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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think I’d forever be competing with her memory.

78 replies

Overbeforeitbegan · 10/06/2018 08:28

I’m in the early stages of a relationship with a wonderful man. We discovered that we had fallen in love in a very romantic way and he says lovely things to me.

But he and his ex-partner we very in love, they’d been together for about 8 months, never lived together and she took her own life for which he has guilt. He has grieved for her for years, she is understandably on a pedestal in his heart. Their love is an unfulfilled romance. They never argued.

AIBU to think that a real relationship with me, ups and downs, inevitable arguments will never compare to what he had with her. In his mind, she’ll always be the one and will I always be a close 2nd.

Could you live like that?

OP posts:
Namechange128 · 10/06/2018 08:49

Sorry should have said he WANTS the drama more than the true daily up and down...

Urbanbeetler · 10/06/2018 08:50

Talk to him about this. He needs to think about your feelings too. If he doesn’t get it at all - we’ll, there’s your answer. He’s not ready for another relationship.

scrappydappydoo · 10/06/2018 08:52

I think you need to sit down and have a very open and honest conversation with him. Explain how you feel, your concerns and worries. Frame it from your point of view ‘ when you say... I feel....’ . The result of that conversation will determine where you go from here.

PerfectlySymmetricalButtocks · 10/06/2018 08:53

Is he my ex? You'll have to work out whether you can live in her shadow. You're like the second Mrs de Winter.

AfterSchoolWorry · 10/06/2018 08:53

Ok, yanbu.

He sounds a bit of a plonker. Thinking someone he dated for 8 months was his 'partner' and love of his life. And also for constantly comparing you to her and expecting you to take it as a complement.

I couldn't take someone seriously that is still stuck on an eight month relationship years later. All can't have been as well as he thought if the poor woman committed suicide.

Eatsleepworkrepeat · 10/06/2018 08:53

I think you're right to be wary, and he will definitely need to let her go if he wants to have a successful relationship. He's completely romanticising this previous partner, does he not express any anger or acceptance that she wasn't perfect? Obviously life felt intolerable for her for whatever reason, but the fact is that being in a partnership means staying alive to be there for your partner.

zzzzz · 10/06/2018 08:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
Overbeforeitbegan · 10/06/2018 08:54

Thanks all for your views. I think in the majority, you’ve confirmed what I was thinking. I will try to talk to him, but as mentioned above, he has romanticised their relationship, the love they shared and her so much over the last few years that I’m not sure he’s able to view the situation objectively.

OP posts:
Lonecatwithkitten · 10/06/2018 08:55

I am engaged to a wonderful man who was with his first wife for 28 years ( from age 18 to 46) she died from ovarian cancer. He has made two comparisons between us ever firstly she and I are very different and secondly that the love he has is very different. Yes he has awful guilt that he has got to live and find new love, but she told him that was what she wanted for him.
I think a gentle reminder that whilst you never wish to replace her comparison can be the thief of joy.
It is trickier when a previous relationship has ended due to tragedy, though we have a different difficulty as my DF had a relationship before me and sadly that lady wished to eliminate any trace of his wife. I would never want to do that and love that he still wears the his wife gave him, but on a different finger. But he worries that these reminders of his wife might upset me, for me he is the person he is because of his previous life and that included a long and happy marriage.

MrsBobDylan · 10/06/2018 08:57

This all sounds wrong op - he is waxing lyrical about a relationship he had with someone who was struggling with her mental well-being, poor woman must have been in a very dark place to eventually take her own life.

Yet it sounds as though your dp can only talk about the perfection of their relationship and her. Not about the pain she must have been experiencing.

I would be really concerned that he doesn't want reality just perfection and that you will be forced to pretend for your entire relationship.

Original poster
Overbeforeitbegan · 10/06/2018 08:58

Lonecatwithkitten - your DF sounds like a lovely man.

OP posts:
Original poster
Overbeforeitbegan · 10/06/2018 08:59

MrsBobDylan, yep. That’s exactly how I feel.

OP posts:
Tinlegs · 10/06/2018 09:01

I lost my boyfriend of 2 years to suicide when I was 24. After the grieving I began to realise, deep down, that we would have been unhappy. Also, he had dumped me in the most awful way.

