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

[Overbeforeitbegan]

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?

I think Opheliah may have it, whitewashing the past.

I knew a couple years ago, she had a son by her previous partner who was a violent alcoholic. She eventually threw him out, and he died a couple of years later (not positive, but think it was alcohol related). Every year the previous partner's family come round and spend the evening eulogizing him - photos everywhere, candles burning etc - and her current partner is expected to stay in and wait on them.

I wouldn't rush to assume this is all terribly unhealthy... I mean, we can't really tell how much is objectively so and how much OP is projecting onto the situation (not saying you're exaggerating or making stuff up OP, just we can on sometimes focus overly on something that worries us). I would see how things go, seeing as you're in the early stages and if he isn't able to move on, maybe counselling as a couple to see how you can manage things?

Sorry but i think he sounds a bit unhinged. I'd run for the hills.

deloresclaiborne

i think i'd tell him theres 3 of us in this relationship and it's not working out while he's still grieving

I definitely wouldn’t say this^^. It sounds insensitive and as if you’re competing with a dead woman, who clearly had some very serious MH issues. It’s not attractive or pleasant.

But, I agree with other pps, that he seems to be romanticising the relationship and I would really struggle with that if I was his new partner. He wasn’t with her for long, so he can only imagine how it would have gone if she hadn’t died. He’s picked a perfect version of their relationship and of course that will be very hard if he continues to compare the two of you.

I would also think counselling would be a good idea for him, but I don’t know what I’d do re your relationship tbh.

My gut (based on the little I know) would be to leave it for now, till he’s in a better place with his grief. Kind of what @delores said^^, but just phrased differently! The above from @delores sounds a little bit “it’s her or me” maybe? Or maybe just to me.

He was with her for 8 months and is acting like a war widow from the 50's. That is not healthy and shows he is not capable of processing it properly on his own. He needs a lot more help.

The fact he even mentions her like you would a spouse of several years is very worrying.

As your relationship continues, past 8 months, a year etc, he will have to stop comparing unless to a fantasy of what might have been. This might put you in a stronger position in your own mind and his. Has he had other previous relationships? He may find some anger to her when he progresses his grief, that could be difficult too.
I think it's reasonable to say you don't want your relationship dominated by hers, just as you wouldn't with someone hankering after an ex who dumped them. You may be prepared to be a bit more sensitive in this situation, he may feel he is betraying her but wants to get over that.
Is he ready to move on and let her fade in time to a special memory? He certainly is more ready than before, but whether it is enough remains to be seen.

It's said that bereavement is the time you can go legitimately mad.

Five years isn't long, really, when you lose someone suddenly, through suicide, during the first flush of idealised love. No wonder he's a bit unhinged.

But you can't go on like this. He has idealised her and perhaps become isolated in his grief to the point he has lost touch with reality. It is weird to be routinely compared to an ex - I'd give this a short shelf life and, I suppose, issue an ultimatum: yy it's awful he lost her but you aren't prepared to be perpetually in her shadow.

When I met my dh I was still In love with my exh

We'd split 2 years previous.
But we fell inI love. - new partner
It still early days for you both as a couple
After about 6 months I realised that though I still loved my ex I loved my new partner more.
These things take time.
Just celebrated 20th wedding anniversary- can bearly remember my ex.

What was the way you say you found out you’d fallen in love with each other?

You’ve been together 3 months. Did you realise you loved each other before you got together or at some point in the months since?

He sounds very intense. 8 months in for a lot of people is early days. Were they living together or just dating?

You sound lovely and it’s not the fact that she’s dead is an issue but how he’s being about it. It’s his choice to let that experience be something he dwells on this often. It’s not his fault he’s dealt with it so badly but he’s responsible for his actions and if he’s choosing to not really move on by letting it colour your relationship like this then he needs more external help.

I might be being awful but he seems to have made the death of a short term gf over 5 years ago his defining characteristic. You say you knew about it before you met him. He’s wearing his loss like a mantel and that is a choice. Can you imagine: You: no I hate avengers can we see something else? Him: the love of my life died so.....

Does anything happen in his life that isn't incredibly romantic; or tinged with tragedy?

You need to talk to him. Grief is an awful thing; but he's grieved her for nearly nine times how long they were together, and now appears to be trying to recreate elements of the romance with you.

It may well be that he doesn't realise how much he compares you, and that he puts some genuine effort into stopping. Or it may be that he doesn't want to stop, and therefore you make the call about whether you can live in her shadow. It's not an easy situation, though

NC as potentially outing.

My DH's previous girlfriend was murdered. They were together I think about 4 years. met 5 years later. At first, yes, he spoke about her A LOT. But he openly told me everything that had happened from the night she went missing and his arrest (he was the main suspect at the very beginning) and how it affected his life. He was still having counselling when we met.

I loved him quickly and we really clicked so we are married now some 10 years later. But it wasn't easy and still isn't, due to the anxiety he still has. However the number of times he mentions her or her murderer now is so insignificant I know I'm not being compared.

