How to deal with loving two people at once?

[littlerelaxbear]

Hi, I had previous left a few messages regarding my situation over the last few months. This post is in fact still talking about the same individual. This question is being asked in the sense that it is his predicament (but told from my POV). He has asked me for advice (ironically), but having not been in this position, there's not much I can help with (that will not also jeopardize what I really want, selfishly speaking.)

My ex-boyfriend and I had been keeping loosely in touch online since he moved to a different city, which was the main catalyst to our breakup. As of recently, I now live in the same city, so I thought to reach out to him.

He knew I was coming, so at first I wanted to wait to see if he would reach out to me but it was hard to resist. I got a very positive response, he seemed genuinely excited that I was here finally. We've been communicating on a much more frequent basis now (daily - with him often reaching out to me). He also said we should meet up for dinner (couldn't wait to see me) - which we did about a week ago.

As I previously mentioned, there was/is another girl in the picture. A couple of months ago, she discovered that we had been talking and went on a rampage - going through his phone, forcing him to block me on all social media accounts (despite his inactivity) and forcing him to call me and tell me that he was cutting contact. He complied just to 'shut her up' according to him. And as hurt as I was at the time, I got a background explanation afterwards.

He still continued to contact me using other means behind her back (which I technically feel isn't right of him), and I suppose kept me sort of in the loop of how he felt, his predicament of essentially liking the two of us and how he is so lost and confused as to what to do right now.

I thought he had broken up with her given his excitement in me contacting him, and the fact that he wanted to meet up. When we went back to my apartment to chat that night after dinner, I asked him what the status was and in fact he still hasn't ended it with her. He had just 'left it as it is' whatever that means. Basically, sweeping it under the rug for now however one manages to do that. I was quite disappointed.

He told me she had no idea that we were meeting up or that we were even still in touch, and if she did it would probably be over. I regret not asking him how he would felt if that situation arose (I was slightly intoxicated, but he wasn't). I don't know why he hangs onto the relationship if he isn't 100% for it. He told me he has feelings for her too (as much as he didn't want to say) but clearly she isn't important enough for him to give up having me in his life.

As we chatted, he echoed the same sentiments as in the messages he sent me a month prior. He felt that we each have 'pros and cons'... He is unsure where we stand, but also unsure if he wants to continue with her. He said he felt that ultimately we got along much better. She is more demanding than I am and he said he felt like he was really stressed at times because she expected a lot of his time (he has a busy job) and when things don't go her way she gets really fussy and moody. It was completely unlike me where I enjoy doing my own thing a lot and I was much more accommodating (maybe too much?) and willing to work around difficult situations.

I think what she beats me out on are things of a more superficial level, which he asked me outright the silly question "are looks enough?" He thinks we are both equally attractive, though she has some features that I don't have and that he previously wanted. Her family also has probably a bit more money than either of us... Which if that is really a factor, that makes me quite angry because I do not come from a poor family by any stretch of the imagination...

Anyhow, he basically said to me, "it's so hard to pick" - he said he wants to be 100% content and not have to "change" anyone.

I don't think that is realistic when pursuing a relationship with anyone. But he can be a perfectionist and I have doubts if he is able to do that at all.

I know it is not healthy that I continue to involve myself in this (I know it is fully a choice), but I can't help it. I feel like I am so close in having him come back to me. But I hate the feeling of being 'the other woman' when in actuality she was... (they were communicating before he left our hometown).

He has two phones (one that he is mostly on for work) and he told me to contact me on his personal - which I noticed he shuts off on some evenings and weekends (my messages don't go through). It doesn't really take a genius to figure out why but I feel even as a friend that isn't acceptable - being there when I want and shutting you out otherwise.

I told him that maybe he needs to spend some time being single, he jumped into a new relationship without being even over me. That was very difficult for me to be honest about because I want to be with him but I don't see a point if the person is not 100% present. How can I encourage him to get things moving along?

[Heather]

I quickly want to address one thing here right from the front: what choices you make per who you get involved with and how is, in fact, something within your control. You say "you can't help it," but that's not actually true (unless you have something like an impulse control issue), and framing any of this that way doesn't seem to me to be something that's going to help you make choices you feel best about, and really be an active, empowered person when it comes to your own life and relationships. Make sense?

Can we move forward in these discussions with the given that your own choices, and how you participate in relationships or interactions with others IS in your control? If it turns out you DO have a hard time being active, not passive, in any of this, by all means, we can talk about that and how you can work on that. Okay?

Ultimately, you don't have control over what someone else does, and it's not really your place to try and get them to make different choices or to do what you want them to do. What you CAN do is set your own limits and boundaries with someone else, making clear what you want and need, and if they don't abide by those, or what you want and they want isn't squaring, then you can move on, and let go.

