Really long post – I needed this, obviously!

I am posting these thoughts in a hope for advice on resolving inner conflict about a relationship. I am aware that I am going through a painful process and I feel that I may receive help from sharing and seeing what others think. I am trying to find forgiveness for someone I do love very much, but this relationship has hurt me deeply and confuses my sense of self. I have found myself very unhappy and conflicted and damaging myself through obsessive thoughts and a lack of ability to let the past go.

I person I love is doing all the things I would need of him in many ways right now. He is showing me love and forgiveness and trying to do hiss best. I want to understand his perspective and feelings on the past but yet I still remain angry and frustrated and I don’t know how to move beyond that. I am experiencing overwhelming feelings at time. I have to leave “normal” life situations to run home and be alone, I feel very panicked and emotional and I am struggling as I feel like I am merely surviving and existing, not living, at the moment.

I am 34 and he is 37, as that context can seem to matter. Prior to this relationship I was with someone for 6 years that ended a couple of years before this relationship started. I was a sad but amicable break up. The period of time over which this story stretches is 18months from when we “got together” until now.

My story of the relationship is such. I met a man through mutual interests that I felt an immediate connection with. We became close friends over months of messaging and I was aware I was falling in love with him. I was confused at the time because he was in a long-term committed relationship (of 15 years), although I was aware to some degree he was not happy in his relationship. His partner was in another country and he was due to move there for a period of 6 months to work and live with her. It happened that I moved to the city he was living in weeks before he was due to leave. We spent time together and immediately we confessed that we were in love. His departure was delayed and we spent a period of 6 weeks experiencing the joy of mutual love, although I think we both realise now we could have done more to face the reality of the situation and plan what came next.

He was certain that he loved me, wanted to be with me and was going to end his other relationship. He told me that the relationship had been over really for a long time, and that the reasons for it ending were not to do with me. He said that there would be no surprise in this for her, they had had many discussions about their problems. He also stressed that she is an independent person. He told me that he wanted to remain close friends with her, as they had a deep bond. He told me he felt as if their relationship was really a close friendship anyway and so a transition to that would be relatively natural. My mistake I realise was not clarifying the practicalities of this in the short term. To me I don’t believe it is possible to go from life partner to close friends overnight, if at least one person does not entirely want or accept the end of the relationship. We did agree that it would be best that he didn’t disclose our relationship to his ex-partner immediately. What I guess I was not clear on was that then I would not expect them to be close friends while he was not being honest with her and I guess not really at all in the immediate aftermath of their break up.

He went to the other side of the world and it was very hard. He didn’t break up with her for 2 weeks as she had important work commitments. I found the situation difficult and in the first week we had an issue. Things were getting very flirty on messages between us and I stopped this abruptly with “I don’t think we should do this when you are about to get into bed with your girlfriend”. It was lashing out I guess and not a helpful way to communicate my concerns I realise that. He has since said from that moment he was shocked that I was not showing him understanding and love. The following week in the lead up to him breaking up with her he told me he would be quiet as he was facing and preparing himself for what was to come. I tried to be understanding and give him space, which I have since been told was not successful and he felt abandoned. He broke up with her and did tell me over the following week, how he was doing. The break up was very hard for her and she needed a lot of support from him. On top of this his Mother showed him little support and was reiterating how much she loved his ex and how sad she was.

I had been feeling unwell on and off for months and things deteriorated rapidly and I ended up being rushed into hospital one day around 10 days after he broke up with her. I was very sick, I had a huge internal abscess, the infection had got into my blood. I was treated and started to recover but I was in hospital for over 2 weeks. In the hospital I was wanting him to tell me how he was, and he did tell me he was having a really hard time with his ex and his mum, but he was also good to me too. He would get frustrated that I wasn’t handling the being stuck there with not knowing how long i would be there for or what was always happening to my body. I was finding it stressful and scary but also not facing the fact I was very very ill. I’d be sent for scan after scan and had all these different doctors talking to me and I was confused and on a lot of medication. I just wanted to go home, and that must have been hard to hear from the other side of the world via text. But I did realise he was saying what he was saying out of love and not wanting me to set myself up for a fall. He’s a very logical person who rationalises things and sometimes it is hard for someone like me to accept that it seems unemotional.

