Hello

Well this is bound to be long.   I’m so glad I found this place.   I googled ‘feeling broken’ and it brought me here.

To give some history, I’m a woman in my 50’s.   I married young and stayed married for 20 years.   They weren’t all bad, but many bad times.   My ex had anger issues and was very difficult to live with.  It took me a long time and a lot of courage to divorce at 40.   After my divorce I dated quite a bit but could never get it right.  Dating in your 40’s in this atmosphere was tough.   Most of the men I met didn’t want serious relationships.   I was still having a good time and dating around, fell hard for a small handful but nothing ended up serious.     I have a very full life.  Job that I love, grown kids, more friends than I know what to do with.  I am very blessed and grateful to have such a full life.   But something was missing and I kept looking for it.  I dated for 7 years after my divorce before I met my now bf.

We met 3 years ago.  He is more than I could have hoped for.   He’s kind, genuine, affectionate, caring.  Good sense of humor, I could go on and on.  We have a great relationship, don’t argue about things, see eye to eye on a lot of important things, we have a lot of fun together.  Karaoke, dancing, comedy, live music, great vacations.   We are still smitten with each other 3 years in.   I never question his love for me or his commitment to me.   We are planning on moving in together next year and talk about forever and maybe getting married in the future.

His history is quite different from mine, and I think this is where the trouble starts with me.    He never dated for sport,  but he had a lot of long time girlfriends and married late in life, in his 40’s.    He dated his College sweetheart for 8 years.   I asked him why they split up and he told me because he was an idiot.  He broke up with her, then regretted it a short time after, tried to get her back but she had moved on.  So that was many years ago, but even in his 50’s, it seems he still really regrets letting her go.   They keep in touch and we have seen her out and about approx 5 times in those 3 years.    More on this later.    He married in his early 40’s and 8 years later she left him for another man.   He was devastated, tried to fix the marriage (he didn’t know that she had a man on the side until after the divorce was final), did everything he could do to keep her from leaving, cried hard the day they got divorced, it was a bad time for him.

We met shortly after and started dating.    He’s not one of those people who can’t be alone, but when we were having the conversations about exes and history I could tell he dated a lot of women for long periods of time.   Some broke up with him and some he ended it with.   A mix as is typical.

For some reason I have issues with his college gf.    She is very sweet, I don’t feel threatened by her at all. She’s married and seems like a happy person and they seem like a happy couple.   We ran into her and her husband one night and ended up hanging out with them in a bar after.    I hated every second of it.   He could tell I was uncomfortable so he was extra affectionate but instead of trying to make me feel better on the ride home, he just kept telling me what a great person she was.  ‘Isn’t she just one of the most genuine people you’ve ever met?’.  Blah, blah.   I think he thought I felt threatened by her romantically but that’s not it at all.    I realized then that it wasn’t that I was threatened by her or jealous of her, it was the feelings that it brought up in me that I was uncomfortable with.    It makes me feel not good enough, like I won’t live up to her.  I think because IMO she’s my bf’s ‘one that got away’ it brings up feelings that I’m not comfortable with.    It makes me feel like I’m his second (or third??) choice.   It makes me feel like he wishes his life worked out differently.

Then there’s his ex wife.   We don’t see her much but in the beginning they used to be more in touch regarding his step daughter, who is grown.    They didn’t have any children together.   Knowing that he didn’t want the divorce and fought so much to keep it, again makes me feel like I’m not his first choice.   And she’s a bit of a train wreck, nothing like me at all.   So it’s curious to me what he was trying to save.

So to sum things up here.   I believe because of his long dating history, and having so many exes in his orbit, and having so many relationships in the past that he wished had worked out but didn’t, I feel like I’m not special.  I feel like if we were to break up, he would just find the next girl.  I feel like ‘just another girl’ in the long line of girls.    I feel like he is settling for me because he couldn’t get what he wanted.

I can’t shake these feelings.   He is the love of my life.   This is the best relationship I have ever been in, and that says a lot since I’m in my 50’s.   I need to feel that he feels the same, and I’m not sure.

A friend of his passed away this week, someone who he hasn’t seen in a long time but someone he was very close to at one time.   He will attend the funeral and the lunch afterwards, and his college ex and another ex will be there likely, they ran in the same circles.    I’m sick over it.   And I feel horrible because my focus should be on how he’s having a tough time dealing with the death of his friend and all I can think about is him spending any time with this woman that he likely still wished things had worked out with.

I can’t get over these feelings.  Sometimes I feel broken and like I shouldn’t be in a relationship until I fix myself.  I feel like these are abnormal feelings and I can’t make sense of them.

I am secure in every other aspect of my life.  I’m great at my job, I have a ton of great friends, I own my own home, I raised 2 great kids.  But this one thing I can’t get over.

I have the need to know that he loves me in the same way that I love him.  I know you can’t measure love and people love differently.    And I’m not a jealous person, this is not me being jealous and afraid and threatened about his loyalty.  He is as loyal as they come.  This is about me letting his past make me feel bad about myself, feeling not good enough, not special, not his first choice.    He’s a great partner in every way.  Loving, caring, affectionate.  We still sleep all cuddled up together, he’ll rouse just a little in the middle of the night and mutter ‘I love you’ and reach for my hand as he falls back asleep.  We’re sickening to be honest.  lol    My friends who spend any time with us will say “I see how he looks at you, you are the love of his life”.     But I don’t feel it on the inside and it’s causing me so much pain.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you    K