to go slow and go headfirst at the same time. He insisted there was nothing I did wrong, it was genuinely just his emotions, and he said he felt terrible for leading me on. My best friends boyfriend (who is also my friend) told me my ex did seem upset, and had been really busy and working out a lot since the break-up, so he did think my ex was emotionally affected by the break-up. Apparently my ex is focusing on physical activities instead of dating right now.

 

My friends came over as soon as he broke up with me and they convinced me that he used me for sex, because from their perspective, he did (they didn’t trust him). That is honestly a possibility, but I doubt it. But at the time I was overwhelmed (for more than one reason: academic issues, family issues, health issues all came crashing at once, trying to balance two jobs and school and heartbreak, I kind of spiraled emotionally) so I partially believed it, I called him angrily asking why he had sex with me if he liked me less because he knew it was emotional and important to me. He said he didn’t really know and he didn’t know the timeline for when he stopped feeling as strongly about me. This upset me more, I said a snappy good bye, and hung up. I was really angry for a few days, and I explained all that I was feeling to my best friend, and I feel guilty because I know she genuinely loved both of us and felt torn, but she was sympathetic to how I felt and didn’t hold it against me for being upset. She told me she was disappointed in his behavior, and she talked to him, but she wanted to stay out of it from that point, and I understood, and after a few days, I stopped talking to her about it. She explained that he seemed like he genuinely felt bad about it all. However, I saw her later that week, and started crying, and it made me feel extremely guilty because I could tell she didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to put this between our friendship. So I explained to her that next morning that I was going to reach out to him to talk and try to forgive him so I didn’t hold this negativity in. She said she thought that was a good idea, and she wouldn’t expect me to ever like him as a person, but she didn’t want me to hold onto any hatred. I texted him that I didn’t hate him, but I was hurt. And I thought it would be good to be able to talk now that I was less angry. We didn’t end up trying to talk til Sunday, when he explained that his phone wasn’t working. I gave up at that point, and assumed he didn’t want to talk to me, accepted it, and moved on.

 

Four days later, he texted me with a new number, telling me that he had a temporary number because his phone broke (his sister confirmed it later, it was actually broken), asking me if I still wanted to talk. We played phone tag for a couple days, til I finally got through to him late Friday night. But as soon as I heard his voice, I panicked and felt like crying, I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was and explained to him that I was not ready to talk to him. He got frustrated and asked me if I even had things I wanted to talk about and I explained that I wrote it down but I was too overwhelmed right now, and would probably need more time. But I wasn’t ready. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. I felt like an ******* for asking to talk and then asking him to wait. This made me feel worse, and I panicked later that weekend and asked if we could talk for real two days later. All I ended up talking about was that I wasn’t going to hold a grudge and I accepted breaking up was for the best. But I wanted to know, if he wanted to stay civil but stay out of each other’s way, or work to being friendly and keep in contact. He said he was okay with continuing to keep in contact if I was. I said I needed time before I could talk to him again, for my own sanity. And he said he understood. And I apologized for freaking out the other day. And he said not to worry about it. He was very soft and kind in how he spoke me, so I think he was genuine. He asked me if there was anything else I wanted to talk about, I said I wanted to talk about what went wrong on the trip, and he reassured me that nothing went wrong at all, he was happy the entire time other than when my friends got in a fight. I tried to explain that I was anxious and felt like something was off, but I decided to drop it. I said I had other things I wanted to ask about, but I decided to drop it. That was the last time we spoke, but it was relatively positive.

 

Unfortunately, my best friend and girls we knew made plans before I left to have one final girls night at my best friend’s place. She lives with him. I reassured her that I wouldn’t make drama, and for the most part, there wasn’t any. He kept to himself in his room. Except once, I was going to the to the kitchen alone, and he was walking through the dark hallway, we saw each other, he panicked and froze, I looked away to say something to my friends, and he disappeared. I don’t know if he realized I saw him or not, I didn’t really do a good job of hiding it. I actually was kind of amused. I have insomnia and usually take awhile to fall asleep, so I was just chilling while my friends slept. He usually goes to bed early. However, from the sounds of his room, he seemed like he was distressed and I could tell he didn’t go to sleep like 2. It made me wonder if seeing me was not something he was emotionally prepared for. Or I might be overanalyzing it.