As we've talked about before, it's pretty clear this person is awfully toxic for you, isn't someone who, on the whole, makes you feel good about yourself, and I think you feeling like you don't really have agency here has a lot to do with the dynamic of this relationship, which still just doesn't seem at all healthy to me. From all of the posts you have made about this, I believe he has said things to you that are dishonest and intentionally manipulative. This person also sounds like...well, to put it gently, a hot mess, and seems to be making clear that he really doesn't have respect for anyone he gets intimately involved with, not just you. Talking to you about his current girlfriend's flaws and secretly seeing you is respectful of neither of you. He is making clear he also makes agreements with partners he doesn't honor (small silver lining for you there: perhaps you can start feeling more clear that him being a jerk to you wasn't personal or about you, and is instead clearly about him, since he seems to be treating this new partner as poorly as he's been treating you). Comparing how attractive you two are to you strikes me as very emotionally abusive and manipulative, as well as playing on what he knows your insecurities are. Long story short: I believe this person to be emotionally abusive and, from the sounds of things, very narcissistic and self-absorbed. This doesn't sound to me like someone anyone is at all likely to have a healthy relationship of any quality with, and the only thing that would change that would be THIS person doing their own work and their own growth and change, not anyone else.

Take a moment if you will to perhaps see the irony in that, given that his focus seems to have been and still be on others needing change or not being right, when really, the person he needs to start focusing on is himself and where he needs to do that. And no one else can make that happen: he'd have to care about and choose that for himself, and it doesn't sound like that's something he'll be doing anytime soon, especially if he keeps getting involved with people like you and this other woman he can distract himself with and get focused on THEIR flaws, so both they and he are too distracted to even really see his.

Personally, I'd still strongly advise that you not continue to try and pursue an intimate relationship of any kind with this person, because it just so clearly won't be healthy for you no matter what. I think your best move is to start working on separating from him and this, and move forward in your life, focusing on what IS healthy for you, what does support a positive self-esteem (rather than what sabotages it), and start only choosing relationships with people who make very clear they treat you and anyone else in their life with care and respect.

I'm not very comfortable talking about the alternatives, because that'd basically be me telling you what you can do to stay in something unhealthy, and even try and get further involved again. My job here needs to always be very focused on doing what I can to help people seek out, create and sustain what's healthy for them, not what's unsafe, unhealthy and destructive. I need to always keep that responsibility in mind and lead with it. So, while I totally respect your right to make your own choices, I have to also stick with my own boundaries and responsibilities in how I counsel people here. Understand what I'm saying?

That said, I'm available if you want to talk about what you can start doing to move towards healthier choices and healthier people, as well as what you can do to do some of your own work (or get qualified help) when it comes to your self-worth so that you feel stronger when it comes to choosing relationships that ARE good for you, with people who do respect and care for you. When our esteem is lousy, it's usually very hard to figure we deserve that, and very easy to fall into sway with, or feel stuck in, people and relationships that basically bank on our esteem being low, and feel like a fit because someone who thinks so little of us matches the way we feel about ourselves and our value.

[littlerelaxbear]

Thank you Heather for your message. What are some preliminary steps I can take to mentally prepare myself to move forward? I know it is the best thing that I can do for myself but realistically, I do still see myself being in this rut for another week or so. That's probably not something you want to hear. I want to have a discussion with him from where we left off, and kind of talk him through understanding his actions and the situation. What would you tell him?

I know that seems weird, but I still care about him. It's hard for me to see him so confused, despite much of the pain being inflicted ends up being on me.

As much as it was difficult to lose him as a boyfriend, it is even harder to lose him as a friend. We were each other's closest person in the last couple years and despite some negativities, I look back on it with mostly positive memories.

I lost a few friends this year. I removed them from my life because I felt like they were not being respectful of me. It was hard but ultimately the right thing to do and I have no regrets. Of course, we were not close on the same level as him and I - I feel like it will be unbearable. Actually, funny enough he was the one who always encouraged me to not get bogged down by toxic people in my life. Even associating the word 'toxic' with him has been very hard for me to imagine.

I have almost no friends in the city I have just moved to. He is here. But I already feel lonely sometimes. I think it is a similar situation for him, he knows few people here and thus is clinging to the relationship he has, despite not being 100% present. He mentioned earlier on that he decided to spend time with her because he essentially had no other friends our age here.

I know what I have just written above are excuses. No one should be keeping toxic people in their lives. But just a little insight as to what has been holding me back... I haven't yet found the strength to overcome it and am not sure how. I feel like I've been waiting for things to get better for me, and in some ways they have... Which had only just allowed me to want to stay more. But I know this is not a route I should continue to go down.

