what IS the allure of the ex

[Alameda]

and why doesn't it fade before you get all tangled up again

or is that the point, a DIY soap opera for people who never learned to sublimate their desires into housework or something equally wholesome and useful and less dramatic?

you've gotten tangled with your ex again?

If so, I suggest you focus on more concrete things like changing your e-mail address and SIM card and not responding to any attempts to contact you. That should do a lot to help the allure fade.

thanks

don't think am THAT entangled but I see others doing it all the time too so was a more general musing

No idea. My ex's have no allure for me. That's why they're ex's :P. But this may be just because I have always been the one to leave my ex's. If they leave you when you're still in love with them, I can see the problem.

Oh dear, this thread is very topical for me.

I am a man whose partner of many years broke with me a month ago, but told me last Sunday that the real reason was she had taken up with an old ex.

He was a serious boyfriend when they were students -almost 40, yes 40, years ago- and he ended the relationship and quickly married another woman. My ex ended up marrying another, and was married to that man until divorce after 23 years when he was unfaithful.

My ex looked him her old boyfriend on Facebook last year, and started up with him. The man's wife recently came across the Facebook contact with my ex and threw him out of the house, so in a way it was forced on them but anyway I'm sent on my way.

I'm in a state of shock over this, it's non-negotiable as far as my ex is concerned because she says it's true love.

Her line is that her and my relationship was on the way out anyway, and her old boyfriend's marriage was hollow. It sounds like the usual line men take in similar circumstances, in fact a friend of mine (male) says she has acted like a man.

I've always found that it's 'comfortable' with an ex. They know you, they've already seen your body (therefore your body hang ups become less important), it's less scary to go with what you know, and sometimes people wear rose tinted glasses and remember the bits of the relationship they want to.
It's entirely right that exes are exes for a good reason, each and every one of them. But then they were best friends and lovers for a reason too.
I'd never go back to an ex nowadays, but in years gone by I have been tempted.
EverSoHumble that must really cut deep. And I'm not sure any of the reasons I see for going back to an ex would really stand up in your circumstances, as 40 years is a very long time! Although, maybe the rose tinted glasses thing is relevant.
I hope that you are doing okay, and that you move on.

I think sometimes there is the element of unfinished business particularly if they finished with you

Messy and undignified -so what. Anger and bitterness are valid emotions in the circustances -let it all hang out. In a couple of years time you might regret not saying your piece.

"Messy and undignified" is what your ex has been doing to you and his current girlfriend, twoteens. Remember who is the cheating bastard here. Definitely not you.