It was a confusing and scary time. It was quite a slow recovery physically and I admit I pushed myself to return to my new job etc far too soon (it was a little over 2 months after moving to a new city and a month after starting a new job) . I was living alone and was exhausted and increasingly getting depressed. I had also lost an ovary due to the infection which had upset my hormones and I was experiencing quite unexpected and severe mood swings at times. I realise I may have been difficult to deal with at times, I’d call him very upset and missing him. I was getting anxious and I was also pushing myself to do too much and crashing afterwards, sinking deeper into depression.

I did my best to be good to my boyfriend and he did help me. We had some difficult times but also some good ones where we were showing each other love and support. However, certain things started to nag at me. I knew he had and was seeing his ex at times, to talk about the past and also on a couple of work social occasions (they were working at the same place). But a couple of times (talking about a meal out and a trip to the cinema) he said “we” in the story and backtracked to “I” and I was confused as he didn’t say who he was with. One night after he was not home until late I snapped and texted him “How much time are you spending with X?” (X being his ex partner – name omitted). He rang me the next day and the conversation blew up. He told me that yes he was friends with her like he said he would be and they did things (eating out, cinema etc) from time to time. I was pretty upset as I felt it had been hidden from me, although he says it had been increasingly difficult to talk to me about her and every time he mentioned her in the past I had become withdrawn and not wanted to talk about it.

Then he dropped what I consider to be the bomb. He said that X had asked him to go to a music festival with him (a weekend, staying in a hotel) in 6 months time, the weekend of his birthday. Apparently this was in fact something she wanted to do to mark turning 40 (which was months before the festival). He said he wanted to go to support her as she had no one else to go with and really felt it was important to her. He also said he knew he had to talk to me about it and hadn’t agreed to go yet. I was gobsmacked, that he thought this was reasonable for a start but also just deeply hurt that he was even in the sort of situation where she would be asking and expecting that from him. I couldn’t see the importance of it was a thing for him to do – it felt ridiculous. A music festival? It seemed so stupid. It felt like he was in a relationship with her and not me, despite what he said. We had a very long and heated conversation that day – not all the details of which I can remember. We were both very hurt and the fall out is that my reactions and behaviour made him question who I was and he needed time to figure out whether I was the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. It was very very painful – I hated myself for not showing him more compassion and for getting angry and verbally lashing out. For not listening and trying to understand him. But I also felt deeply hurt and let down. He knew from the very start that a lack of certainty would mean that I felt he was breaking up with me and so we did that, on the phone a little over a month before he was due to return to the country.

We didn’t speak much until he was just about to return. I was very very down and struggling a lot emotionally in that time. I felt alone and worthless and I was realising that my mental health was not good at all at that time. I really wish I’d been able to take better care of myself. I did get some further help with the hormones which levelled me out and I was trying to get better. In the run up to him returning we spoke and he told me he had told X about us – obviously she was upset about “his affair” and he’d been having a really tough time, he said he had been devastated and the world changed completely the day he lost faith in me.

I wanted us to work things out and I thought if we could just see each other things would fade into the past. He came back to the country with a virus and he was quite unwell, I picked him up from the airport and he stayed at mine for a week. I tried to just be good to him but we didn’t resolve any issues and he left to get space and went to his Mothers.

Over the next couple of months we saw each other a couple of times. In general we’d initially get on really well then things would rapidly descend into chaos when we tried to talk about the past or our current situation. He’d inevitably leave and things would be very strained between us with little communication for weeks then we’d come back together – and repeat. A couple of months after an upsetting time we weren’t in contact, then we started to talk again. I asked him what he was doing for his birthday and he told me he was going away with X to the music festival. I was deeply hurt and told him I didn’t want any more contact between us at that time. I had been in therapy at this point and I guess established that this was a deal breaker. My therapist was helping although I eventually stopped going once I had reunited with him again as I couldn’t face telling her (sounds ridiculous right?).

He wrote me a very long letter before he went away with X to try and explain all he had been feeling. Some of it was helpful and I was really sad that I had hurt him so much. But I remember at the time just thinking the stuff he was saying about his X was BS. I deeply felt he had chosen to support her and abandon me when I needed him. He was hurting too and the communication between us was a complete mess. While he was away with her I felt angry, I saw pictures she tagged him in on facebook and they were there with other friends who didn’t know I even existed (and I thought that she had no one else to go with which was very confusing). I felt like a complete fool. I hate to say it but my ego was raging.

