Pregnant-and totally heartbroken by DP. Please help:(

[treehuggermum]

Ok i will try and keep this brief. My dp of 4 years told me he was 'in love' with his ex before we got together. I had wanted to be with him for years before we met so even though i was a bit gutted about this at the time, i was more thrilled that he liked me! And i thought those feelings for her would go soon enough. 4 years later, we've had a great relationship, we have a 1y.o. DD and another one on the way. His ex is a friend of his who we see sometimes. He is never inappropriate with her and has been loyal to me. Last weekend he went to a party with her(i had such bad pregnancy sickness i couldnt go out). The next day i asked him if he still claimed to be 'in love' with her, totally expecting him to say 'of course not'. Instead he said yes, and that he has always been, and always will be. I have been an emotional wreck since then, not stopped crying, and have come to stay with my family and i've told him i cant be with him any more. He is very upset. He believes that he is innocent. He says he only wants to be friends with her, he wants to be with me, he cant help fancying her but if he gets any inappropriate thoughts he puts them out of his mind straight away and thinks of me. He is just in love with her and has a special connection. I believe him. I just cannot handle him using the words 'in love with', with another girl! To be in love means to be infatuated with, passionate about, doesnt it? Am i being unreasonable or just hormonal here? I dont want to break up, we're great together, we're in love! I've begged him to tell me it's not really true, but he's not changing his words and says it wont interfere with our relationship. I dont know if i can live with it. Please help me anyone. I'm in pieces. Sorry for the long message in the end.

Ah. In that case, you are causing a lot of the bad feeling yourself. I would advise doing some work on your self esteem, maybe with a counsellor, to accept that your H does love you, has chosen to be with you, is having DC with you etc. Of course, he may be trading on the fact that you are insecure about his XP in order to keep you grateful and compliant, but he may also have said what he said out of exasperation at being constantly questioned.

Okay, setting aside whether how much he's an arse for saying this, the most pertinent thing to me is how he responded to your getting upset.

He could have said: You're right, it's inappropriate, I don't know why I feel this way, let me try to work it out so that I don't feel this way anymore.

What he actually said was: I don't care if it hurts -- suck it up.

Do you think that's all you deserve?

Don't you think you deserve someone who is only in love with you and no one else?

"Yes we are very much in love, and he shows me all the time."

• so what's your problem then?

Yeah I know - I have read the rest of the thread. TBH you sound a bit like Charles and Diana. You know - he didn't know what love was, there was an ex he was still fond of, and Diana became such a nutjob over the ex that the marriage was ruined and he ended up with the ex after all.

Sorry I know that isn't helpful.

Seems to me that like Charles and Di you are both emotionally immature and thinking your grand emotions are bigger and more important than everyone else's. His luuuurve for his ex is so special that he can't possibly lie about it and your luuuurve for him is so great that you just can't stop yourself hassling him about the ex.

Oh I don't know where I am going with this - if you are genuinely "very much in love" then you have loads to work on and should be abel to find a way forward with counselling. Good luck.

Why haven't you told him to feck off back to her if he loves her so much?

Stardard response 101, innit?

do you think you arent as good as the fantasy woman OP?

This doesn't sound right does it.
Why do you make him tell you things that you know you won't like to hear.
Why are you both in this relationship.

I think you both need to go to counselling asap before the baby comes.
If he cannot understand why you are hurt then there is no hope for you and really if he still insists on deliberately hurting you in this manner you will go mad.
It sounds ike a very subltle form of emotional abuse.

Well if it was me, I would totally refuse to let him see this woman, if he's admitted to being still in love with her. It sounds like she's still exercising her charm on him, not like your average friendship with an ex. If he is still in love with her, then maybe he's warning you about something. What if she made a pass at him? You would be well within your rights to ask him to promise not to see her again, otherwise it's going to leave you a quivering wreck everytime he does.
And to say this to you when you're carrying his child...that's a pretty shitty thing to do.

It's the worst scenario, as someone already said here, that he sees her regularly while he used to have strong feelings - this actually feeds his nostalgia and feelings much more, than if he was in a relationship with her (with all her playing around), that would fade his feelings much faster, than seeing her at her best at some parties where he's reminded of her in a romanticised way. He should definetely stop seeing her, or of she;s part of a group, limit it/always go there with you, but it is a shitty situatoin tbh if you are stuck with that social group. I'd be paranoid too - you have to be careful it can send you nuts. If you ar important to him he should definetely limit or stop seeing her.
As to probing - yes, it's your fault, but you need councelling to know how to stop, as he is not reassuring enough, he should also talk to someone to appreciate your side of things, and to learn how to reassure (indeed, change his choice of words at least). If he's loving and caring though, the facts era there already, you stuck on the verbal/misdescribed level and he needs to grow up and learn to understand his feeling for what they aer, not romanticised version! Work for both you, really.

I think you aer also obsessive-compulsive to an extent, made worse by current hormones. OCD get stuck on a thing and it's impossible for htem to shift and find relief. You'd definetely benefit from councelling, especially if you aer compulsive in any other way too (cleanliness, etc.). But as i sai before, he needs to be much more considerate and sensitive to you, and look closer at his rose-tinted vision of his own so called feelings. it's immature and ridiculous to be stuck for YEARS on a person that treated you with disrespect, like she did - the fact that he was so populat added to his injury of course (made her memorable - how could she (shock!)) - he's stuck on the unjobtainable - it's male pride and resemtfment, not Love, someone needs to tell him.

treated HIM with disrespect, i meant, not 'you'

So you are pregnant and not feeling well and your partner decides that instead of taking care of you he rather fancies attending a party with another woman. And by the way, he makes it clear that he is in love with that fantastic woman. And let me guess, they spent the night discussing the state of the NHS or the tory party conference.
Your partner is a massive arshole and you are incredibly naive. Stop being he doormat of this moron!

as BalloonSlayer said, what is the problem?
apparently you love him a lot and he loves you too. oh yeah he is 'in love' with another woman but you seem to be going out of your way to defend his feelings and his right to say hurtful things to you. oh no wait i think bcz u 'make' him tell you its ok for him to hurt you.
i m sorry but from reading the whole thread and your response to some very sound advice, i cant see why u would be heartbroken.