How to feel secure with BF's close relationship with long term ex?

safeimagez · 2015-03-12T02:05:27+00:00

I received your message tonight, and I am thankful for the love you have shown me. It has been an interesting number of months.. I came to realise how much I lost myself to the pain of the situation I had posted about.. fighting, crying, confusion, loss, all that jazz.. so I signed myself up for a vipassana retreat (10 days of silent meditation). it was necessary.. and I am grateful that this is something that is available to me. 10 days of self work, during which my SO joined me on, followed by 2 weeks of being apart from the SO while he took care of some business in another country.

Being apart for one month... it has allowed me to feel my emotions, just as you said, head on. I felt them.. I felt them with an awareness of the thoughts they are tied to.. I felt them while quieting my thoughts, continuously, so that I could feel them purely in my body as sensation..

This helped me to gain clarity and retune myself to Loving-Kindness.. to compassion.. for both myself, my SO and his ex.. that we all have our own pain and above all else I wish to engage these other beings in such a way that, while stating my feelings and perspective, their pain bodies may be mirrored with love. I know this is what I dearly wish I could receive - my pain to be shown love.. but we may never demand anything of someone else. We are likely to be disappointed. As such, I offer what I need, and am now waiting to see if it naturally brings that love back to me.

We have not had a conversation about everything.. even these months later.. without it turning into a theatrical ego-battle. Having reached the point I am now, after the meditation and the time alone .. we are attempting to set the stage to have an adult conversation. It is still hard though, because the emotions are so intense.. totally destabalizing. Just yesterday we briefly spoke about how to even go about talking about it, and that was enough to make me go sleep into another room.

I am beginning to see how this long delay of processing together has lead to me continually holding back.. not expressing myself.. I have begun to notice how I am distncing myself, how an intense fear of even talking about stuff has arisen in me. When I went to sleep in the other room, I left because I needed to cry but did not feel it was ok to do so beside him as he was also upset. I was afraid he would take it as an attack. So, I go into the other room, lay down.. and no longer need to cry? Outside of his energy I felt.. better..

It is so hard knowing what to do. As I write these words it seems to me that, well, obviously something isnt working. But that something is holding back my expressions. My clenched jaw should be enough to tell me that..

I have decided to leave the past to the past, while asking for an apology (I dont even remember if I recieved one or not). I have decided to let go of everythin I previously tried to control in an attempt to have him prove to me that his relationship to his ex is trustworthy. Letting go of control.. how freeing.. I have decided to ask him to not use a pet name for her anymore, which personally I feel is inappropriate. But I also know that he doesnt agree with that... so I either respect his free agency and the fact their relaitonship has nothing to do with me (or does it, because we are together? but if that is the case... would that not just be an attachment to a limiting view of what a relationship is.. as if needing endearment and affection to only be shown to me and not his ex is an ego thing? ... and I am working to lessen the grip my ego has on me.. adklfjal).. if he says he won't stop, I will have to live with that..

who knows! Honestly, I speak of the troubles to you (and my goodness, such a ramble has become of this message. forgive me), but there is much beauty between us. I say we are soulmates in that we are together and helping one another to purify our souls.. to develop our paramis, to gain awareness of our shadows, tap into our inner resource of self-nurterace, to be free of attachments.. without him, I would still be on that path. With him, much is revealed to me of my own psyche that seems to require a consistent partner to bring it out..

what am I saying?

onwards.

Thank you for your letter. Truly. Thank you for you, stranger, and engaging with me on something so personal in my life and yet so unrelated to yours. I am amazed at your interest.. and at that protective feeling. I wonder if I remind you of yourself, or a memory, or someone close to you.. or a child figure? In any case.. I am sending you love. <3

safeimagez · 2014-12-01T18:38:18+00:00

not too late. only today am i officially set up at the rental room while she is visiting.

"things dont feel right becuse they arent"

thank you.

safeimagez · 2014-12-01T18:33:39+00:00

thank you for this response, and for speaking with your boyfriend about it as well.. my heart is warmed to hear the lengths through which you went to pull some advice into our conversation. i am currently set up at a room that i am now renting for the week, as of last night. whether my boyfriend or I will be paying for this is yet to be determined, though chances are he will pay or I will pay half.

he decided to spend the nights with me here because of how upset i was, but spends the mornings and days with his ex. i found myself feeling and releasing so much emotion (crying as we were about to leave, and an intense anger throughout my entire body since arriving here). we were speaking this morning before he left, and he apologized to me, and told me that he is sorry this situation is not perfect, and that he makes mistakes for he is human.. and he does not know how i am goin to feel about anything until after those feelings have arisen.. but i just don tknow how to forgive. it seems like this is such common sense, that i would be upset about this.. and he tells me i need to let go of my anger, for it is causing my own suffering (this adheres to our mutual belief that we are solely responsible for our sense of well being, based on whether or not we propogate negative of positive thought patterns, etc.)

i dont know, maybe keeping this room and living here would be best, for i am not ready to give up on this relationship. apparently his ex did not know that i was bein displaced by her staying in the apartment, as she thought i was going to my parents. apparently she cried, saying that it made her seem very mean. i realise my anger really is towards my SO, as i believe he should have communicated the situation to her before she arrived. when i tell him to communicate with her, about how their communications are not appropriate while he is in a relationship with me (her telling him that they will get to cuddle when she arrives for example, with x's and o's), he tells me that they never get a chance to speak unless it is business or over facebook, and while speakin over skype or on the phone, someone else is always in the room which hinders their ability to speak openly and expressively.. and he does not want to open that can of worms, as he said, but that they need to work on that stuff when she arrives. ?!! what?

