Overwhelmed, feel like I'm coming off the rails.

LegacyUser

I'm having a week from hell, I guess.
Trying to maintain a bit of distance so apologies if my writing is a bit stilted. Already been told I'm acting very cold, but really, it's all I can do to hold myself together. I don't really know where to start.

I'm in a relationship the past seven years. I'm 28. It hasn't been going great for a while but I haven't wanted to end it, largely because in the past, I've had a pattern of cutting myself off from groups of friends to the point where I feel without this relationship I'll pretty much have no one around me except family. She is still into it, talking about marriage and all that. We don't live together either yet.

This relationship was a bit of a rebound. I came out of a very passionate, very acrimonious relationship and kind of fell into this one. I've never been into her the way I was into that previous ex. I wouldn't say passionless .... just safe. We rarely argue or anything. She pretty much put me back together after the other girl basically left me, cut me off completely, or so it felt at the time.

I've been talking to the other girl the last few days. She's married, has two great kids and lives in the US now. She's been quite clear that she's happy and wasn't looking to get back together. She had done several times between seven and three years ago up until she met her now husband.

But we've been talking. Trying to be friends. Part of that was trying to understand what went wrong, etc. Just for the sake of closure.

In the course of this, it was revealed that the breakup wasn't entirely what I thought. Basically, she disappeared and cut me off. We were from differnt parts of the country, didn't know each others friends or families because we'd been really caught up in each other. So, when I say she disappeared, I really mean it. We'd been fighting a lot, and basically, after one big blow up fight, I didn't see her again for a while. I was devastated. I didn't know if she was even alive for days until I managed to get out of the one person from her social circle I could find that she'd gone home to her parents. Couldn't get a number or even the promise to convey a message out of them.

I crashed pretty badly. Came close to killing myself. The current gf put me back together and over a while, we ended up going out.

Anyway. The ex, it now emerges, knew my current gf and knew I knew her. And, at least so the story goes, it was my current gf who convinced her that she needed a break away from me and the relationship and that she'd fight the now exes corner with me, tell me what and why she was doing etc.

None of this, to my memory, ever happened. I crashed and when the ex re emerged I hated her so badly I never let her near me again. And I ended up with the girl who held me while cried my eyes out for weeks.

Ok, you can see how convoluted this is. I'm probably leaving stuff out but that's the bare bones.

So. I don't know. If this is true the woman I'm with now, caused the spectaclur breakup of what I've always thought of as "the one". I've been hung up on the ex ever since, but between not being able to trust her over disappearing and causing me so much pain, and the things I said when she came back, trying to get back with me, I never felt there was a chance of it ever working, so I pushed down the emotions and tried to get on with life.

With this revelation, I look back over the last seven years and really feel like I'm waking up from a horrible dream. I quit college that same year and am still in the **** tier job I took up. I've done nothing with my life since.

My current partner is passive, and so am I. Part of the relationship with the ex that complemented was that she pushed me to do things, and I helped bring her back down when she was running herself ragged. With the current, neither of us push each other to improve ourselves. She'd be happy if the only change was that we moved in together and got married.

I feel like, if this is true, if I'd ended up getting back with my ex, my life would be so different. She wouldn't have been content to let me just run out the clock on a cycle of work/eat/sleep the last few years. For good or for ill, things would be very different.

Sorry for the massive post. As you can see, the situation is complicated and it's not helped by me pretty much being in a fog it feels like for the last few years.

I don't know where to go or what to do. I can't have my ex back. She was clear on that. But, do I even trust her to be telling the truth on this? If it is, can I stay with my current gf? I've never really given my whole heart to the current relationship.

I just had to write it all down. My head is spinning. I feel like I'm in mourning or something, for what could have been. And so angry if it's true. Cause if it has been, I've been manipulated really.

I don't even know how to broach the question with the current gf, if it's not true and I accuse then I doubt the relationship can survive that and I don't know if I even want it to.

December2012

Are you blaming your current girlfriend for your lack of motivation and success in your life?

You say the other girl would have got you to push your boundaries - why didn't you push your own boundaries?

You've talked about pushing down emotions.

Maybe you should talk to a therapist.

Jaxxy

Why are you still with your current girlfriend? You've said she was only a rebound in your eyes. It has been seven years and you've made no commitment to her and don't plan to. Cut her loose, be fair. You're wasting your time, and hers.

LegacyUser

No, not really. I was just writing a stream of conciousness I guess. I just know things would have been very different with the other girl. I'm assuming they'd be better but to be fair they could be worse.

Really, it's the possible manipulation that has me upset.

ibarelycare

Wow, 7 years with a person, what a waste. I feel really bad for your current girlfriend. You need to break up with her and let her find someone who really loves her and wants to be with her more than anything. And you need to get yourself some counselling and move on with your life.

Abi

I can't think why your ex would have reason to lie about it. With that said, before you heard this you wasted 7 years of a girls life. You can't just hold onto her for social connections.

You need counselling to sort your life out.

sherbett32

You've put this ex on a pedestal and convinced yourself that if had worked out you'd be blissful now. How do you know this, you were very young.

If you're 7 years with the new girl & don't want to commit you never will. Break up with her.

You come across as wanting people to "fix" you. Maybe a chat with a counsellor would help you sort out your head.

daisybelle2008

You need to be single for a while and get some therapy. All these relationships 'pulling you apart' and 'putting you back together', fixing you and breaking you....It's ridiculous. Seriously learn some self-reliance. You are far to emotionally immature for adult relationships at this time. Every relationship you have will be dysfunctional until you stop using them to prop yourself up. Stand on your own two feet, motivate yourself, be responsible for your own happiness, stop blaming others for what you are lacking.

PlainP

You obviously don't want to be with your current girlfriend if you are thinking this way about your ex. Whether your life would have turned out differently with her is irrelevant as both you and her are on completly different pages now.

I might have this wrong but are you saying that your current girlfriend broke up the relationship you had with your ex and then went about trying to get you for herself? Which she obviously did, but then you only found out from the 1st girl that it was your current girlfriends fault all along??

If this is the case then I would be extremely hurt and angry with such manipulation and would be seriously considering leaving.

Does your girlfriend know that you have been in contact with your ex???

kat.mac

You need to let this girl go, for her sake. Give her the chance to find someone who actually wants to build a future with her. You talk about her wanting to move in with you and get married as if it's akin to having your eyelashes pulled out.

As for the other girl - coulda, woulda, shoulda will get you nowhere. I understand that you feel like you're in shock having heard her side of the story for the first time - but you described it at the very start that as a "very passionate, very acrimonious" relationship. It could very easily have crashed and burned with or without your current girlfriend's involvement. Feeling like you've been robbed of something is, IMO, a case of serious rose-tinted glasses.

OP I think you'd benefit from talking through all of this with a professional, as other posters have suggested.