Ex has moved on, feel sick

[Twinsmamma]

I write this as I lay wide awake another night as my mind is spinning. I’ll try and summarise, I was with my ex for 7 years, 2 beautiful twins together, the relationship grew toxic over the years due to him making me feel unappreciated as a mother, I felt invisible and it led to me feeling resentful and i looked at him through a very negative lense, which he felt. It all came to blows last summer and he left, initially I felt shock, then relief, then sadness. We’ve never really had a transparent conversation about anything, initially it led to further conflict so he would say “see! this is why we’ll never work” and exit the conversation. But over the last few months we’ve grown back a lot of respect for each other and are being much kinder to each other, it’s been great and quite frankly, I’m desperate to give it another go (start dating each other, I’m not expecting him to move back in as i don’t want the kids to be impacted unless it’s going to work) the big BUT here is, he’s started dating someone and “really likes her” I'm devastated. I feel a greater pain and sadness than I did when he left, it’s obviously jealousy and rejection and loss all hitting me at once but I quite frankly can’t deal with it. I’m not sleeping or eating, I’m trying so hard to pour all my energy into my children but I have to keep leaving the room as I’m crying constantly. Has anyone experienced this. AIBU to want him back to this extent? I’m nervous to broach the subject with him as fear he’ll say he just doesn’t want to be with me (I did beg him to come home when he first told me about her) which I don’t want to revisit that for my own dignity. But I feel like my life/ future/ person I love is slipping away from me and I don’t know what to do,

Why would you want to get back with a man that you felt didn't appreciate you and made you feel invisible? And had bad communication by the sounds of it.

You split up for a reason; it's rarely healthy to get back with an ex. Remind yourself why you split!

If you had got back together you'd only split up again for the same reasons you did the last time. He's not for you.

I really wouldn’t broach the subject again if you’ve already asked him to come home and he said no. Sadly, it sounds like emotionally he’s moved on.

Sometimes parents just work better apart, don’t confuse that with being able to be work as a couple. There is a valid reason you split up and it’s not because he made you feel like a great mother and girlfriend.

Deep breaths, take each day one at a time. This awful feeling will pass eventually even tho it feels overwhelming right now. Just eat little and often.

I felt invisible and it led to me feeling resentful and i looked at him through a very negative lense

OK that's fair enough @Twinsmamma but..

quite frankly, I’m desperate to give it another go (start dating each other,

What has changed about him which makes you think he won't view you as invisible again?

So his version of events would probably be that it wasn’t working, you split up, things were weird/not great for a while but then you started getting on well as friends and co-parents of the twins. His version is a lot more realistic than yours, it didn’t work and it almost certainly wouldn’t work again if you got back together.

It can take a few years for your co parenting relationship to truly bed in and not be weird, which will involve both feeling fully ‘over it’ and not jealous of new partners. It’s a horrible phase you’re in but it will pass. And it sounds like you have the foundations for a good friendship long-term. Your situation really reminded me of mine with my ex when we broke up, 20 years on we’re still really good friends and natter for ages on the phone. But it was weird and horrible for a good few years after we broke up. One thing that I saw was that he was exactly the same towards other girlfriends as he was towards me when we were together, which made me very glad we were just friends.

I think now the haze of all the conflict has gone im seeing the person I fell in love with again, and I naturally want the family unit back together again as opposed to us going our separate ways. I guess I (naively of not) believe it could work, with us both putting the effort in to mend where it went wrong. But with him now seeing someone this just feels even further out of reach

he’s now treating me very differently which is confusing, telling me what an amazing mummy I am, really listening to me etc, just being very kind, I feel like if he had been like this when we were together we may not have fell apart so sourly. I guess it’s given me a false window into how things could be

I am very sorry @Twinsmamma but I don't necessarily agree.

Everything is about timing. I don't know the nature of the arguments you both had, but it sounds to me as if you want it to work now because you've had space - however the way you created the space was by "[looking] at him through a very negative lense (sic), which he felt".

Now that you've been separated? Inevitably he has found someone who does not look at him through a negative lens. He feels good now.

What I'm trying to say is, are you going to be able to sustain a positive view of him, or are the old problems likely to come back?

You wrote earlier that "We’ve never really had a transparent conversation about anything" - has this changed since?

That for me is the key bit I'm afraid. If you can't really talk about anything, the fault lines would reappear again, and I wouldn't want you to feel damaged or unappreciated again.

Ah apologies we crossed posted.

Goodness me I can see why that would feel confusing.

I'm sorry to hear this as I can imagine it's playing with your head.

Don’t confuse him complimenting you on your parenting as him wanting to be in a relationship with you. He’s treating you differently because you’re not together anymore . He’s met somebody else that doesn’t view him in a negative light and that you say yourself he really likes. You begged him to come back and he didn’t. It’s heartbreaking but it’s time to move on.

You want him back because of a feeling of scarcity now that he’s with someone else.

He won’t change - if you got back together it would be the same behaviour again. And here’s the thing - he’ll do the same stuff to the new girlfriend!

I do understand why you feel this way because you’ve got kids together but life is short so choose to spend it with someone who makes you happy.