I'm not explaining it very well but in short: I felt compared at first, after a couple of years that stopped (although I did speak to him about it after a while). I'm now happy but the emotional side can be very draining as he's still got the MH issues he got from that time.

Stay with him if you think there's a future and the comparisons shouldn't last. But make sure there's no ongoing issues for him that could make life a struggle in the future. I hate to say it but I'm not sure I'd be with DH if I had to make that choice again. I didn't know how deeply his MH issues went. But I do love him and we have a good time mostly.

Sorry, probably haven't helped.

I'm sorry, OP. But it sounds like he's still not ready to move on. He may never be. He's clearly not letting go ... constantly comparing a new partner with an old partner like this, positive or negative, isn't healthy of a sign of being ready to move on. It's also worrying that he's still so set in his comparisons after only an 8 month relationship ... I'm very, very sorry, but that would really raise flags with me. And it's not your job to 'fix him'. He has to learn to move on himself.

He's not ready for a relationship. You'd be wasting your good years with him.

So his previous girlfriend took her life, (he was madly in love with her). He doesn't date anyone else, then meets you - and is madly in love with you.

I think this man might not actually know what love is. I think he might be muddling infatuation (or lust) with actual real deep feeling. I'd worry more about that than him comparing you to his previous girlfriend. What's his romantic history like before her? Because he may have no skills in conflict resolution, and when the shine of the 'so in love' wears off, he may head for the hills anyway. The sudden and sad end of his previous relationship may have prevented him from ever learning that things can get messy.

It's the falling in love so fast, with such ease and so besottedly that would give me pause for thought to be honest, rather than what happened previously.

He can either stay with his perfect, dead partner in his head, or move on and be in the world with you, if you want him.
Perhaps he needs that spelling out. If that feels too brutal to do, then set a time limit in your head - 3 months? - and see if anything changes.
I wouldn't ask to see her photo.

If you'd posted this about a new squeeze who carried a torch for a short-lived relationship with a still living woman, responses would be piling in to say kick him to the kerb.

That's the way to look at this.

He never got a chance to get to know her in a commonplace way/bored/love her ordinariness.

Run, don't walk away from this.

Thanks for the views all, much appreciated.

He has been grieving his past relationship for five times longer than it existed. That doesn't sound to me as if he's on a good place to form a new relationship with you. I would walk away. Sorry.

I so wanted this relationship to work, but it seems to be doomed, sadly.

Not necessarily - only you can know that. Have you talked to him? Tell him what you expect and want and need. Maybe he needs a kick up the bum.

It's possible that he just wants you to know him well and that this was the major emotional event of his life without which you couldn't understand him fully. However, he's your boyfriend now. He should do what it requires to make your relationship work, if he's ready and wants to make it work.

He deserves to know what you are thinking, at least, so that he can make changes if he's capable and it's important to him to make you happy.

Give him a chance. I lost my fiancé to suicide and it was very much the same. It’s an unfinished love story. I struggled a bit with how much I came to love my husband eventually because it felt like I was betraying my first true love but you eventually adjust and learn that you’re lucky to have two true loves. I don’t think the length of his first relationship matters. Suicide taking it from you does something to it that’s hard to move past. I sometimes felt guilty for loving my husband so much but eventually I just felt blessed (and then he left but that’s another story).

Talk to him about your feelings and fears. You can’t legislate for how he feels, but you can ‘out’ that it is a potential future issue for you. You need to be gentle so that 1] he doesn’t feel afraid of losing you too and 2] he recognises you are not attacking his feelings and her.

I’d start with a question, like ‘what if in the future I always feel like you’re comparing this relationship to the one you lost? He can either say something helpful and reassuring, and address it with you, or get hurt and defensive and fulfil your fears. Maybe something in the middle. Definitely try to work it through now.

I think this would be a dealbreaker for me, and it shows that he has not moved on with his grief. I could not be compared like that. I am a person in my own right, maybe that is what you need to get across to him.

IT all sounds very intense from both sides and rather tiring. He was with her for 8 months but is carrying on like it was 80 years. Equally you have been together 3 months and are madly in love, want to spend the rest of your life together and he is constantly bringing her 'in' to your relationship... It all sounds a bit unhealthy to me.

I had an elderly neighbour who raved about who I thought was his dead wife, he mentioned her by name on a daily basis and erected a shrine in his garden. No children and I just assumed they had only had each other for many years and were madly in love. Then I discovered she died in the 60's and they had only been in a relationship with her a matter of months. OP your partner seems like he will grow old being unable to move on.

I can tell you from actual experience (my partners ex committed suicide) that it is probably not worth it for your own sanity, and for the fact you already feel this way.
His idealised memory will NEVER go away, you will feel second choice a large majority of the time. If I had have known how hard it would be I would have run a mile BEFORE I fell in love.