Am I the ow here to my ex husband?

[therussiandolly]

Long story short our marriage broke down a little over a year ago.
Ex H decided to leave so we could have some space. He ended up sleeping with another woman during the time we separated but was trying to fix things with me as well until he admitted he'd been seeing someone else and she wanted something more serious with him. Obviously I was furious and hurt and asked him to leave after his admission but he wanted to come home.
He ended up getting into the something serious with her a few days later despite her knowing he had asked me back and that we had been working on things while she was sleeping with him.

They've been together ever since. Recently ex h told me he misses me and thinks about me a lot and I have also found myself thinking about him and missing him. For the last 4 months he regularly video calls late at night, we chat and sometimes reminisce about things. I have to admit it's left me even more heartbroken because it's made me fall for him all over again. But I don't see this going anywhere because its been 4 months and while he's saying all these things and keeping in regular contact he doesn't actually ask me if he can come back or can we make this work.

The conversation is that he wishes things didn't go how they did, he hasn't given up on hope for me and him rekindling our marriage, but he's created something complicated and can't leave what he's created with his gf now. Keeps saying it's going to kill him if he sees me move on and how he regrets ever leaving in the first place.
He has definitely reeled me in again and now I've found myself wanting us to get back together. He's knows that because I told him, he says he wants the same and can't escape thinking about me but there's no effort from him to try and come back. He's continuing on with the gf and then treating me a bit like the ow.
Why is he doing this? If he regrets leaving as he says then why not come home when he knows from my end I'd likely welcome him back.
I'm not sure what to make of it all. He's also been going through a bit of a crap time with his family and I've been listening to him and giving him advice/support, he's not in a good head space but I've been helping him out however I can by listening and letting him vent. When I say to him why don't you just come home he says incase we fall back into old ways and become distant again and how he is afraid of feeling how he did before he left me. Says that's what is holding him back from coming running my direction but I'm not sure if it's just an excuse.
I obviously can't compare to the new gf she's beautiful, successful and he has been welcomed in by her family so I think he's actually afraid to leave one thing for another incase one goes sour and he fucks up the other connection.
It's hurtful as we are married 15 years and he knows I would rekindle our marriage again, I miss him a lot, I've been so lonely. I feel like I'm being breadcrumbed and turned into the "ow" when I'm actually married to him.
I'm not sure why he declares all these things to me and then when I offer him a place back in his home he has an excuse about being afraid I will hurt him or let him down again.
I do enjoy speaking to him but I realise it's getting to the stage I'm getting really upset because I'm invested in putting our marriage together again but from the sounds of it he's going to continue on in the other relationship but still wants to keep a connection with me as he says "because we don't know what the future holds and I still love you and you are on my mind every single day"
If that's true and the person you're saying it to is saying OK let's give this a go, would you not jump at that chance if it's what you actually wanted?
So am I just getting used here??
Or what do I need to do for him to make his bloody mind up?? I did do no contact at the start with him but since that has been broke and I've got to the point I love hearing from him I'm afraid to go no contact again as I would like to save my marriage and stupidly feel if I go no contact again he'll see it as I'm pushing him away.

please don't be harsh with me I do realise I'm probably a massive mug here but if I could rekindle with him, I would. I'm just unsure if I'm being breadcrumbed or if he does genuinely feel this way but honestly afraid of things going bad between us. I feel like he will drag this out for more months and I'll never get over him because I'm hooked on hoping he'll come back

I'm reading all these and feel like an absolute fool. I'm in tears because I genuinely believed his words and his emotion. I admit I've said to myself if he really wanted to he would, if he was that afraid of me moving on then he'd come back to the marriage so that wouldn't happen. He's done neither and you all seem to agree he has zero intentions of it.
I'm so stupid

That sounds tough on you. One thing I wondered, and I might be wrong, is whether he’s trying to stop you moving on. What he’s doing, reeling you in etc. whilst still having a girlfriend, seems very unfair on you and to be honest, the girlfriend (although I don’t particularly sympathise with her tbh).

As harsh as it sounds because he can, you are going along with it just say no

You are not stupid, just hurt and wanting that to stop.

