Long: Our Connection Is Intense and Real — But He’s Still With Someone Else

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I’m posting because my situation is messy and emotional, but also full of real connection. I don’t have anyone in my real life I can talk to openly about this without being judged, so I’m hoping for support or at least somewhere to vent.

 

Two years ago I met a guy I’ll call Mich. We dated for about six months and the connection was intense and natural. I had no idea he was in a long-term relationship at the time. After we broke up, I got back with my ex, Steve, and he’s the one who told me the truth — that Mich had been with someone else (I’ll call her Louise) for around 8–9 years.

 

I confronted Mich for closure, and I even tried to tell Louise and his mum, but Louise blocked me and his mum ignored me. For a long time, I felt a lot of anger on Louise’s behalf. I thought she deserved to know. But even with all that, my feelings for Mich never really went away. We’d check in with each other every now and then, and I never fully moved on.

 

I stayed with Steve and we had a baby in December 2024, but eventually me and Steve broke up. After that, me and Mich naturally drifted back into more regular contact. He’s still with Louise, but the way he talks about their situation makes it sound more like a stagnant routine than a real relationship. No closeness, no emotional bond, nothing that resembles what we have.

 

He flew me out to see him (we’re an hour apart by plane), and that first trip felt like coming home. Everything between us fell straight back into place. Over the last four months, I’ve been flying back and forth to see him, and each time our connection gets stronger. When we’re not together, we talk nonstop — FaceTime, texting, voice notes — basically 24/7. We even have three separate WhatsApp chats so we can have different conversations at once. I help him with all his boxing media and assistant-type stuff, and he constantly tells me how much he relies on me and how much I do for him.

 

We’ve talked about the situation with Louise. I’ve said I can deal with things as they are for now as long as it’s only me and her, but that it’s not a long-term solution. He’s said he doesn’t want it to stay like this either. We’ve talked about him making changes, about a future together where it’s me, him and my son, about kids, goals, business plans, everything. It feels like we’re building something real, not just having an affair.

 

Recently something happened that showed me even more clearly how attached he is to me. He has always had a firm boundary about me not liking other men’s posts on Instagram. Because I work in the boxing industry, I follow fighters for networking and engagement — he knows that. After a big fight night (Chris Eubank vs Conor Benn), I followed a guy on the undercard and liked a few of his pictures. The fighter followed me back.

 

Mich saw it and got really upset. Not because he thought I liked the guy, but because he felt I’d crossed a boundary he’d made very clear. He said it made him feel “like a prick,” embarrassed, disrespected and like I’d mugged him off. He said, “you do 100 things right but this is one of the most important things you’ve done wrong.” He said he didn’t want to be in a situation where he wouldn’t talk to me for two days because if it came to that he “might as well f*** me off.” And he told me he’d let me know by tonight whether he wanted to continue things.

 

He couldn’t understand why I’d “made that choice at all,” since to him it was such a small thing that meant a lot symbolically. I tried explaining it wasn’t romantic, wasn’t me entertaining anyone and was purely industry-related, but he was really stuck on the idea that I broke his boundary. As much as the conversation hurt, it also showed me how emotionally invested he is. He wouldn’t react that strongly if he didn’t seriously care about me and about what we’re building.

 

And honestly, none of this intensity exists between him and Louise. Their dynamic feels like two people sharing a life but not living one together. There’s no passion, no jealousy, no real connection. With me, everything is alive and emotional.

 

I love him, and part of me truly believes he’s going to leave her eventually and choose the life we talk about — me, him and my son, something real and lasting. But another part of me knows situations like this can go either way.

 

I guess I’m here to hear from people who’ve been in similar situations. Have you been the person someone eventually chose after a long-term relationship with someone else? Can something that starts messy still become something stable? Or am I blinded by how strong the feelings are?

 

What we have feels real. I just want to know if “real” can turn into “forever.”

[Gebidozo]

OP, there is a lot I could comment on here, but let’s just focus on the essentials.

That man, “Mich”, lied to his girlfriend and lied to you. He hid his affair from her, and he hid his relationship from you.

I’m going to be very blunt here. Mich is a bad man, one who cannot be trusted, and you should remove him from your life, now and for good.

Yes, I’ve been the person someone chose over a relationship with someone else. But the word missing here is “eventually”. The woman in question chose me after exactly two weeks of an unclear, messy situation. She broke up with the other man and became my girlfriend. There were no lies in either direction preceding this.

The only way to solve that kind of a situation is to make a choice as soon as possible. Either stay with the old partner or leave them and be with the new one. There is no in-between.

But Mich’s behavior is the very definition of in-between. He wants to keep both his girlfriend and his affair partner. He’s been stringing both you and Louise along for convenience, because he is a selfish, lying jerk who cares only about himself.

Unfortunately, things are even worse than that.

He’s not only a liar and a manipulator, he is also a control freak with some serious issues, possibly an abuser and a violent man.

The part about him not wanting you to follow other men on Instagram and becoming angry and jealous when you did that says nothing about his feelings for you. You’re absolutely delusional if you really think that means he cares for you or loves you. It means the opposite, that he is monumentally, pathologically selfish and possessive, to a degree that he wants to control the behavior of the woman he’s cheating on his girlfriend with.

Why do you allow an a**h*** like that order you around and control your life like that?

I sincerely advice you, immediately after removing him from your life, to find a good therapist and start working on restoring your self-respect.

Remember, as long as you don’t respect and love yourself, you’re going to keep attracting jerks like Mich.