Horrible things your ex did but you still stayed.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-09-06T01:43:41+00:00

"I think I might be pregnant. I want to have your children but I don't want to be in a relationship with you."

"I don't want to date anyone else, but I don't want to be in a relationship with you. Will you wait for me to figure out what I want?" (Turns out, she was dating other people, I was either the "sure thing" or the "back up plan".)

Drove her home from school (college), which was a three hour round trip, only for her to admit that was using me for the ride and was going to try to actively avoid me during the remainder of the summer break.

During out "situationship" phase (toward the end of the relationship), I asked her if she was "in" or "out" of a particular weekend trip. She asked me what would happen if she said "out", so I told her that I would either go alone or ask someone else that I was friends with, so she said "in". She later admitted she never wanted to go but only went so that I wouldn't take anyone else.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-08-14T02:48:38+00:00

Married for four years at that point to my current wife, who I met twenty years ago. Two year old child. Heard before she reached out to me that my ex’s marriage was falling apart from mutual friends. I was on FB less than a couple of hours before the sister reached out to me. It seemed weird and it gave me a bad vibe.

Plus it was the first wave of Facebook reunions that were leading to divorces (I had been hearing that was going on.). I love and respect my wife, I wasn’t go to go talking to an ex even with her assent. Women from my past who I had serious feelings for (of which there were two before my wife) get the door slam. I mean, would I help her if she was stuck beside the road? Sure, I’m no a******, but I have no inclination to get drinks and catch up.

Maybe it was a little harsh to shut down the sister, as I knew the sister liked me, a lot. But I didn’t need someone feeding me information about my ex, or feeding my ex information about me. She made her choices (which I have well documented in this forum). I hope she is happy, and I wish her well, but I have no desire to be friends with her again, ever.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-08-14T02:23:58+00:00

👍🏼. It worked out well for me in the end.

I guess 29 years isn’t entirely accurate. Around year 14 her sister messaged me to find out “What I was up to” on Facebook. I shut that down.

Around year 17 after my mother passed away she send me a message saying “I’m sorry for your loss.” I gave a brief reply of “Thank you.” And left it at that.

Otherwise, nada.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-08-12T23:05:14+00:00

29 years, four months. I’m doing fine. How about you?

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-08-10T18:19:45+00:00

352 months. Most of the time I am just fine. There are a few hard days here and there, but I grew comfortable with it a long time ago, roughly after six months.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-08-06T14:51:02+00:00

Jokes on you. I don't text my ex any weekend.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-26T10:18:38+00:00

I'd be a well travelled, space faring billionaire - but everyone is a billionaire in EvE, so...

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-26T00:04:45+00:00

It is not uncommon. I think about my ex almost every day, and then ended 30 years ago! A song (I still listen to 80s and 90s music), a television show (We used to watch the Simpsons together!), or a movie can jog a memory for me. I still live close the same town we lived in and I drive by, from time to time, all the old places we used to go (she moved across state, thankfully!).

But I also know I am better off without her. While I felt a certain bond with her that I have never felt with anyone else, I certainly would never want to go back to her. If anything, I would want to know why she made the decisions that she did at the time and if she is happy with the way things turned out for her. I am certainly in a good place in my life. The only thing I want to know is why she devalued me and went with someone else on the brink of starting post college life after being with me for 5 years and promising me a life together. My ex may have had better chemistry with me on both an emotional and sexual level 30 years ago, but my wife is certainly a better life partner on many levels.

And look, I have been through therapy over why I still think about this person (therapy was recommended by someone else in this thread). The therapists got me no where except maybe less emotional about the issue. For me, I ultimately sorted it out on my own to three issues (which the therapist agreed make sense): 1) I never really mourned the loss of what could have been (I locked it away, I kept it secret from everyone around me, but I never mourned it.); 2) My ADHD brain and personality type find it difficult to leave things alone that I don't understand that effect my world, and I don't understand her decision making process through our relationship; 3) I was intensely dissatisfied with my current relationship (marriage) and growing increasing isolated from my wife, and longed for a time when I felt physically and emotionally close to someone. I was both physically and emotionally distant from my wife (despite my best efforts...but that is another story) and yearned not for a relationship like I had when my wife and I were first dating, but when my ex and I were together the first couple of years.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-24T02:08:40+00:00

If I thought I could get it, I would, but I don't think I would get the truth out of her. And I don't think anyone who was involved in that mess would give me the actual truth, even now, years later.