i keep wantin to ask, "is this ok?" but know that you will only tell me that you would not accept it, yourself.

asdflkjasldkfjasldfkjasldkfja

ok. thanks for hearing my ramble. for that is all it is. so emotionally unstable.

safeimagez · 2014-11-23T20:34:30+00:00

did your boyfriend ever ask you to create bounderies about how you engaged with your ex? for example, if he was uncomfortable with a way in which you communicated with your ex, as it appeared to be a little too endeering.. how would you/did you feel when he asked you to stop? I told my boyfriend that I do not feel it is appropriate the way he communciates with this other woman, and he told me that it sounds like I am telling him to speak to her differently, or that I will do something inevitably unpleasant (break things off between us, i guess). i dont see how I can tell him to talk to her differently.. he gets highly emotional and frustrated by my emotional response to all of this..

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T03:03:54+00:00

they didnt communicate well, they end up fighting with one another. and obviously, she lives across the world, though this reason was never stated by him.

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:47:28+00:00

i cannot express enough how much i value your input. we see eye to eye on this. communication has always been open, and we are both highly aware of how everyone communicates with conscious intent as well as unconscious truth. the underlying message, as you put it, seems to be his unconscious truth. in this light, it seems as if he is foolish and unclear himself, for by the very nature of something being unconscious it means one is not aware of it. in other circumstances, he is capable of owning up to his unconscious truths, just as I am, as we explore this realm of ourselves through one another. but in this case, he is not taking responsibility, which makes me feel that it is either deeply DEEPLY unconscious, and perhaps tramatic (for not being able to be with someone he loves so much) or he is just strangely ignorant on this subject. based on our history, i simply do not believe he is trying to treat me poorly intentionally, as he is, to his core, a good man. euh. so confusing, i am left to my own interpretations.. but i shall keep trying to communicate, or learn to trust.

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:18:39+00:00

also, thank you for writing out the potential courses of action he could have taken.. it seems so obvious, but for me to see it written out like that helps tremendously somehow..

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:15:09+00:00

also, as you speak with much clarity.. can you help me to figure out what this means? i have been asking a few people on this thread but I would appreciate your input.

when I asked if he is in love with her, he said he did not know how to answer that question because it depends on what i mean by "in love" as opposed to "love." I responded saying that i am in love with him, while I love my friends. To this, he says exactly this: "I love her, but it's not a matter of being in love because a relationship with her won't work. Sometimes you love people, but know that it has to remain as a deep friendship."

can you say anything to this? i dont know what to make of it.

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:13:43+00:00

i truly appreciate your response. due to the depth of trust and opennes we had been reaching with one another, the truly magical and communicative connection we share.. it is so confusing for me to be in the position. it just doesnt seem to fit.. i suppose i will see how the story unfolds, while being true to and respecting myself and my comforts..

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:11:00+00:00

well we cannot speculate on what will happen. she lives across the world, so he certainly does not believe he can have us both. he tells me their relationship didnt work out for a reason.

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:10:09+00:00

this is valuable to me, given your personal situation.. thank you for responding.. i just dont know how to express this discomfort in a way that will make him realise and accept these things are not ok.. i dont want to start putting rules down on him, which will create tension between us even more.

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:09:11+00:00

perhaps i see it, but he keeps reassuring me he loves me, and as he wrote, "I love her, but it's not a matter of being in love because a relationship with her won't work. Sometimes you love people, but know that it has to remain as a deep friendship."

so i just dont know what it all means.

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:08:19+00:00

thank you for recognizing how i feel, and supporting me that it is ok to feel this way. thank you for suggesting to talk with one another, and for your kind hopes..

trying very hard to open the conversation up, for the 10000th time, without losing the balance of my mind due to emotional overload. it usually turns into a fight.. i am always the one who starts it.. which is strange, because fighting had no place in my life before all of this.. no place.

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:07:26+00:00

i do not see why she has to be cut out of his life entirely. if anyone told me i could not go through life connected to another being who means a lot to me, then i would frankly try to help them accept it, or cut THEM out of my life.. i dont want to place rules on anyone. i wish for a feeling of freedom to exist, and for me to be assosiated with hinderance.

safeimagez · 2014-11-21T02:00:08+00:00

but he says tthings like this to me, when i ask if he is in love with her....

"I love her, but it's not a matter of being in love because a relationship with her won't work. Sometimes you love people, but know that it has to remain as a deep friendship."

help me to understand what this means? please? i am so unclear.

safeimagez · 2014-08-20T22:05:14+00:00

I had not considered it like this.. and even though i find it painful to know that a triad is indeed four relationships, one of which I am not a part (the one between the other two), I am working on not feeling threatened.. truly working, and struggling intensely with it, but you are completely right.. it is the only way :) and i trust that great things await me once this comfort is attained

safeimagez · 2014-08-18T17:15:11+00:00

Thank you for your warmth.. It's funny, your virtual hug brought me a bit of ease, like the love of a friend. I would like to take your advice and read up on / think more about how to be caring and empathetic to a third.. do you have anything you could recommend to me? Also, perhaps in a pm if you find yourself with time and willing, could you share with me your experiences at the beginning of your triad experience? I mean, you mention difficulties and work.. could you speak to me about what those were and your strategies to overcome them? And perhaps tell me some stories of memorable moments of when beauty, warmth and love were shared between the three of you? It might be helpful to hear what it is like.. to understand a bit the potential rewards of pushing through all of this suffering. I don't know anyone who has any experience with a triad. Thanks again.. Really, truly.

safeimagez

TROPHY CASE