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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Getting over "unfinished business"

190 replies

LeighHalfpennyisagod · 06/02/2015 21:08

15 years ago my then boyfriend of 5 years dumped me. We had a very on/off relationship, I wanted to settle down and have a baby and he didn't. Work had always kept us apart and when we finally got the geography right, and I moved in, he finished with me. I was utterly heartbroken. He stayed in touch, long late night conversations, saw him a couple of times, and we both went out with other people. Then he announced he was getting married. It was like being heartbroken again as I'd have taken him back in a second. I cut contact.
We got back in touch last year, and we are both single. He's divorced and has been for years, and I never married and we both have children too. We've been seeing each other when we can, we had a magical reunion, he tells me I'm his future. He says he married his ex because she was "ideal wife" material whereas I was too career focussed then and didn't do much of the Little Missus thing. But that he loved me more than he's ever loved anyone.
He's said all the things I ever wanted to hear.
But here's the thing - there's a part of me that wonders if I love him, or I'm actually remembering how I felt then rather than how I feel now. Does that make sense?

He had a number of red flags too, and I absolutely cannot have my heart smashed again, so maybe I'm being overly guarded. Am I making sense to anyone?Blush

OP posts:
SelfLoathing · 07/02/2015 20:07

Whenever we broke up he would always have hooked up with someone and then would drop them and come back to me.

No. He would call you up when he had no one else around. That is not the same as "coming back to". He was using you to fill in his sexual diary when he got dumped by the other women who realised what a twat he was.

You sound exactly like me and I agree with those who say that you sound infatuated. I recognise it in you because I feel exactly the same way about (even worse) a MM.

I think the problem is because (as you say) he left you heart broken. Deep down this left a deep scar and you subconsciously think you can fix it by "winning him back on your terms" this time around. It won't happen. He is all about what is convenient for him.

He is probably off shagging lots of other women when he isn't with you. You are just convenient as and when. And OF COURSE he will know how you feel about him and is relying on that as his ego boost.

I know how much this hurts. But honestly no contact is the only way. I am doing OK (search for my original thread if you want to read about the car crash of my obsession). He's tried to contact me several times but I've ignored it. I want to go back to him because I'm in love with him obsessed and I want to cure my pain by winning him round. Ain't never gonna happen. It's a serious battle for me to not reply to him every time he contacts me. To people who have never had that sort of obsession/infatuation that may sound overdramatic, but that is really how it feels. It is like fighting an addiction.

Please stay away from this man. You can't fix your previous hurt and it is 100% certain you'll end up more hurt.

SelfLoathing · 07/02/2015 20:12

Oh and one more thing

he works away one in four and works away Sun-Thurs so there's not a lot of room anyway for a woman of any shape.

Don't be naïve. Ever heard the expression a woman in every port. This is perfect life for a commitmentphobic shagmeister. Hotel bars etc. "I'll call you when I'm back in town".

Fearless91 · 07/02/2015 20:14

It's up to you what you do OP. But life is far too short to wonder what if.

Lay your cards out on the table. Tell him what you NEED from him. If he can't/doesn't give it then you can walk away knowing you tried and gave him the opportunity.

I'm not making excuses for him because some of the stuff is pretty shitty. But surely it's worth a risk?

Yes he may hurt you and you might regret giving this chance but then again he may not hurt you and you two could live a happy life together.

AnyFucker · 07/02/2015 20:16

Quick hijack to say well done to SL. Keep it up.

SelfLoathing · 07/02/2015 20:29

That's kind Anyfucker and thanks for the thought but I'm along way from deserving congratulations. The last hoover attempt was a "come for a drink" message on Tuesday. I'm not returning the call but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about him 24/7 since then and listened to the voice message -more than once-. I really do loathe myself for feeling like this. I was thinking about starting a new thread about his hoovering but I don't want to pick at my scab.

^ OP you will end up like this.

[Sorry for interruption]

* Back to scheduled programming *

AnyFucker · 07/02/2015 21:03

I think if you start a new thread, you will get support SL. You got a bit of stick on your original one, but you have certainly paid back the tough love you got then and more besides. You deserve some help Thanks

flatbellyfella · 07/02/2015 21:35

Don't walk away, "RUN" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >>>>>>>"Faster">>>>>>>!!!!!!