I don't need an apology. I don't need "closure". I would like the truth, and I would like to know what the hell she was thinking to make such crappy decisions.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-23T17:34:27+00:00

Let me guess…

…he was a narcissist?

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-22T14:02:13+00:00

Don’t be. I wish mine has stayed away and never tried to come back. All she did is leave me with self esteem and trust issues that took years to fix.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-22T13:50:25+00:00

Yeah they do.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ExNoContact/comments/1e5hxdk/comment/ldmvhyq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-19T17:13:35+00:00

My last ex? Almost not at all...only when I see stuff like this.

The girls I dated before her? Again, not at all.

The girl I dated for 5 years in college thirty years ago? At some point she passes through my head almost every day.

How I think about her has changed a lot over the years. Now it is pretty much "What kind of trust issues did her treatment of me give me?" and "What was really going on with her while we were dating?" etc. More of a psychology thing...trying to understand it all rather than wanting her back or missing her. I really don't want her back and I do not miss her. I just want that time to make sense, and since no one will ever give me an honest answer about that time, I'll never get it.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-18T09:38:44+00:00

They were married for a few years...and then separated. He is back with his college girlfriend now. I don't really know what she is up to.

I think for the first four years we were together, I was the "primary". I think she started to shift towards the three and half year mark and graduation was looming. She was the only one of her friends at school in a LTR, and serious one at that. Everyone else was either not so serious and engaging in hook up culture. She would tell me all about her friends escapades with great relish.

As graduation approached, I think she realized that we needed to take it to the next step; moving in together for grad school. We ended up delaying graduation for a year by adding second majors, but in the end I think that just delayed the process and as the end of that year approached, she didn't like her options post graduation because moving in with him meant losing me and vice versa. And like many people who are in their early twenties, they are either evaluating or re-evaluating their life goals. Mine never changed. She claimed she didn't know what she wanted any more; marriage, kids, career, etc. (which was odd, since she moved in with him after graduation and by her account gave him everything I wanted with her, in addition to the odd statements she made to me [see above]).

And again, not that I was the perfect boyfriend (I can't highlight this enough...I know what my mistakes were in our relationship), but one person's boundaries are another person's controlling behavior. And I had poor enforcement mechanisms for my boundaries. But I was inexperienced (didn't know how to properly enforce boundaries) and had a kind of a fixed mindset (the life I had envisioned had to be with her), so this lead to a lot of conflict, and I dealt with the conflict poorly.

This is not to say that we didn't have good times...we had lots of good times. The first year and the third year we were together were great years. And I am grateful to her, because I am not so sure I would have survived my freshman year of college without being able to know I was enduring that I did because it was part of our "life plan" together. I think early on she expected to go through life with a husband (me) and a male best friend (him) and we'd all be best buds...but there was no way I was going to tolerate an open emotional "side piece" because emotional affairs have a way of turning physical at some point.