And also… it’s easy to be nice to someone when you don’t see them all the time. It’s when he’s living with you that he makes you feel bad.

The new gf may see him in a positive light, now but it won’t last. People don’t turn into someone else because they meet someone new.

I was married to someone and it didn’t work out because he spent too much time at work and wouldn’t talk to me when he was at home. We split up (two girls together). He married someone new in 2018. Now they are splitting up for the same reasons according to my dd who is now 22.

How many more red flags do you need, he is an ex for a reason

I don't know your co parenting situation, but if your ex has moved out and you don't see each other everyday now, you are not experiencing the reality of being WITH him. You might both be discussing the kids, you might discuss events in the past etc but you are not lying awake all night with a sick child whilst he goes to the pub (or whatever he did that caused you to split). You are not dealing with day to day issues that you were before.

In kindness, considering he has found someone else so quickly, maybe it is just not meant to be? If he didn't appreciate you as a mother like you said, maybe he couldn't get how priorities change with having kids and isn't now looking to go back in that situation. Do you do the majority of the kids care now? Do you think his appreciation of you and kindness is because he is now 'free' to live a single life whilst you care for the children?

I've made some assumptions above, but just putting a different perspective on it and trying to reason why someone with young kids starts dating again so quickly.

Sadly, I feel he's now doing that because he finally feels at ease and happy. Lots of people do this, myself included. He's able to relax and give due compliments etc.

I don't think it's a sign he wants you back. To me it just sounds like he's, well, happy.

This

It will get easier. How often does he take the kids? You probably need to carve out some time to really cry and wallow alone to start the healing process.

I'd also consider gently pulling back from the relationship- just stick to practicalities about the kids for a while. It's hard to get over someone when you're in regular contact, but as you must communicate with him, it might help to minimise it.

he’s now treating me very differently which is confusing, telling me what an amazing mummy I am, really listening to me etc, just being very kind, I feel like if he had been like this when we were together we may not have fell apart so sourly.

It’s easy to be polite to someone you don’t see all of the time. You being an amazing mum doesn’t mean that you’d work well together. Maybe he respects that side of you and it’s totally different stuff that annoyed him?

You may not want to hear this but he may be kind to you because he’s happier now and good co-parents is the best case scenario for everyone?

He has moved on. You should follow suit. This relationship is not meant to be.

Agree with this. It sounds like you work better as co-parents who aren't in a relationship/living together. And it is much better for the children if co-parenting is amicable, and you both respect and appreciate each other as parents even if you aren't partners, so both of you have done well to achieve this. Don't let him dating spoil that, for the kids' sake.

You didn't have good communication, he was unappreciative of you and he was avoidant of discussing problems. If he hasn't realised these issues contributed and hasn't learnt anything from your split, the same problems are likely to repeat in another relationship. It's all fine in the honeymoon phase when it's all new, but when things become routine and you have things like a home/pets/children to manage, that's where the cracks appear.

If he wanted to be with you he wouldn't have been looking for another relationship. Its that simple.
He is nicer to you now because you are not in a relationship and he has that distance from the drama/conflict you both had. And he can be rational and respectful towards you.
You sould like you work as co parents but not when in a relationship. And he has realised that.

I am so sorry OP, it sounds like you never really processed the break up and the hope of giving it another go allowed you to not have to feel the pain much. Then he gets with someone new and it hits you.

He is not better to this person, he is not suddenly a better person. He left you AND your children. Think about that. What man that you want to be with, no matter how tough it is, would leave you and his children? You are absolutely looking at this through rose tinted glasses, and taking your point to its conclusion, if you did start "dating" again, what happens next? Dating is easy. Living with someone, being in a long-term partnership and being parents is bloody hard. And he clearly wasn't cut out for it.

My ex is a million times nicer to me since I left him. He treated me with respect, is oh so respectful and decent and guess what - IDGAF. We have a cordial and respectful co-parenting relationship but I know the person he is underneath and what he is like in a long-term relationship. If he moves on with someone else, which he may have, I have no idea, then I would genuinely be happy for him and hope for her sake he treats her better. But I am a million times better off without him and don't mistake his kindness as a co-parent for compatibility as a partner.

Let it go. Grieve. Cry. Eat all the ice cream. Punch a pillow. Watch 500 Days of Summer or Fatal Attraction (favourite break up movies of mine). Take your time. And in time, if you want, someone will come along who will blow your ex out of the water. It happened to me. You do not need him.

(You don’t mean that you literally came to blows so you?).

I feel suspicious that he has started the charm offensive deliberately before sharing his news.

This is just pride pain, not that is less painful than a broken heart. You are hurt because, with him moving on, it feels as if you have been left behind, but eventually it will pass and you will remember clearly, once again, why you didn’t want him anymore.

The reasons why you split are still there, he is not a better man because he is building something with another woman. That woman has not yet seen the worse of him.

You want the safety of the known past rather than the insecurity of the unknown future, and who wouldn't? It's normal thing to feel and not unreasonable. But we can never go back. He's moving forward, which is probably why he's much nicer to be around now. And so must you.