Need Advice Please!!!About his Ex
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Need Advice Please!!!About his Ex
| Mon, 08-07-2006 - 12:28am |
I really need some advice, but this takes some explaining so I'll try to keep it as short as possible. Okay, I'm getting divorced and not long ago I met a great guy online. He is a few years older than me and also divorced (10 years ago). It turns out that he was married for two years and then she left him and he also found out she had been cheating on him. He said it took him several years to get over it but they had become friends after awhile. He would go see her at work and she had even visited him at his new home 5 years ago. Then two years ago she committed suicide. He hasn't really dated since his divorce--he's gone out with about 4 girls but he only went out with a couple of them more than once and only one was a relationship and only two months. We have now been dating going on three months. Not long after we started dating I saw a picture of a girl sitting on the dresser in his room and I asked him who it was. He told me it was his ex-wife. That upset me a little and he said that he had taken it out after she killed herself and that they had been friends so it's just him having a picture of a friend out. The next week I went to his house and saw that the picture was gone. But then the next week I was at his house again and he went to his bedroom to use the bathroom, when I heard him come out I walked in there to say something to him and I saw him throwing the picture in his dresser. I asked him about it and he said that he takes it out during the week, but was putting it up because it bothered me. I told him that I didn't want him to put the picture up because of me, I wanted him to put it up because he didn't need to have it out anymore. Since then the picture has been on his dresser. Now there is more---he hasn't introduced me to his family yet (he has met mine) when I mentioned it he said it's because his ex was so involved in his life and he doesn't want to do that again. Then we were talking and he was telling me about the antidepressant he takes. I asked him when he started taking them and he told me what year which I realized was the same year as his divorce, then he said he weaned himself off of them but then two years ago (the same time the ex killed herself) he started taking them again. Okay, so here is my problem. I feel like he is still in love with his ex now I realize she is gone, but the other day we were talking and I asked him that after the divorce if she had asked him for another chance he said he would have taken her back. So, I feel like he is still in love with her. And I feel like he will never be able to fully love me. I feel like I will always come second place in his heart and I don't want that. I want someone to fully love me and that he feels like I am his one true love and soul mate, but I don't feel like he will ever feel that way about me, that he feels that way about her and he is only with me because he wants to just be with somebody now. Now I know we haven't been together all that long, so please don't tell me that it's too soon to worry about this. I know this is a future issue, but if I don't feel like he will ever feel that way about me then I don't want to waste my time and fall any deeper for him than I already am. I am on my way to falling in love with him and I don't want to end up hurting. So, advice please!!!!!

If you are looking for marriage or some other form of lifetime commitment from this guy, you will probably never get it. I say this, because he's never gotten over his ex wife. He's been divorced for ten years and he's still holding on to her. Sure he dated four other girls, but he couldn't / wouldn't give those relationships his all, and those girls probably got
I can answer this one from his perspective, because I also had my "one true love" commit suicide several years ago, after we split up. You say,
"I want someone to fully love me and that he feels like I am his one true love and soul mate, but I don't feel like he will ever feel that way about me, that he feels that way about her and he is only with me because he wants to just be with somebody now."
Well, yes and no.
His ex wife may always be his "soul mate", and with that you can never compete, but WHEN he's ready, he will love again, in a different way. It's true that when someone dies, you romanticize them and put them on a pedestal, and that no one can ever "compete" with that. But when he's processed it in his own mind, he will realize that he is in another part of his life, and must live it, not live in the past.
So, it IS possible that he can love again, and feel like someone else is his true love...but only when he's ready, and it doesn't sound like he's ready. When I was lonely and sad, I also kept my ex's picture by my bed...but never when I was with someone. If he's still keeping it out, it means that he isn't giving you the heart that you deserve.
I think thta, unfortunately, you're not going to get what you want out of this relationship, and it may be best to move in, at least for now. If you can part as friends, and stay in each other's lives, maybe you'll be there for him when he's healed and ready, but please don't count on that happening. Life changes people, and so does time.
I'm now fully healed, and although I feel sadness at the fact that I loved someone and was hurt by their death, I no longer pine for our love, or think of him in any sort of romanticized way...and that's how I know that now it's OK to love again. Your guy will get there, one day, but in his own way, and his own time...
Just take care of you, and know that you can't "save him"...