Married but my ex is my soul mate

[Maria309]

I am a female (23) and my husband is (30) we met each other at work and eventually my feelings grew towards him. During this time i was going through a really rough patch with my ex we would keep getting together and breaking up. (Main reason this happened is because my family wouldn’t accept him) we both come from an south asian background and my family strictly follow a caste system.

I was with my ex (25) for around 5 years we were high school sweethearts he was my first love as I was his. We both drifted away after college as he went off to uni and I started working hence we didn’t see each other as often. He was going through a lot emotionally as he had recently lost his mother and emotionally he was unavailable to me. I tried my best but he kept pushing me away.

Eventually i decided to move on and this is when i met my husband. It was really good at the beginning which made me rush into marrying him. Since we've been married I have realised I am still in love with my ex. For months on end he is the only person I think about. My husband has completely changed he twist what i say and makes me feel really down and we argue all the time. I have come to the decision to divorce him i’m just trying to find my way out.

During the time i got to know my husband my ex did try and reach out to me but I couldn’t tell him i was seeing someone else i knew it would hurt him.

This last weekend I reconnected with my ex (I text him) and i told him i was married. He was really really upset and said he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He wrote me a long emotional message about how he waited for me to come back and he turned away women with the idea maybe one day I’d return and we could get married. I keep reading the message and crying as i had no idea he still loved me. My life is a mess.

I just keep thinking about all the good times we had, how he would make me feel better when i was down and the friendship we had. It was perfect. I have told him I will marry him straight after i divorce my husband. (Which is happening soon) he said he couldn’t accept me as i chose someone else before him and he feels 2nd.

We both made a promise to eachother when we were together that we would keep our virginity and lose it to one another when we were married. When we spoke on the phone he mentioned that he turned away advances from other women to keep his promise to me but all that time I was having sex with my soon to be ex husband and that really hurts him.

I really really love this man he is my soulmate every time the worlds pressure is on me i want to run to him, he is my home. It was the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life getting married and letting my ex go. Im torn I don’t think I can live without him.

He told me he went out on a date last weekend with a girl to the place me and him used to go. Even though im married im so jealous it really hurts seeing him with another woman.

Please help? What can i do?

You’re just kids

I do actually mean this kindly @Maria309 although I know it won't seem so but - you really need to get your head out of your arse here. This is real life, not some melodramatic romance novel.

Start by separating the two issues - 1. husband, 2. Ex.

"My husband has completely changed he twist what i say and makes me feel really down and we argue all the time. I have come to the decision to divorce him i’m just trying to find my way out."
Fine, divorce him. Some men put on the Nice Guy mask and it comes off as soon as they believe they 'have' you, either upon marriage or pregnancy or birth. Make very sure you do NOT get pregnant! Or, he has sussed you don't love him and he's hurt. Either way, divorce would be appropriate, either to protect you from him or to set him free to find someone who will love him.

"I really really love this man he is my soulmate every time the worlds pressure is on me i want to run to him, he is my home."
"crave his presence"
"The heart wants what the heart wants i cant change that."
"I can’t imagine him marrying someone else it would literally kill me."

Can you see how melodramatic your words are? Completely unrealistic. You are not star-crossed lovers, you are two people who were each other's first boy/girlfriend, and then you split. You are now in an unhappy relationship and that has made you "just keep thinking about all the good times we had, how he would make me feel better when i was down and the friendship we had. It was perfect." No it wasn't perfect, that's your rose-tinted glasses taking over. I'm sure it was good, and a big bit of it being good was because you were young and without responsibilities. Those times are over. You hadn't even spoken to him for over two years, so no he's not your soulmate.

Divorce your husband, the marriage is all over bar the paperwork. Do not rush into anything else, because that's a surefire way to make the totally wrong decision. And for your own sanity, stop seeing the world as some big dramatic romance movie. It's not. It's far better than that if you let it be.

You do realise that even if the planets aligned and you got back with your ex, he will always always always throw in your face that you had sex with someone else.
He is not even with you and is already piling on the emotional blackmail. Deliberately trying to make you feel bad. Talking about a redundant old promise, taking some un suspecting woman to 'your special place'.
Take some time to be single, don't rebound to your ex.
You are hurt and he is angry. This will not end well.

Get divorced now while you can
Spend some time alone
And then decide if your ex is the one you want XX

Your ex sounds a bit manipulative. He left for uni, he was unavailable emotionally. Now he's saying he loved you but he won't take you back because you're no longer a virgin ! He's deliberately hurting you by telling you about dates going on.

You are sad and desperate but don't jump straight from one relationship to another. Take time to be happy alone.

Stop regretting what you've done. You are young, you made choices which havent worked out but that's ok. I'm concerned your ex will use your mariage as a stick to emotionally beat you with. Be proud of who you are, and don't let him !