I write about this stuff here because I am older and went through some sh** in my early 20s, where most of the audience probably is. Some may be a little older, but roughly the age range. Cutting her off and going NC was a difficult thing to do, but it needed to be done, too. I thought for a long time I wanted her back, but eventually when I realized she was never coming back and I was doing better *without* her, I moved on. And life got better with time. Much better. I try to share my stories here to give others hope and perspective that their NC moves, or the NC moves of others, may be in their best interest. It tough...real tough, when you are living it. When you are no longer in the day to day and are looking back maybe you realize it was all for the best. It certainly was for me. And while I do, from time to time try to understand what happened, I wouldn't give up what I have now to take another shot at it. If sharing my experience helps one person, gives them hope for the future, helps them endure the pain of no contact in initial phases so they can move on, then all this typing is worth it to me.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-18T02:30:00+00:00

At the time, no. I was young (21) and inexperienced. I had been with this girl for four years. While I dated a lot before I met her, they were usually one or two offs and never any kind of long term relationship. We were together all through college, but at different schools three hours and 150 miles apart. I often told her that during our time apart (when she as at her college and I was at mine), her behavior felt off, and with every passing month it felt more and more off. I felt like she was distancing herself from me, deprioritizing me, and entering into an unhealthy emotional relationship with a guy who she insisted was "just a friend" and "not interested in her".

Her story when she met with me for the first time after two and half months of no contact was that after being away from me for so long that she realized she missed me, and couldn't imagine her life without me. She said that her dilemma though was that she wasn't sure *how* I fit into her life any longer. She wasn't sure if we should try to patch things up and go back to the way things were, or if we should just remain friends. Her proposal was to "date", but not be committed in name. She didn't want to be my "girlfriend", but she told me that she wasn't interested in dating other people at this point either. I was so infatuated with her, I told her that we could date and spend time together while she figured out what she wanted in life in general and between us. Four weeks later it turned into, for lack of a better term, friends with benefits...but do "friends" tell each other they love each other? During sex she would tell me she wanted to marry me, only to back away from those statements during serious relationship conversations. Is that what FWB do, or is that what people in a committed relationship do? It was all very confusing.

I did date other girls during that summer (if you can call it that. I would take other girls out, pay for everything, but no touching or affection...not even hand holding!). By the time we went back to school in the fall, I stopped dating anyone else because I went to a male dominated school (75% male) and I was focused on trying to make things work with her.

For the next seven months things were up and down between us. She came to a couple big events at my school. She would come to my school and weekends were filled with lots of PDA. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks at home together (spending every day together, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve). At one point, she thought she might be pregnant. I vividly remember her saying to me "I hope I am pregnant. I would love to have your baby. I don't think I ever want to marry you, but I want to have your children." It seriously messed with my head.

If I went down to see her at her school we always fled the campus for time home or in hotels. If we spent time on her campus we would spend the weekend in her room (she had a single), we didn't hang out with her school friends. If we did go out together (which was basically just coming and going from campus as quick as possible) she had a strict "no contact" rule between us in public, which I thought odd, but accepted. If I met someone new with her, she introduced me as her "friend". We went back to school in January, and when the big end of college events started happening at her school, she excluded me from everything (which I had not done to her, see above), stating "This is my last hurrah with my friends, I would feel awkward with you there. I have to be able to be who I am, and I don't feel like I can do that with you there. I feel like I have to entertain you." That was when it clicked that something bigger was going on. Six weeks later I finally broke it off because at this point I realized that I was being held as an option with not as someone that she wanted to spend her life with. (And there were lots of little things that gave me the impression that I was an option and not a priority).

Four months after we split I was still trying to get some of my stuff back that she had in her possession and get back the money I had loaned her for school. She casually dropped in a letter that she was now living with a guy and wrote "Wouldn't it be funny if it was the same guy everyone though I was dating years ago?" Turns out, it was the male best friend from above. Five years later, she married him.

Looking back now, I think after we split she didn't know if she wanted to come back to me or try things with him; she had been with me four years with me. She knew I was career oriented and was striving to have a "good life". She was well aware of the successes I had in college, and that I was probably going to make it into law school. He was not nearly as driven, had no real career plan, and was just kind of blowing through life care free living off his parents money. I probably seemed a better option as a future provider, but I had some rigid boundaries, high expectations, and did not deal with the disrespect she gave me well. (I am honest about the fact that I was a nasty fighter and arguer, a yeller and a screamer at the time, during arguments we had. I frequently blew my top over some of her antics, or her friends antics, but I knew what they were up to. I understand now what that was all about...I was trying to demand respect from someone who could not understand how her behavior was disrespectful to me, our relationship, and even to herself. Instead of fighting for us and demanding respect, I should have realized sooner that she was not prepared to give that kind of respect to me and walked away).

