DH telling me he still wants to be with me after year of putting me down?

[Flea262]

I split with DH relatively recently after at least a year of him making me feel like I wasn't good enough and was a burden to him.

He is still telling me he wants to be with me even though he's moved out and we're both seeing other people. I look back on the way he behaved and can't see that he wants/wanted to be with me. He's had mental health issues but resisted getting help for so long that the damage was done.

The new person I'm seeing is lovely but it's a complicated situation for various reasons.

I have self esteem issues and I'm really struggling with this. I feel worthless. It's hard to get out of the mindset of 'if I change this or that about me, maybe he'll love me enough'. But you can't make someone like/love you in that way. The fact he is telling me he wants to be with me (and has done throughout this process) is confusing me. Is he not self aware enough to realise how he actually feels (that he doesn't want me any more? Or has he realised the error of his ways? I don't know, but I'm hurting. In theory I called things off, but I felt like he'd been significantly pushing me away for at least a year. We spoke about joint counselling but ended up not having a proper opportunity to do this.

Has anyone been in this situation before?

Who knows what is going on in his head. Maybe he realises what he lost. Do you really want to go back? It will be great for a month, then go back to how it was. You did the hard part, you escaped!! Don’t go back.

Maybe he does feel that way or maybe he doesn't want you to be with anyone else. I think you've done the right thing by leaving.

I would imagine it is just a ploy to avoid the hassle of a divorce.

When he knows it’s unavoidable you will get every nasty thought going through his head.

It isn’t about what he wants or thinks he wants. You have no obligation to be in a relationship with him because of how he feels or because you have a history.

I don’t think Love, emotional entanglement or sentimentality are enough to sustain a long term relationship. Sometimes the person you have feelings for isn’t the right person to spend the rest of your life with.

I think leaving someone for not seeking help for MH issues is entirely reasonable. I’ve been there and I know how much impact MH can have on loved ones. In my case it was a few months of struggling to get him to get proper help which he did when I told him how I felt. He immediately responded and sorted himself out.

In your case he isn’t. If he had serious feelings he would be single. He would respect your decisions, instead of lovebombing. He would respect his current partner who I suspect is now the one getting the selfishness and coldness.

You didn’t split up over nothing, it was a decision that was made for all the night reasons. Nothing has changed move on. He isn’t right for you. And you should go no or low contact out of respect for the person you are with.

Who cares what he thinks or wants? You have self-esteem issues. Work on those yourself before you start catering to other people’s needs and feelings. It’s nice to have someone, etc, but not if it means eroding yourself constantly. If he is REALLY clear about what he wants, then he will prove it. He will stop dating other people and wait until you are ready to choose for yourself - without you needing to issue him with an ultimatum. If he REALLY wanted you, he wouldn’t be dating at all. Has it occurred to you that maybe his “seeing other people” hasn’t been as successful as he wants you to think, and perhaps he’s desperate and thinks you’re the only one who will fall for his shit?

He wanted his treatment of your while you were together to make you feel shit.
Now you are apart he hasn't stopped wanting to make you feel confused/shit/whatever.

I really wouldn't try and read any more into it than that. It might be an idea to go for counselling yourself, work on your self esteem and happiness.

With regards to your current relationship, is it quite soon? You say it's a complicated situation - just take things easy, we don't want you getting all in a tangle before you're you again after the last one

@Fraaahnces Thank you for this. I'm going to put that line about eroding myself on a bit of paper and stick it on the wall.

He said to me that he felt he'd missed out on being with other people because we got together young. I told him he needed to work through that. He wasn't having any luck with dating apps but he's now got several people interested. It's all still very new. He ordered condoms through our shared Amazon account and has made it clear he's intending on having sex with his new partner if he gets the chance.

Thanks @LemonTT - your post made me realise I hadn't addressed what I wanted in mine! We are low contact. I think he is being very loving with his very new partner. Mine is being understanding because we were friends first, so he knows how complex all this is.

Thank you to everyone else for replying too. You're all right. Trying to remember why we split in the first place.

I took an ex back after being split for 6 months. We even got married.. Then his facade slipped 2 weeks married. What a disaster.. Didn't make it to our first wedding anniversary..
The new bf I had started seeing was great. In fact The One That Got Away imo... Keep your ex an ex is my advice op. If he wanted to treat you well he had his chance and chose not to.

It's not his decision to make, OP, you choose who (if anyone) you want to be in a relationship with. You've decided this person isn't offering you what you need, so you've moved on. It's very simple (although understandably emotionally challenging). Stick to your guns.

@Dodecaheidyin - thank you! I'm having counselling, and it is very much needed. The new situation is complicated, and if it doesn't work out I will definitely be taking some time alone. The connection we have is rare, but the health/family circumstances around it make things tricky.

I'm currently reading 'Women who love too much' as recommended by someone on here.