I'm here to say what @2catsandhappy said! Your ex is already guilt tripping you. You can't fix things and you'll get miserable trying. Move on. Leave him in the past.

Your issue here is that you married your dh a year after knowing him. You also sound very naive and young for a 23yo and he’s several years older than you. Why did you rush into marriage? Is there a power imbalance? Your ex also sounds toxic. I think you need to break away from BOTH men and actually learn about who you are as an adult.

With kindness, you are sound extremely naive and young, and you are in two toxic relationships.

Your husband doesn't sound very nice, I think you're right to divorce someone who twists your words and is unkind. However, you're not an innocent party in this marriage, you're having an emotional affair with an ex.

You and your ex were together as children. You made a childish pact regarding remaining virgins which he is now throwing in your face to hurt and manipulate you. I would put some money on him no longer being a virgin either, having either experimented during uni, or dated more recently.

Once he heard you were married, if he was mature and genuine in his feelings, he would have realised that phase was over and if he was still crazy about you, he would have adapted to wishing you were with him as an adult, not clinging to that teenage pact to show his virtuousness compared to yours when it was him who split with you (understandably as he went off to uni). I doubt he would move past this, and he is another man twisting the truth. No, he has not waited for you. He ended the relationship and moved on with his life. You did the same which led to marriage.

I think you need to listen to the advice. End both relationships. Spend some time single, becoming independent, developing your career, a mature outlook, interests, a strong frame of reference for what is acceptable and desirable in terms of relationships and treatment from partners (both from them and towards them).

In the nicest possible way, grow up and expand your horizons. You're no longer a teenager. Yes, you're very young but why are you still making overwrought, melodramatic, decisions like promising to marry the ex as soon as you're divorced? Even if you got together, why have you not learnt not to rush into marriage but to spend more time getting to know a partner as adults, not as two overgrown teenagers first?

Deal with one thing at a time, you are so young and you’ve got yourself in a bit of a mess but you can sort it all out. First divorce, you made a mistake that’s reasonably easy to resolve. But for goodness sake do not rush back to this ex! Take some time to yourself, recognise that he is not the answer to all your problems! He has not treated you any better then your husband has. Enjoy being 23! Go out have fun and date some other guys, you may actually meet someone else who truly is your soulmate

Your ex is already throwing your marriage in your face to punish you.

You're young, in a shitty marriage, and romantacising about a carefree time in your life and your memory is attaching him to that time.

He isn't a good guy, and he is a liar.

You would be going from one crap situation to another.

Leave your husband, and be single, do a bit of growing up and get some independence, your worth isn't determined by a man.

I'm sorry, but your Ex sounds like a manipulative man and nasty piece of work. You just can't see it because you are in a bad way.

He was really really upset and said he wanted nothing to do with me anymore

So, he knows you are in a bad place and must be upset, and his response is to be really nasty to you, and to turn you away (again).

He wrote me a long emotional message about how he waited for me to come back and he turned away women with the idea maybe one day I’d return and we could get married

And you believe this?? Really?? That is an absolute lie. He will have been sleeping with other women the whole time.

I just keep thinking about all the good times we had, how he would make me feel better when i was down and the friendship we had. It was perfect

It was NOT perfect. He repeatedly turned you away. You are looking back on this relationship now and reinventing history to suit your agenda. It would seem easier to divorce your DH if you had another man waiting in the wings, that is why you are now romanticising your Ex and how things were.

I have told him I will marry him straight after i divorce my husband. (Which is happening soon) he said he couldn’t accept me as i chose someone else before him and he feels 2nd

He is turning you away - AGAIN. Even when you offer yourself up to him on a plate, he turns you away.

We both made a promise to each other when we were together that we would keep our virginity and lose it to one another when we were married

If this guy is a virgin, I'd eat my hat. Come on now.

When we spoke on the phone he mentioned that he turned away advances from other women to keep his promise to me but all that time I was having sex with my soon to be ex husband and that really hurts him

Ha ha ha ha - he is 100% lying.

He told me he went out on a date last weekend with a girl to the place me and him used to go. Even though im married im so jealous it really hurts seeing him with another woman

So, he isn't turning other women away and waiting for you, is he? So he was lying. And he is telling you this to make you upset.

He sounds like a very cruel man. Toxic even. If you ever got together with him, he would make you miserable and would forever berate you for marrying someone else.

If he loved you and was waiting for you, and thought you were single, why didn't he come and find you? Genuine question.

He told you he was waiting but this is just talk - he didn't come after you did he? He's just reacting now that you are married and have reached out to him. Your ex is not the right person for you. He pushes you away, doesn't seek you out and then cries when you update him. No no no forget this one.