2 years later I met DH. We have now been married for 20.

Don't assume how he feels. I still grieve but for who he was. I know he was too troubled and introspective to have made anyone a good partner.

Don't give up on him. It is tough to work through.

deloresclaiborne · 10/06/2018 09:01

sorry to sound harsh but do you think he enjoys the 'feel sorry for me' attention.
i think i'd tell him theres 3 of us in this relationship and it's not working out while he's still grieving
he''ll either agree with you or it might make him stop and think about what he's saying and how it makes you feel

Original poster
Overbeforeitbegan · 10/06/2018 09:05

deloresclaiborne - part of me wonders this.

OP posts:
hmmwhatatodo · 10/06/2018 09:05

Don’t you think it’s odd that he has never shown you her photo but talks about her constantly and even stranger, compares you to her? I’d say there’s more to this Op. Be careful, there’s some strange people out there.

Original poster
Overbeforeitbegan · 10/06/2018 09:05

Tinlegs, thanks for sharing.

OP posts:
Pengggwn · 10/06/2018 09:06

It depends how often he talks about her, for me. I couldn't be in a relationship with someone who kept talking about their former partner. Equally, however, I couldn't be with someone who banned me from mentioning something that had affected me deeply, like a death.

How often does this come up?

Original poster
Overbeforeitbegan · 10/06/2018 09:08

hmmwhatatodo, I haven’t asked to see one, so that’s perhaps why? I’ve known him for two years and we have mutual friends, so I knew he’d lost a partner for a long time before he told me. That bit is definitely true. It’s such a messy situation.

OP posts:
Mummyoflittledragon · 10/06/2018 09:09

I think I would approach this in a “I know you loved her very much and I hear the love you had for her. Please don’t compare what I do with what she did. We are different people.”

Personally I don’t think his behaviour is “normal”. He is definitely stuck in the past and trying to almost morph you into her. If he isn’t able to get past this, i cannot see how you can possibly have any kind of meaningful relationship.

starfishmummy · 10/06/2018 09:11

Of course he's going to miss her, but he shouldn't be bringing her up and comparing. My dh's previous partner died and he's never done that - at least not out loud!!

Opheliah · 10/06/2018 09:21

I know this situation is not directly comparable because the ex in question is still alive (and her progress in life mentioned frequently)

It's impossible to be in a relationship with someone so hung up on an ex.
My (now ex) DP broke up with the ultimate love of his life and settled for me... but on talking to his close friends this ultimate love relationship was anything but. She was 20 years younger than him and both of them had frequent flings, and public arguments. I think it's something mental condition that whitewashes reality to give a painful ideal of the past when no ideal existed.

8 months together. Suicide. It seriously could not have been perfect. It is not your problem to solve and it will cause you pain.

The "pain" of his previous breakup remained throughout our entire 4 year relationship. I gave up.

LightDrizzle · 10/06/2018 09:21

Do you know her name? I also find it odd that there aren’t photos of her or them around at all, not just in the formally showing you way, just propped against the books, on the fridge. I don’t have many photos at all around the house compared to friends, no big studio shots or anything, but there are a handful of 6x4s around.
I do think you need to have a kind but firm conversation about how this is making you feel and about your concerns over his romanticising and comparing.

whiteonred · 10/06/2018 09:24

I've never had any photos of partners or kids or anyone in our house, lightdrizzle. Just not my thing.

ElizabethinherGermanGarden · 10/06/2018 09:27

If he loves you, he has to be a good boyfriend to you. Everyone has their 'stuff' and his is traumatic and awful, but as he processes his grief and deals with it all, he needs to listen, learn and think about what you need and how to make you happy - if that is ultimately what he wants.

Obviously you need to be a good girlfriend to him and be sensitive to his feelings, but if the relationship is to work on a deeper level you can't pussyfoot too much, nor can you allow leeway for behaviour that makes you miserable. You both have to live in the here and now, not as if the past never happened but as if now is what matters.

(Side note - the second Mrs de Winter was so jealous that she was delighted to be an accessory after the fact. She's not a healthy role model! You can't be in a relationship (as in the book) where you can only be happy if you realise that he never really loved her...)