The back and forth continued between us for months more though. I spent my vacation time from work with him, having some good times and then very painful ones. I was hurting because he couldn’t commit to me. I also felt hurt that his friends and family knew nothing about me. Specifically I am friendly with his best friend and on the occasions I saw him it was very hard. I also felt like I’d been placed in a box away from his reality. (Although he will say that I am wrong about that and very central to his being). I went to stay with him at his Mothers but when she wasn’t there and she didn’t know about me. On the second time I was there there were pictures of him and X up on the walls which hadn’t been there the first time. It was sad, hard and confusing. The second time I stayed there we had extremely intense conversations and he said again he just didn’t know if he could be with me. Something in my head broke a little and I had an extreme emotional reaction – basically a panic attack.

A couple of weeks later, we had a further big bust up were I asked to cut contact again. This was again due to an argument that arose about him not wanting to do anything public with me (admittedly in the aftermath of my panic attack) and also about X. She was back visiting in the country and she wanted to go to things (events) I had planned to go to in the city I live (she is from here). One such thing meant that he was going for a meal and to an event with her and their mutual friends. I felt pushed out, even from a life I was trying to live on my own in the city.

Around this time I had told him my mental health was suffering and I had to take responsibility for that. I was having a pretty rough time. Anxiety and depression were (and still are) a struggle and I was also exercising some bad habits at times, like using alcohol to numb myself. I was very withdrawn and then from time to time letting loose with friends. I think they were worried about me but I was hiding the depth and extent of my feelings from them.

We got back in touch and again started a similar pattern of spending intense times together and then he’d go and we’d not really speak much and then come back toegther. This time without the big blow ups, although I realise now we just weren’t facing the issues and ignoring them. But I was getting increasingly anxious and panicky – the relationship was confusing. He started to introduce me to his friends and (on his idea) booked a weekend away together. But we weren’t “together” and I felt pushed out when he went off to “have space” for weeks at a time. It was confusing and I wasn’t coping. After the weekend away where I felt withdrawn and sad (although we had good moments) we agreed it wasn’t working. We were both very upset though and after another intense conversation I had another panic attack. He left the next day and it was with sadness but also finality.

I was a bit of a mess over the following month – I was trying not to drink alone but it was also party season and there were excuses to drink and also work was winding down. I spent some time with friends but also felt very lonely (Xmas is a hard time for me anyway). In this time I also slept with someone I considered a friend (not a close one), which in hindsight was a bit of a messy mistake but I didn’t much care at the time.

Then 6 weeks after the “final episode” I replied to an email from him as he said he had something very important to say. We started talking. He told me he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He wanted to move in, start a life. Although he was respectful of my needs and just wanted it to work. He recognised we had really heavy stuff to talk about but he beleievd we could do it. I told him about the other guy and although it is hard for him he says he forgives me for that and all of the past. This was 6 weeks or so ago.

I felt I had forgiven him in many ways a long time ago – but I realise that was only acceptance of the past not forgiveness, and not in the way you have to if you still want a relationship with someone. Now I am struggling to find forgiveness. We have talked at length about a lot of things and I think we do understand each other much better. I love him very much. But I stew over the past still. It recently came out that while he was out of the country he had spent Xmas with his ex (when we were together), we had video messaged and he opened his presents from me and we chatted for an hour that day. Then he went out with her and didn’t tell me. I understand when he said he didn’t feel he could tell me because he was worried about my reaction but I just am so hurt that that happened.

I do have to say I feel that his relationship with his ex has damaged us, I don’t think he sees it that way. He thinks my lack of communication was what led to these problems. I am very confused. I really want this to work and I am trying to bring myself round to focussing on the present and the future. I don’t feel threatened by her in a simple sense – he would be with her if he wanted to be. But I am hurt and want to know what it means for the future. I don’t trust him I guess – with my heart that is. I don’t think I am always right but I need my pain recognised and I don’t know how. I want to learn and grow and be happy. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been happy in a very long time.

I do think we could be magic together. But everything seems very hard.

You made it to the end of this so thank you for reading.