Even though my heart wants him, I am aware of the things that were challenging in our relationship and this precedence that has now been set for cheating... It will be difficult to build trust again and I would not be emotionally ok with him staying in touch with her if the situation was flipped. So I can say that even if he were to propose getting together again, I would actually be apprehensive. We are too far apart when it comes to emotional maturity.

Knowing him personally... I still don't think he is manipulative but I do agree that he is very narcissistic, and extremely selfish. He has a good side too (he's been offering to help me out by getting settled down, things like that) and him hurting me is a byproduct of his selfishness I guess. He says he respects the both of us but I don't think he really knows what 'respect' really means...

I suppose I am also facilitating the situation by allow him to stay in my life, and let him treat me like 'the other woman'. I want to change this...

[littlerelaxbear]

Actually, I've watched this TED talk discussing infidelity a few times... I felt it was very empowering (or at least consoling). Was wondering what you (or anyone else) think about it?

http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_r ... anguage=en

[Heather]

I don't have time today to watch a TED talk and do the work I need to, but I'm familiar with Esther, and unless this is a departure from how she usually talks about this, the way she talks about this is usually the way we do in polyamorous frameworks. But those frameworks require openness and honesty, which is not only not happening here, but I don't think will with this guy, so I'm not sure how her usual frames are relevant here. But by all means, if you want to fill me in on how, fill in away.

Really, what *I* would tell this guy is "Buh-bye." It might be hard as hell had I the kind of history you had, and it would be all the more hard given how long I feel this person has been manipulating and gaslighting you. I recognize we have a difference of opinion here, and I respect that, but based on what you have posted here in all the posts about him, I just see so many examples of both, there really isn't another way I can see any of this (in fact in your response to me before the one with the bit about the TED talk, I spot what I think are at least four clear, and awfully textbook, instances of manipulation in his statements to you). And the hard truth is that when we are being manipulated and gaslighted by someone, we're rarely going to be able to even see it while we're still in it, but instead, will only tend to see it clearly once we're outside of it.

I get that you have a history with this person, that you're lonely, in a new city (for a first time as an adult, perhaps?), jealous about him dating someone else, hurt around that and the way he's presented his desire for someone else to you, and also feeling like because parts of this in the past have been important to you, letting go of it feels very hard or sad. I also get that you care for him, and it's clear you feel that you can "help" him and should (though this is another area where I think that's less about care and more about codependence and him playing you some in that respect).

I don't think, honestly, there is anything you can say to him to make him understand your feelings, or want what you want. I think at best, that's just going to be more of an extended exercise in futility, and at worst, just is going to keep you all the more cemented to this, instead of helping you move forward into healthy relationships and interactions with healthy people, and helping you do your own work and care so your own self-worth, esteem, and quality of life can improve.

How long it's going to take you to start making those changes or movements will always depend: leaving any kind of abusive relationship -- including those that are emotionally abusive -- is often very challenging, especially the longer they've gone on, and the more worn down from them a person has become.

I wonder if in the next few days, you might just start by talking a look at how this is getting in the way of the good stuff for you. For instance, you say you haven't yet made any friends where you are now, but how much time and energy have you put into that versus this with him, including the time you spend by yourself focused on it? It's really hard to foster new relationships if we aren't making any real time for them, and all our emotional real estate is going into something else. And, of course, if we fel like crud about yourselves, making new social connections is harder, so staying involved in something where someone, by and large, makes you feel so bad about yourself also is counter to that.

What if you also tried going ahead and writing a goodbye letter? You don't have to give it to him, it's really for you, to see what you'd want to say, not with the aim of changing his mind, feelings, or somehow making him become a very different person than he is (he may have been or seemed different to you in the past, but it's not the past anymore, that's over and gone, he's only the person he is now and has been at least since you started posting about this here). It's not weird to care about someone who doesn't care back, or is even horrible to us: it's human, and it happens all the time. If it didn't, honestly, no one would ever get stuck in something abusive, and people do in epic numbers. Your feelings are what they are, and they are not really the problem here: it's what you're choosing to do with them -- and how it's clear to me he's been using them against you, in a word -- that's got you so stuck.

But you know, you -- like anyone -- deserves healthy relationships that make everyone in them feel good about themselves. You deserve people in your life whose "sides" are ALL good, not who only seem to have some (or only do when it serves them). You deserve someone who doesn't leave you feeling like this person has time and time again. You deserve relationships that aren't a struggle, and where you don't feel like you have to create a case to someone else for why you should be treated with care and respect, or why they should love you.