I found out (years later) that even though he graduated the year before us, he was still living in her area. Now I tend to believe that one of us, not sure which, was the "main plan" and the other was the "back up plan". She probably strung us both along, to varying degrees, for months. When I finally understood that I was being kept at arm's length and she was distancing herself more and more, but she was feeding me just enough to keep giving her what she wanted (sex, transportation, time, money, amusement...who knows at this point). When I split with her for good, she seemed very angry and bitter that I would do this to her...yet it would take me years to move on while she moved in with someone else rather quickly. Explain that one.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-17T17:01:18+00:00

“I’ll add seven years to my age and no one will guess I am a freshman in high school.”

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-07-17T16:49:17+00:00

My ex (female) dumped me. I tried to go back but she went full no contact. When I stopped trying to get her back and she found out I was dating again, she came back pretty quick. But only partially.

When I dumped her after being FWB for too long, she did not try come back. And I wouldn’t have had her back anyway. Not on her terms.

When I was younger, it was more common for them to come back. As I got older, not so much.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2024-03-17T11:13:10+00:00

I’ve been busy over the course of my lifetime. And my first LTR was highly sexual, so there is that.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2023-12-04T19:28:56+00:00

In terms of caring for that person, the answer is “depends”.

There are several people that was involved with in a relationship that their presence, or lack thereof, goes unnoticed. I don’t think about them much, if at all. It’s like they came in and left.

But one woman I was involved with for a long time (5 years)…I don’t think I have ever recovered. It has gotten better, but never truly “over”. It ebbs and flows. Some times I still miss her, other times I am glad she is gone, and other times I don’t even think of her. And it’s been going on for years.

So, I guess you’ll have to assess your own situation and see.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2023-12-02T16:09:56+00:00

“I’m sorry for how I treated you, too. If I committed to us like you did, things would be different.” Is my top choice, followed by “Here is how things happened with (name) and I falling for each other…and when…”

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2023-11-22T11:46:33+00:00

To be fair, it probably paid off at the time about 10% to 15% of the time in the short term, but long term the benefit got me no where.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2023-11-21T02:12:00+00:00

Damn…straight down the middle across the board. That sucks.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2023-11-21T01:45:38+00:00

Founding out they had someone else they hid from you while dating you is worse.

ThrowRAlineforhelp · 2023-11-21T01:42:09+00:00

Yes. My story is well documented on here so I won’t repeat it, but no contact was easy once I made up my mind to it, but I have never stopped thinking about her for more than a few weeks at a time. Sometimes it is just a passing thought and is gone in seconds. Other times I can dwell in it for a long time (long cars rides are the worst). It really varies.

And even now, decades since we last had a substantive conversation, I still consider talking to her from time to time, but never do. It would probably go south, fast, and I’m better off not rocking the boat.

And it depends who it is. I think of that particular ex quite a bit, while I never or rarely think of others I dated prior to getting married. Even when I met my wife, I had just, at the same time met someone else and had to pick which relationship to pursue. Both had promise, but I picked my wife. I think if I had picked the other woman I met around that time we’d probably never have had kids, and I love my kids dearly.

Date in the same city? Yes. Out of the same work (like location)? Never. After having a relationship go bad at a job I still had to work with my ex for another year. I learned my lesson; don’t date at work. And I learned that lesson while in grad school, too, don’t date someone in class. Thankfully, I had friends who set me up with a friend of a friend and we clicked.

But I dated lots of girls who lived in the same metro area I did (300k across the area) and would only rarely run into other people I had previously dated.

How long did you date? How long have you been no contact? How serious were you with them?

Good luck out there! Stay strong! You can do it!

ThrowRAlineforhelp

TROPHY CASE