Divorce your husband if it’s not working but don’t get back with your ex;it all sounds too messy

Be single for a while and get to know yourself before you date anyone else

And, sorry to be blunt, but you've never even had sex with this guy. There might be zero spark.

Oh love, please don't leave one bad marriage and jump into another. It seems certain from what you've said that you'll be divorced twice well before you turn 30 - or stuck in an awful relationship and missing the opportunity to be the person you can become.

A lot of what you’ve written about your relationship with your ex sounds like a (particularly) bad Mills & Boon novel or a crappy ‘romance’ flick.

IMO you’re not totally innocent in terms of your marriage failing. Your husband shouldn’t be twisting your words / arguing with you, but I wonder how obvious it was to him that you were pining for your ex - and this emotional affair you’re currently engaged in must be VERY obvious if you’re speaking to your ex every other night.

As PP have said, stop the comms with your ex completely. Block him, if needs be. Then divorce if there’s really no salvaging the marriage (you must have had SOME feelings for your husband after all).

Take some time to yourself before you commit to another relationship. Oh, and your ex is completely gaslighting you about keeping his virginity for you.

There’s not the remotest chance that that’s true.

Marriage is not only love.Its a lot of hard work .Once you start staying together 24 by 7 ,the love might fade away .
You should first make a career and make your own life ,then get into any relationship .

Divorce your husband

Go no contact with your ex

Be single for a few years and enjoy your 20s. Honestly, being by myself was so enlightening and empowering after my first love broke up with me. I was devastated but eventually pulled myself back together and had a great time.

"I can’t imagine him marrying someone else it would literally kill me."

Erm... no, it really wouldn't. I think the word you were really looking for was "figuratively".

Thank you for all your truthful words i really appreciate it! :)

I think I need to give a back story between my ex and I. I was 16 and he was 17 when we met. To be brutally honest i was the one wearing the pants in the relationship he would literally do anything to see me happy as I would do the same to him. It was really good every couple has ups and downs as you do but like you’ve all mentioned before we did weather the storms a lot better than my current partner. When he went to uni we were together for a year still he would come to see me every Wednesday as he finished early and fridays, that was every single week without fail. One of my friends went to the same uni and mentioned he had a few male friends but she never ever saw him with a female at any point and when she asked females that did know him they would say all he talks about is his GF (me).

Ill be honest i broke it off with him when i started working i felt like i was too busy and couldn’t hold on to the relationship. Everytime life got hard i would fall back on to him and he always kept the door open for me (I will always respect him for that). During this time i was the one pushing him away not knowing that his mother was on her last stages (he needed me). Even after this we sorted out our differences and we would be on and off mainly because my parents were against me marrying him.

I know maybe he is not a virgin anymore, i know he gets female attention. But that’s what i signed up for when i got married. The last conversation we ever had was that if my parents were to ever change their mind I would come back into his life and ask him if he still wanted me to his wife, I would also tell him if i had found someone (this was 2 years ago) I know he waited for me 100% i know the way he talks when he is being real he was really upset that i didn’t tell him and he also feels that I only remembered him because it isn’t working out with my husband. That is not the case after 2 months of marriage all i could think about was him.

I know on this forum many women have way more experience than me I appreciate that. But i feel some women just settle for stability instead of finding a true soulmate (I believe they exist) if anything i believe they exist more now.

I have communicated more with my ex since and the conversations have gotten better it just feels like home. He has asked me to not contact aslong as i am married because it’s disrespectful on both parts I agreed. We haven’t spoken in two days.

Great, that's settled then. You know best. Crack on.

@Maria309 I’m only 2 years older than you, but you and your ex sound like the immature teens that I teach. This is puppy love and quite toxic really. You rushed into marriage and are contemplating quickly jumping into another one. I think you need to ditch both men and be single for a year or 2 to really figure out who you are as an adult. You are trapped in your teen memories and haven’t experienced being single as an adult. Best of luck.

The other women on this thread have spent their time giving you really good advice, but you are choosing to ignore it.

You don't really want advice, you want people to tell you that you are doing the right thing. You aren't. But it's your life & you're free to f**k it up if you want.

He was going through a lot emotionally as he had recently lost his mother and emotionally he was unavailable to me. I tried my best but he kept pushing me away

During this time i was the one pushing him away not knowing that his mother was on her last stages (he needed me)

These statements are contradictory.

I think you are looking back on your relationship with him, with rose tinted glasses. If you were both madly in love, you would still be together now.

He has asked me to not contact as long as i am married because it’s disrespectful on both parts I agreed

Well, this is the right thing to do. If he is single when you become single maybe see where things stand then.

At 30 he would have to be the oldest virgin alive.

Your ex sounds very manipulative and immature. Honestly if I were you I'd divorce and focus on building up your self esteem before throwing myself into a relationship with another less than ideal man. But you seem hell bent on rekindling with your ex which is sad.