Hi Freddie

I’m sorry to hear that you’re having a difficult time processing the break up and your ex dating someone else.

I’ve been in a similar situation myself and honestly I just got tired of being pushed away all the time. The on again off again is a very unhealthy relationship dynamic. At some point you do take no for an answer. She had likely been at that point for a while before she ever met someone new.

Do you honestly want to be with this person permanently? You had 7 years to figure it out and it sounds like largely what was in your mind while you were dating was that you weren’t interested in commitment. Which is fine if you aren’t a commitment kind of person. But a lot of people are and when one person wants commitment and the other doesn’t, the relationship doesn’t work out.

Hi Freddie

Thanks for clarifying that you were together for 7 years and then the on again off again element of the relationship started. Apologies for the misunderstanding, it is difficult to understand the context without further context. It does sound like a different situation to what I experienced.

It sounds like you broke up for a reason. You mentioned communication issues in the relationship and the final break up with her choosing to date someone else after telling you that she loved you 4 weeks prior does sound like another communication issue. I can understand why that hurts.

Do you regret your decision of breaking up and wish that you had instead stayed together? You might not want to go into details. Or if you wish to please feel welcome. But surely you made that decision for a valid reason?

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

Dear Freddie

Thank you for clarifying things. I have been in a similar situation a man I was involved with, his daughter was being brought up by his ex wife’s granparents ( his ex wife had issues around alcohol). It maybe that your ex may have suffered from postnatal depression. Like you I tried to initiate a relationship with the daughter and foster a better relationship between child and parent. My then partner did have issues and would sometimes talk about them, but he refused to follow the guidance given by his doctors even with my encouragement & support.  I brought a house with my parents and moved in with my 2 children, part of the difficulty was that my mother’s mother died when I was about 4 and I think my mum did not know how to be a grandmother only a mother, so there were some control issues.

It appears that your ex is unwilling or unable to address the whys & wherefores of her families dynamics etc and therefore any relationship she has will have a shadow over it.

I hope that you find someone to make a kind & loving family with.

Hi Freddie

I believe you when you say she was a good person and love and miss her. But you did have valid concerns when it came to debt and her child. When you want to marry someone it makes sense to talk these things through deeply it is important to know these things about a life partner. It’s concerning that you had been together for 7 years and she was unwilling to speak about such things for all that time.

I once broke up with someone I loved and was ready to marry because they were unwilling to have difficult conversations. It’s not a way to live.

It’s sad to hear that when you were in the on again off again phase once again she refused to address your concerns and instead it became about how you hurt her by leaving.

I think that if she had just talked to you and been willing to share you would have stayed and this would never have happened.

I doubt she could replace the connection that you both had so easily. What she has now is something different and new. It doesn’t compare.

Hi Freddie,

I am glad you realize that it would be best to let her go and move on. Because even though there were great times, even idyllic times in your relationship, it was only until you were willing to keep a blind eye on the important issues. Whenever you “poked” her to open up, it wasn’t fun and idyllic anymore. She would become defensive, start blaming you and you would back off to keep the peace.

That was the dynamic. So keep that in mind whenever you start missing the good times and how much fun you had together. It was all conditional on you not asking important questions.

I naturally blame myself for anything that goes wrong in my life and because my ex and her friends, one of which I spoke to a week ago have put everything on me and the breakup was a result of my issues.

Yes, we talked about your propensity to blame yourself on your previous thread. And her remarks fell on fertile ground because you accepted the blame. You took it on yourself. And then her friends just confirmed her position, because obviously they don’t know everything what was happening behind close doors. She told them her version and they trusted her.

In fact, let me ask you: how good do those friends of hers know you? Have you talked to them about what’s troubling you? Do they know your side of the story?

I think the whole thing has been made harder by her meeting someone and almost forgetting about me and what she said she felt about me overnight,

I think when you got together in May, she was hoping you’d dropped the issue by then and would stop “buggering” her. I guess in her mind, you were perfect – if you wouldn’t bugger her with those difficult questions. She probably loved this tame, silent you, who wouldn’t ask uncomfortable questions. She was hoping she would get him back.

But when you said you still have to work on your anxiety, she realized you can’t drop the issue. She realized nothing really changed – neither you want to change to accommodate her, nor she wants to change to accommodate you. And that’s it. That’s why it was probably easy for her to let go of you when someone else came along.

The whole thing just got me to a really dark place where I’m just angry at myself and beating myself up whilst hurting and feeling lonely.

I am really sorry, Freddie. You were made to believe it was all your fault – that’s why you are angry at yourself. You also believe it’s a great loss, because you focus on the good times. But try to see the whole picture: which was that good times lasted only as long as you didn’t bring up uncomfortable questions. As long as you pretended that everything was fine.

I understand you’re feeling lonely, because it felt good to be close to her. But again, you couldn’t be yourself around her – you needed to suppress certain parts so she wouldn’t be upset. It wasn’t true intimacy, but a conditional one. And I think you want someone with whom you can be completely honest and not have taboo topics and lies.

I’m starting some cbt counselling which will hopefully help and I’m going the doctors to let him know where my head is and hopefully I can get some medication to help with my mood and mindset as well.

Good to hear you’re going to therapy. I hope you can get to the root of your guilt. We’ve talked a little about it on your previous thread, but didn’t get to any conclusions. If you want to talk some more about what you believe caused this deep guilt, you are very welcome.

Hi Freddie,

you are very welcome, and I hope you can keep in mind the big picture, even if right now your emotions prevail and you want her back, regardless of the big picture.

Just beating myself up a lot and I’m so angry at myself cos I feel I should have done more to save us and that I sabotaged something good. I know I’m probably looking at her through rose tinted glasses at the moment

Yes, you are, you are focusing on the good parts and forgetting the bad parts of the relationship. You were hooked by what she told you in May:

She kept saying how much she loved me and that she couldn’t see herself with anyone else, so stupidly I thought I had time to get myself together and improve for when we got back together.

And then broken when she quickly found someone else:

I’m also really confused how she can have such a quick turnaround herself after saying what she said to me then meeting someone so quickly and wanting to give it a go with him. … I still don’t understand how she could turn off her feeling like that.

It seems that her finding someone else triggered the “I am not good enough” wound. And all you can think about at the moment is to show her that you are good enough. And that’s why you want her to give you another chance. At least that’s how it seems to me.

In addition, she was putting all the blame on you, she accused you of the breakup. Not only that but even her friends accuse you of the breakup. So that too is a huge pressure on you, because you are quick to blame yourself. And now you want to prove both to her and to the world that you are NOT this terrible person that she is accusing you to be. That too I think is a reason why you want to go back and have another chance.

So it’s like you want to prove that you are a good person and not a terrible person. And you want to prove it to her. Does this ring true?

Whereas the solution would be to heal this wound and to finally realize that you are a good person and that you have the right to happiness and to your needs being met. That you are not a horrible person for wanting good things for yourself. That you have the right to protect yourself from bad things. That this doesn’t make you a bad person.

So, instead of going to her to prove that you are a good person, you’d need to work with yourself (including your inner child) to heal the wound.

At least that’s what I see as a way to true healing…

I think the anxiety told you it was time to go. She wasn’t being clear on children and there’s the debt thing. I think that you may have wanted different things and she didn’t want to communicate in a healthy manner. You let her go a lot and she got mixed signals but it seems like a mutually beneficial thing that you two ended it. After 7 years you should be on the same page. Don’t blame yourself!