Last year I started dating a man who is great in so many ways. He is 48 and divorced and I am also single after a long relationship. He split from his wife about 5 years before we met. We both agreed not to rake over past relationships but to focus on the present instead and things were really good between us.
He is very involved with a left wing political group here in the UK and over the time we have been dating I have met many of his friends from this group at meeting and socials. A few months ago an old member showed up again a 32 year old woman who is very, very beautiful. They obviously knew each other well and he got quite emotional as he greeted her. I caught a vibe between them right away but dismissed it me being paranoid and feeling a bit old next to her.
However the feeling didn't go away and noticed it several times him looking at her or them sharing an obviously private joke and again on subsequent meetings. I tried to keep ignoring it but eventually I asked him what the hell was going on between them. To be fair did tell me everything right away that before meeting me they had been together on and off for nearly 4 years. That he had loved her very much but that the age gap had been problematic for them, she was and is still young from a different generation and he wanted stability, someone to come home to while she thought nothing of taking off to travel or do a post grad abroad which is how they left things just before he met me. They never properly split up as far as I can tell.
He promises me that it is over between them and that they are just friends now but it is painfully obvious to me that he still has very deep feelings for her. Perhaps he really means that it is over or at least wants to mean it but I can’t help but feeling that he’d go back to her in a heartbeat if she gave him the wave. Since she has been on the scene I feel insecure and second best. I really, really like him a lot, thought he was a man I could have a future with but I’m scared to put my trust in him. Sometimes I just wish she would fall off the face of the planet.
Should I just ignore these feelings; can I ask him to sever all contact with her, perhaps if she wasn’t so much younger and so beautiful I wouldn’t feel this so much but I do.