Hi John,

I read what you shared about last September’s Vegas wedding (you were not included on this trip) and also about your ex’s recent family weekend back to Vegas. So your relationship with her was very strong before the Vegas wedding, and she then started to show signs of pulling away from you during/after that trip. Similarly, she was initiating text messages with you before her recent weekend in Vegas, and then during/after that trip completely stopped doing that. So you see a possible pattern here and you are trying to figure out what could be happening in Vegas to motivate her to change course with you both times? As you say, it could just be a coincidence. Is it possible that she met her new BF while at the Vegas wedding? I guess it would be difficult for you to determine that for sure. I know in a previous post you said that she may have even spent time with her new BF (they are in a long distance relationship) during her recent weekend Vegas. But again, you aren’t privy to this information so you won’t be able to determine if he is what is motivating her actions. But I’m thinking that if he was present during both these Vegas trips, then there is a possibility that he is motivating her actions.

But there are other possibilities too. It’s obvious that her 19 year old son isn’t particularly fond of you. He flipped out when he found out you were planning to attend the wedding with them and then used that opportunity to tell his mom that he had enlisted in the Marines and wants the wedding trip to be a family trip without you. My oldest child is also a 19 year old son, and if he told me today that he’d enlisted and will soon be leaving for boot camp, my entire focus is now on him, so that explains to me why you’re suddenly not part of the wedding trip. So she goes on this family Vegas trip with her two boys, one who is soon leaving her, and btw he doesn’t like you. There is a possibility that on this trip she decided that she doesn’t want any tension within her family, especially now that her son is leaving for the military, so she decides to choose him over you. As for this recent Vegas trip, you indicated somewhere in this thread that this same son is back from the Marines for a few weeks. Was he with her on this recent Vegas family weekend? If so, there you go….that could be why she pulled away again. I would not blame her for this btw. I could see myself doing the same thing. The bond between mother and son is a strong one.

Another possibility is her brother. Have you met him? If so, how does he feel about you? Both times that she decided to pull away from you, she’s been with him. Could it be that she is getting advice from him about the relationship with you?

Just some thoughts to explore. Consider each with a grain of salt as I’m just throwing possibilities out there. What motivated her to pull away from you could be combination of all these scenarios or none of them. In my opinion, none of it really matters, does it? I mean, you couldn’t have controlled any of it. As they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas (sorry, bad joke). A better way to put it would be that your ability to sort out what really happened is limited because your ex hasn’t been forthcoming with the information.

You say that you failed her. Well, there is a lot about this situation that was way out of your control.

B