Carry on with him and that would be stupid.

Thankfully, you won’t now, will you?

I really believed him, I'd never play a cruel game like this with someone's emotions certainly not someone I married and loved all these years

He is 100% using you. He can have his girlfriend for the the sex and having you stroke his ego. Bin him now.

Please also get an STI test. You don't know what she has or if he is doing this to her with someone else. Draw a line under it and stop letting him stop you moving on.

But he is not you, and he is being cruel and unfair in leading you on. Keep bringing the focus back to you - focusing on him isn’t helping you.

He’s doing it to stop you from moving on.

He’s a selfish cunt.

He's mugging you both off.

No, you're not the OW. You're still married to him. She knew/knows that she's waded into the middle of a marriage on the rocks and that it's unfinished business so it's hardly accurate to portray her as a woman in a committed relationship who's been betrayed.

Somehow this bloke has managed to convince both of you to commit to him, whilst not committing to either of you in return. He's saying and doing whatever he needs to in order to keep this incredible status quo he's managed to cultivate for himself, whereby he has a steady girlfriend and also a wife in reserve ready to take him back at a moment's notice and boost his ego whenever he's alone.

If you're serious about wanting this guy back (very much not advisable), you need to tell him straight to stop fucking around, dump the girlfriend immediately and come home and work on his marriage.

What you actually need to do, is start divorce proceedings and stop contact with him.

You are the other woman. My ex did something similar to me and secretly rekindled his relationship with the mother of his children, told her lies about me, slept with her while living with me. It absolutely devastated me when I found out.

Tell his girlfriend and divorce him.

He is one cruel bastard.

Sounds like he is hedging his bets. If it doesn’t work out with his girlfriend, he can come back to you.

I would cut it off. If he really wants to get back with you then he can try to actually do it then, but more likely he won’t. However it’s hard to get over someone if you keep chatting to them like this so it would be better for you to break ties (as much as you are able if there are kids involved). And if he does want to come back, you should be more clear sighted about whether it’s what you want.

He is one of those pathetic, sad, needy men, who wants his cake and to eat it too. He’s so weak and insecure that he needs the validation of multiple women to stop him dwelling on what a thundercunt he really is. But is IS Infact, a thundercunt. You KNOW it op. And, deep down, he knows it too, that is why he does all this shit. Don’t feel bad - we’ve all been reeled in by sweet words and pretty promises (I have at least!) but, in the end, they always come to nothing, because the man behind them has no substance, no morals, no loyalty. He is a shape shifter, he will tell you anything you want to hear to get what he wants, which is nothing more than validation and an ego boost. Block him and at some point in the not too distant future, you will look back and wonder what the actual fuck you ever saw in him.

I guess you have to ask yourself one question OP.

would you treat someone you love like this?

If you wouldn’t then why not? Because when you love someone you don’t want to hurt them. It’s the last thing you’d ever want to do.
when you love someone you protect them and their heart right?

He doesn’t love you. He finds it a comfort to offload his emotional baggage onto you and uses you as an emotional comfort blanket because you’re a familiarity and offer him a warm embrace (emotionally speaking) whilst he gets his excitement and sex with new partner.

You know all of this, you just have to find it in yourself to cut the cord and tell him you are no longer available to be his comfort blanket.

So am I just getting used here??

In a word? Yes. Harsh but true: men in these circumstances do what they actually want to do. If he wanted to be with you, he'd be with you. He doesn't want to be. He wants to be with her but have the illicit ego thrills of knowing you're still 100% hung up on him, plus the knowledge that you can't move on while he strings you along, plus the fact that this way he gets to kid himself he's a Good Guy in a Complicated Situation instead of just a selfish cheater.

Tale as old as time. He can have her and you as a side dish, so he does. Nothing complicated or noble or good about it.

He is low quality. He has poor characteristics and seems to need external validation, ego kibbles and drama. This combined with the fact he is dishonest, lacks self respect and integrity proves to you your best option is to move on.

The grass is greener springs to mind. He thought the grass was greener (did he already have the woman he had sex with in his sights? ) so he jumped over the fence. Then he’s on his fresh new lawn peering back over the fence terrified you will tend the grass and it will be better than where he currently is. He is a prime example of - The grass is greener where he isn’t shitting on it.