It's given me a lot of insight into how we try and make men love us more by being 'good enough'.

I really recommended you give it a go.

He ordered condoms through our shared Amazon account and has made it clear he's intending on having sex with his new partner if he gets the chance.

What a tit.

That's good that you're having counselling already, @Flea262 , I hope you find it useful and that everything works out well for you.

What is the opposite of virtue signaling? That’s what the condom-buying was. You could get even and stock up on giant sex toys or you could get your own Amazon account and leave him wondering about what you’re ordering instead. (The petty way or the high way.) He’s just being manipulative and trying to make you jealous. (Successfully.) The best revenge is to ignore that shit, move on and be happy. Watching you evolve into a confident woman who knows how to give and receive love - someone who glows with happiness will eat him alive. The best part of that is that you simply won’t care at all. He will be as irrelevant to you as the mathematical formula for finding the area of cylinder has been in my life.

Tell your ex partner to fuck all the way to off, and then jump off the cliff.

He's completely broken my heart. I don't know why I wasn't good enough for him.

In June, my mum nearly died twice and the hospital told me I probably wouldn't be able to have children. Ten days later he came back from a festival telling me he'd connected with a 22 year old there about music. He'd sent her some 'innocent' messages behind my back, but then admitted she was prettier than me and it was because she was younger.

I tried to get over it but I couldn't. He admitted that he felt he'd missed out not being able to be with other women before we got together.

I met him when I was 18. I've been with him 15 years, my whole adult life. I may have called it off, but it was because he was pushing me away. Now I probably can't have a child, my marriage is over and my mum is refusing to talk to me because she thinks I've made a mistake.

I feel worthless.

If you weren’t good enough for him, why wouldn’t he just leave? Why does he feel the need to cut you down and erode your self-confidence? He’s afraid that you will see your own worth and realise that he offers you nothing. My guess is that you are the adult of the relationship and he is the sulky man-child. Stop indulging the big baby and let him go and make someone else miserable.

Oh, @Flea262 , you've been through so much . The fact that he came back telling you about the 22 year old ten days after such big events in your life is very telling. What was he like with your birthdays?

He admitted to feeling that he missed out ... because of being with you. Yeah, my ex missed out on everything he felt entitled to because of me too. It's quite a common phenomenon in arseholes.

Never question your worth on other people's opinions or behaviour. Your mother was not your husband's wife, she didn't live your life, she cannot judge. When you start growing stronger you will see that people who make you feel bad, through their words or actions, do not warrant the power they have over you. You will start taking back some of that power and their relevance will recede.

You are not worthless, it’s his behaviour that has made you feel that way.

If he still wants to be with he then he shouldn’t have behaved that way. He did behave that way and so he has ruined the relationship. It’s all on him.

Don’t allow him to reel you back in. Onwards and upwards.

I was in a long marriage and although he frequently told me he loved me, his actions didn’t match.

In the latter part of our marriage he had three tactics to make me behave how he wanted. He either buttered me up, bullshitted me, or bullied me.

I instigated a divorce a year ago. He has shouted he hates me, sent me horrible emails and texts. When he finally got a solicitor the hate mail stopped (I wonder why?). I moved out three months ago. He finds excuses to come to my door. A week ago he said “I still love you”.

He doesn’t love me, or he would never, never have treated me so badly. He’s either bullshitting me, or his idea of love is so different to mine it’s just not worth even thinking about.

This is exactly what has happened to me to. Married 9 years, for 7 of those I have been called names - Shit mum, shit step mum, bitch, psycho, gone girl, accused of being a lesbian when he read my texts to my friend, ice queen, liar, playing the victim, shit with money 🙄

All this would happen when i would say im not happy, can we talk, can we sit and work through the issues in the marriage. This is the reaction I would have, EVERY SINGLE TIME. Then the next day, all forgotten, sending me love hearts ans saying how beautiful i am 🙄

Its hammered my self confidence, my confidence is in the gutter, i have no self worth, i was walking on egg shells, and stopped communicating or bringing up any issues..

I rented a house and left with our son 5 weeks ago. Now he wants me back 😦I have over reacted apparently, its MY fault he called me names because i made him angry and i cant leave the past go.. NO accountability at all, none!

Its so so hard i know, i want to go back some days to, but please don't 😦They will never change, as much as he is making out he will and he misses you. I doubt very much he has changed at all and within weeks he will be back to his abusive self xxx

Your ex-husband is an abuser who gets his kicks belittling women. Of course he wants to go on abusing someone but he has to love bomb his new partner for a while and even then he'll have to be more careful or she'll leave too. He knows you are a softer touch.

Have you done the freedom programme? www.freedomprogramme.co.uk/

Bingo.

Close the Amazon account for starters. He purposely ordered them to distress you.

Then just concentrate on getting the divorce over and dome with and don't look back.
You are 100% worth more than this.