 

The issue now? My best friend and I were planning for me to visit for a weekend and stay with them while I was away for the next four months. This is in about ~2 months (end of June). We planned a long time ago, before anything happened between me and her brother. I know she said I don’t have to interact with him when I visit if I don’t want to, and I have a feeling that unless I tell him I want to interact with him, he probably will avoid me. I can’t decide what to do. For now, I am not talking to him until the trip, and giving myself time to rebuild my confidence and get my emotions back in order. I need to figure myself out before I consider his part or lack of a part in my life, I know this. I realize that what we used to be, for better or for worse, is dead, and considering my emotional issues towards the end, it’s for the best we ended. I know even if he does want to reach out, he won’t out of respect for his sister and me. And I know it was short term and undefined, but we had something. And it was real. And I feel guilty because I realize the week beforehand, he was in a confused state and was trying to figure himself out, and I cut it short by forcing him to make a decision that I’m not sure he was ready to make. But I also know that until I talked about the fact that I would be gone for four months, I wouldn’t feel comfortable and it would bug me until we spoke about it.

 

If we work on communication and trust issues, but I do feel like with time and space, we could make it work. I think I could handle being friends and seeing where it goes (not with the intent of getting back together, but being open to it in the future), once I get my emotions back in line. I am friends with my other exes, but with closed doors to getting back together, and considering that we are going to be in each other’s lives for better or for worse (via my best friend), it’s possible that friendship might work. The only issue while I can handle it, I have large social circle and support and have experience being friends with exes before, but I know while we were together, I was really his only source of a social life. So if he does have any lingering attraction to me, it might be complicated. But it’s also possible he’s totally over me entirely. We would need to talk and clear boundaries, and we would need to work slowly on rebuilding friendship and trust, ‘cuz a relationship is built on both of those anyways. But I’m also scared of getting burned on both a platonic level, if he’s only wanting to keep me in his life to alleviate guilt, and not because he genuinely cares for me as a person.

 

However, I remain conflicted on what really happened between us. Part of me, most of me, believes that he does genuinely care for me on some level (maybe not the way I need him to) and that he did genuinely have feelings, but that he is immature & young and possibly got overwhelmed. I also am concerned that he might have commitment issues because of his issues with his last ex, and that he never really worked through them, as well as a complicated family history (we both have divorced parents and went through instabilities because of it, he opened up about it briefly before). I know I can’t ‘fix’ him if he did, but I do think he probably wasn’t as prepared for a real relationship as he thought he was, and the issues with his ex and the fact that he’s never had a good relationship affected him more than he’ll admit. I also feel guilty if my emotional insecurities pushed him away. It could also be that there was something that just finally clicked in him and he lost feelings for me entirely and he was too kind to tell me the truth about what it was. The fact that he was so, so strongly into me up til the second day of the trip, and then started doubting and second-guessing and the sudden change makes me wonder if the fact that it wasn’t me, it was him and his emotional issues is true. If he does genuinely care for me, then I think it’s salvageable. I also can’t help but wonder if he feels like his uncertainty was holding me back and seemed shocked while we were dating that I was even considering him as option because of the differences in where we were in life. But maybe it was just lines.

 

Part of me wants to sit down and talk to him when I visit and talk about what I feel went wrong and if we could possibly be friends. But part of me is terrified of opening that door just to be hurt more.

 

Should I reach out to him to try and rebuild friendship when I stay with them in June? Should I hold out hope that we would ever reconcile in the future (not anytime soon)? Or should I just let it go, let him go, keep it civil but avoid him? Is he probably Just Not That Into Me or is it more complicated than that? I’m so confused, and conflicted. I have hope, but is it false hope?

[Cephalopod]

Friend-zoning him will only make it worse. Let him go and move on. You tried, but the chemistry wasn't there.

 

You will know when the right man comes along. It will be like a bolt of lightening out of the sky, not a 9v fizzle and puff of smoke...

[d0nnivain]

Wow. I'm tired just reading all of that.

 

 

Do not stay with your friend since she lives with her brother your EX. It's not fair to him.

 

 

It seems to me like you two are young & you are both learning about yourselves & relationships. I don't think either of you have the words or the insight to talk yourselves back to a friendship neutrality at this point; the break up is too fresh. You need to hope for a co-existence because you are still friends with his sister.

 

 

After a weekend away, especially early in a relationship, I have always wanted space from my traveling companions. After 24/7 it's nice to just be alone. Even my husband & I retreat to separate corners in our own house after a long trip if we aren't afforded blocks of alone time on the trip.

 

 

Whatever physical fight other people had on that weekend trip really soured a lot of things for you guys. Personally, I'd cut out the physical altercation friends. They seem like more trouble then they are worth.

 

 

I don't think he used you for sex. He was trying to get closer but the weekend & whatever caused you to cry, while he was offering you comfort, evidence that he is not a user. I also don't think you meeting family / extended family contributed to the demise of your relationship