Op it’s painful, it’s awful but he’s not someone to share your life with. He doesn’t know what he is or what he wants. He’s a liar and needs kibbles to fill his empty soul. Move on and find someone who’s words mean something - his words are lies. He’s a proven liar.

Read women who live too much -it may or may not be relevant. Also Love yourself Like your life depends on it by Kamil Ravikant.

Then serve this idiot divorce papers. Don’t warn him just do it.

Don’t waste another minute of your life boosting his ego.

You believed his words because you wanted to believe them when what you should have believed were his actions. Words are easy. You're not stupid. You're heartbroken. And that makes him twice the twat to hurt you even more.

Not RTFT but this really leapt out at me:

“The conversation is that he wishes things didn't go how they did, he hasn't given up on hope for me and him rekindling our marriage, but he's created something complicated and can't leave what he's created with his gf now.”

Let me get this right: he can leave you after 15 years but in less than 1 year with the new woman, he’s created a relationship he can’t leave? If that’s his position, then yes - you’re now the OW. And he’s saying what he thinks you want to hear because it suits him to keep you sweet. And you love this man - why? He’s just stomping on your heart repeatedly.

Stop communicating with him, OP. Take your power back. Stop entertaining this bullshit. Stop doing the pick me dance. You won’t start to recover until you shut him and this down. This is not the man for your future. He belongs to your past. He’s selfish, weak, dishonest and cruel.

Hmmmm

so you chose to split
then understandably got jealous when he clearly went in tinder in a nanosecond

but you now want him BACK
even though he’s shagging someone else ?
so he’s worse than when you split with him !

sorry I know it’s painful
but I really don’t think this is healthy

and I can’t see things working out with miss tinder either
hes now making TWO women miserable

Sounds like my ex op. He's forever saying I'm his best friend, the love of his life, 'we don't know what the future holds', despite moving on at lightning speed.

I struggled to process the break up because of it. I told him he couldn't keep me dangling on a string, he said I was the one dangling myself on a string. Harsh but actually true and it was the jumpstart I needed for getting over him.

Now his new relationship has gone to shit so he's ramping it up with me again. I'm not interested. Because, the trouble is (for you as well I imagine op) if we ever did get back together how could I trust him not to do it again or ever feel secure and loved? Why would I want to be with someone who didn't want me back? And I've done too much work building my self esteem and self respect to risk him destroying it again.

Put some distance between the two of you so you can focus on healing yourself. You're worth more than this.

Yes.. this right here @Superdupersomeone
Hes actually said to me I havent asked you to wait around on me, which is true, he hasnt, but has spooned me enough words to make me think he doesn't want me to move on and how it's going to devastate him (even though I'm nowhere near emotionally ready to be with anyone else)
I am doing what you say, I'm dangling myself by choice the more I read over everything here.
And the whole we don't know what the future holds crap!! He actually said we didn't know this shit was going to happen to us 2 years ago did we, who's to say things won't change again.
Ahhh I'm feeling so stupid and naive. And disgusted that he'd use me like this and put me as an option, a woman who's got him through so much shit in life.
I'm angry at myself for allowing myself to be an option. Everyone is right, if he really wanted his marriage it would be this home he'd be in right now working at things. Actions speak louder than words like everyone is saying. As a woman of my age I should know better

It kills me seeing him jump from us to someone new so soon. I cant comprehend how men can jump ship and feelings so fucking easily.
Yet I'm devastated over my marriage ending

@Indifferentchickenwings I wish it was just a tinder thing I'd laugh if it was just a tinder thing. No it's someone local. I've wondered if it was going on before he walked out but there's nothing to suggest it was or concrete evidence. It's just suspicion to me.
And I didn't call off the marriage, he did, he chose to leave

I feel like he will drag this out for more months and I'll never get over him because I'm hooked on hoping he'll come back

Says it all on your last sentence. He wants to move on with her but still have you phoning over him, always ready as back up.

(Imo if you're still married she's the ow but it's not relevant to you healing. Look up triangulation and chump lady ASAP)