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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

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Original poster

Can't forget an ex from 15 years ago!Help!

18 replies

mumsey2be · 10/04/2019 15:19

Oh dear. I feel like such a loser at the moment and just need some help!

Fifteen years ago i had a very passionate affair with a guy - i was 25 he was 23. we had amazing sex and a good connection and i loved his family, big, arty, friendly and so unlike my highly dysfunctional, argumentative crowd. He invited me for christmas with them and i really wanted to go but i felt i needed to keep my mum company as she had nowhere to go that year and I thought we would have other Christmases together. Except that Spring, he told me he didnt want to settle down and he wanted to sleep with other people now that I had shown him that he was attractive and good in bed!

At first i thought maybe we could have an open relationship, but obviously this was silly and i broke up with him. But we kept reconnecting and having sex and i sort of lost my head for a few months there, doing stupid stuff, like sending him sexy pictures or rants by email - it was so embarrassing. I lost 3 stone - so i was in great shape but i was also totally mental.

Anyway he moved away and i sort of kept an eye on what he was doing - he now runs a very cool club in a northern city and he is engaged to a lady who seems super nice. I am married to a good man - although he is infertile so it has been a a very stressful time the last 3 years trying to conceive - and he is also 2 decades older than me- though you wouldn't know it. So life is good but not perfect - we have a pretty amazing life, living between the UK and Italy and I have work i like and great mates etc.

About 3 years ago the hubby and i popped into his club as we were in the town. I planned to be incognito about it but his brother saw me and so did his mum ( who I got on really well with back in the day). So he knew i was there, but i just couldn't bring myself to go and say hello as i was sure that that all think i am a psycho and i felt it would be embarrassing for my husband. For weeks afterward it was like the whole wound opened up again - i cant really explain it.

But i just cannot seem to forget this guy. I even still mourn missing out on my 'one only family christmas'. It's really pathetic. And for some reason this whole fertility ordeal has upped my social media stalking. Any similar experiences? And advice. I feel like i am doing my life, my partners and my energy a disservice but i cant seem to stop and i have no idea what i am looking for.

Help!

OP posts:

tootruetoyou · 10/04/2019 17:40

I have had a similar fixation with a guy l slept with twice??!!**? Hope that makes you feel less crazy. Only advice l can offer is to go cold turkey and treat it like an addiction. You are hurting yourself every time you look/stalk. It is going nowhere. Try to focus on the life you have and the things you do have control over. The fertility thing is huge so don't underestimate that. I bet if you were pregnant or had a little one you would be less interested in the ex. Good luck.

VictoriaBun · 10/04/2019 17:44

You are having a moment of ' What might have been '. Even if you had stayed with him life may not of panned out as to what in your head you have made it.
Leave him in the past and get on with your life now.

PinkBlueStripes · 10/04/2019 17:52

They were some good memories, you are having a tough time, so its natural to look back for some security in those memories life was easier when we were younger right - the christmas particularly stands out, that is poignant if you are having fertility issues. I am sure he has fond memories of that time and cared for you. As you know you went back but it didnt feel right to speak to him which tells you things are as they need to be. Im sure he will continue to crop up in thoughts now and then -exes do, just notice, send kind thoughts and dont devote too much time to them.

Marlena1 · 10/04/2019 18:01

We all look back fondly but remember he would have got older, it wouldn't have been amazing forever (sex), maybe you would have got fed up of him working nights, maybe he wouldn't want kids. You will never know so you are putting him on a pedestal cos life is a bit tough at the moment. You might not be able to go between Italy and the UK if still with him and maybe you would have been writing one of the many threads about your interfering MIL

Marlena1 · 10/04/2019 18:03

Ps you are not pathetic, we have all been there (I tell myself)

Amy326 · 10/04/2019 18:12

Totally understand where you are coming from, you’re not alone! There’s one I can’t quite let go of either and it was only a 3 month casual relationship 10 years ago, but he’s my ‘one who got away’. I have a great life now but still can’t help but look back, I think it’s because I have regrets about things I did / decisions I made at that time and that’s why it’s hard to move on. Probably the same for you. I like to think lots of people have this little secret?! I don’t know what to advise but I understand!

Original poster

mumsey2be · 10/04/2019 18:37

Ah thank you ladies! That is so helpful to know i am not on my own! "this little secret" as you say @Amy326. I think it is a bit also that I acted quite crazy and i try to go back to understand why I did it. I certainly had more time to hang around and mope @pinkbluestripes when i was younger - i really don't have the luxury now, which is why it seems so daft.

When the husband saw him for the first time he was like 'Really? That scrawny little thing? You've been obsessing over HIM for that long?'

I remember also that my best friend at the time said "You are addicted so you can't see how little you have lost." But their club is so cooool and they are all skinny and happy and seem to have a big gang of friends and family and my husband is an only child with no real living family and compare, compare, compare....