Christinayang1 · 07/02/2015 21:39

This man only has love for himself and his dick

This is not some great love story, he is a cheat, a liar and a user

Change your number, delete his and put it behind you....you and your Dcs deserve so much better

LeighHalfpennyisagod · 07/02/2015 22:43

I know I'm about to get a rinsing but I'm posting this so I can read back and tell meself it really IS THIS BAD-

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/a2261145-Please-help-me-kick-him-in-the-metaphorical-bollocks

OP posts:
LeighHalfpennyisagod · 07/02/2015 22:43

Not sure how I got to be this crap.Sad

OP posts:
Christinayang1 · 07/02/2015 22:47

Your not crap but the situation with him is

Comito · 07/02/2015 22:49

You know he is a cunt. You need to stop trying to pretend that if x happened and there was a gibbous moon you could be happy together.

He's only nice to you to keep you available to him. But I suspect you will ignore all the advice on here and get back with him anyway because you believe you can change him and this time it'll be different. Then in a couple of months you'll post another angsty thread about how he's not respecting you but you loooove him and it could so work if bleugh.

You can't and he won't.

SelfLoathing · 07/02/2015 23:12

You are not crap LeighH. It is a form of addiction and only people who have been their will get it. Everyone else will just say "phuf! just walk away".

I honestly think that most women who end up in this obsessional/limerent state -puts hand up- get there because of a combination of three factors i) "unusual" aberrant personality qualities of the man that has led to a full on emotional seduction (for which real anything on the scale from a charm player to a full blow narcissist to a sociopath) ii) a trauma they are trying to resolve (usually some sort of traumatic dumping/devaluation episode by same man) and iii) their own vulnerabilities. If these three things coincide, it is a recipe for disaster.

A really bad "devaluation" or "dumping" or "abandonment" triggers in you a desire to prove you are worthy of the mirage man (who never existed). Mr Charming that you fell for is not real.

It's all utterly crap and like wading out of a mire of a special blend of quicksand and manure.

If you want to see him you will. Only staying away from him makes it better. And it's not better over night. It's just incrementally better. Like chipping away a bit of stone from his God like pedestal every day. For days/weeks/months/years probably there will still be a pedestal, but every day it gets less and less until it's just a small ugly average sized lump of rock.

SelfLoathing · 07/02/2015 23:13

*been there

Arggh! I hate this non-editing thing.

LeighHalfpennyisagod · 07/02/2015 23:19

Fuuuuuck!!!!

"
A really bad "devaluation" or "dumping" or "abandonment" triggers in you a desire to prove you are worthy of the mirage man (who never existed). Mr Charming that you fell for is not real."

^ This. Spot on.

OP posts:
SelfLoathing · 07/02/2015 23:27

I just read that other thread. "please help me kick him in the bollocks"

What that you? Is this the same man who IN DECEMBER was arranging to meet a fake you via match ????

(yeah - I know it's spot on. Ask me why. I feel the same way about an equally vile man but I'm managing somehow not to contact him. Hell I want to though.)

AnyFucker · 07/02/2015 23:30

Gosh, this man has brought you very, very low hasn't he ?

No person is worth that. No one.

LeighHalfpennyisagod · 07/02/2015 23:33

Yep, same guy.

OP posts:
LeighHalfpennyisagod · 07/02/2015 23:34

Anyfucker, I think it's SL's combo of vulnerable PLUS trying to right the wrong of a bad past dumping PLUS a world standard charmer/button presser.

OP posts:
Viviennemary · 07/02/2015 23:36

I don't think I'd believe very much of what he is saying for a start. He probably believes it himself but no reason why you should. I'd give it a go without too much expectation of it ending wonderfully. But if you don't take the chance you'll never know. Good luck.

AnyFucker · 07/02/2015 23:37

Leigh, tell me

Is this man worth destroying yourself for

if you think he is, we all might as well switch off our screens right now

LeighHalfpennyisagod · 07/02/2015 23:38

He's very very candid and on the face of it, open. He told me the stuff about his affair for example in such a way as to seem like a confession, and left me thinking "well of course he would never do that to me" but actually his self disclosure is just another part of his deception.

OP posts:
LeighHalfpennyisagod · 07/02/2015 23:40

AF, no man is worth destruction over. I know this at an intellectual level. But I knew it then, and despite my clear fuckwittery here, on all other levels I'm very bright.

And see, there's also a voice like VivianMary, whispering "yeah but what if"...

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 07/02/2015 23:40

of course

he is grooming to to accept the same sort of treatment from him

AnyFucker · 07/02/2015 23:41

grooming *you