And of course the misery of the fertility journey doesn't help. I went for a run this afternoon and found myself thinking if i could ask the ex to give us a squirt for old times sake!!!!!!!!

OP posts:

Original poster

mumsey2be · 10/04/2019 18:42

Yes all i need is a bun in the oven and he will be a distant memory i am sure! @toottruetoyou

@marlena1 the thing is i think i am stuck on that i'wasnt good enough' to make the grade for his arty family. I love to play the inadequacy game. I never really see it the other way round that maybe he wasn't mature enough for me....

OP posts:

SelkieRinnNaMara · 10/04/2019 18:47

I kind of get it. I was far too invested in to a man and it was i think because he represented (and enjoyed, Freedom; while I felt I had none.)

I wanted to be him more than i wanted to be with him in the end.

Your old flame represents individual expression and acceptance and art/creativity... be more artistic.

Be eccentric if you need to be but not for its own sake.

Thingsdogetbetter · 10/04/2019 18:56

Sounds more like his close family set up you are obsessing about rather than him as an individual. Given your background and difficulty completing your own family this is understandable.

Remember his family won't be as perfect as you've built up in ypur head: they bicker, argue, hate, piss and shit like everyone else.

Good luck with getting your own family unit!

Marlena1 · 10/04/2019 19:14

Agree with thingsdogetbetter, it wasn't his family you are dating! And do you really want to be trying to please such a judgemental lot?! Ps a) you got married first so well done! And b) at least your hubby has a sense of humour, much more important than being arty!

Happynow001 · 10/04/2019 19:31

You have more to lose than gain here OP.

When the husband saw him for the first time he was like 'Really? That scrawny little thing? You've been obsessing over HIM for that long?'
Your DH sounds a confident, self assured person with a sense of the ridiculous- do you want to put a strain on that relation for the sake of an old "might have been" who wasn't actually that interested?
Except that Spring, he told me he didnt want to settle down and he wanted to sleep with other people now that I had shown him that he was attractive and good in bed!

I remember also that my best friend at the time said "You are addicted so you can't see how little you have lost."
Listen to your sensible friend who is emotionally removed from the situation.

We all have "what ifs" from our past but can't allow them to affect us in our real adult lives.

And for some reason this whole fertility ordeal has upped my social media stalking.
Let this go OP and stop looking back and stalking his life. Focus on and enjoy your own life with your DH.

FundayFriday · 11/04/2019 07:50

Except that Spring, he told me he didnt want to settle down and he wanted to sleep with other people now that I had shown him that he was attractive and good in bed!

Well what an absolutely shallow immature thing to say.

Join up with friends if you want a big Christmas.

And for some reason this whole fertility ordeal has upped my social media stalking.

Upped. You act like social media stalking is normalised. It really is not. Honestly? The only way is to remove this man from your friends list. He won't know and you will be free of it.

I also think it sounds unhealthy for your partner and current relationship - very undermining of him and what you currently have.

Lastly loads of people have dysfunctional families. I broke up with a BF who had a 'perfect' family at a time when I had family problems. I felt they were mine to sort out. I wanted so much to be accepted by his because I felt there was something wrong with me. Reading your story actually makes me realise its very toxic to hold onto these things. Go rock your own life OP

Original poster

mumsey2be · 11/04/2019 08:23

woke up feeling much better and back to ambivalence about him and his life. You are all absolutely right that i have to celebrate and be grateful for and shall do just that. Thank you x

OP posts:

Thankssomuch · 11/04/2019 08:31

I know exactly what you are experiencing - I still wonder what might have been, in relation to things that happened in my past. However. Life is happening right now. 😀

TellItLikeItReallyIs · 11/04/2019 10:21

I truly believe that sometimes this kind of obsession is like a mental comfort blanket.

Fantasising about the Love Object is a source of mental comfort at first, you keep doing it and it becomes a mental habit.

What then happens is in times of stress and anxiety (as you say you have had a fertility issue) if you have developed a mental habit of obsessive fantasising, you really retreat into that world.

It is a mental comfort blanket. If you look at it like that and you are no contact with him, is it really doing you any harm?

Original poster

mumsey2be · 12/04/2019 04:45

Mental comfort blanket is a good description @tellitlikeitreallyis

i like that.

OP posts:

GetsIt · 12/04/2019 06:58

I've been here lol. Ten years after it all went kaboom I still thought of him often and no other man had ever come close. It was that bad that I saw him walking through a shopping centre and literally ran the other way shaking.

The reality, for me anyway, was that I'd had a series of really shit relationships since with really shitty abusive men. From the moment I met my partner all thoughts of this other man went, I don't think about him anymore and no longer obsess over him. Nor do I think I'd run the other way if I saw him again any more 😂

Moral of the story..... It gets better and goes away eventually

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