tell me i'm normal

LegacyUser

Bear with me, this is a long one.

Up until about a year ago I was seeing someone for three years. It wasn't in any way a proper relationship. I became friends with someone who I had lots of friends in common with and we fell into a sexual relationship that we never talked about. We saw each four and five times a week, went for meals, grocery shopped together, texted and talked every day, generally got on like a house on fire, relied on each other, knew everything about each other and weren't seeing other people. At the same time, for some reason, we regularly ended up in bed together but never acknowledged it out loud. And we were grumpy, mean ****s to each other because we didn't know how to talk.

Naturally such childish carry on ends in tears so despite the fact that everyone else could see what was going on between us, we didn't, and got beyond a point of being able to school it into a proper relationship with dates and acknowledged feelings. Instead, it all came to a head the guts of three years in when I went away for work for a couple of weeks, he went on a couple of dates with a girl and when I came back he tearily told me about it, feeling like he'd cheated despite owing each other nothing in a technical sense. It brought us to our senses despite it all being too late. We cried. We talked about how we should've talked. I admitted my feelings. He talked about his. We said that neither of us was sure what was the right thing to do. He said he wasn't sure he wanted to see this other girl if it made me so upset or meant that our relationship would change. We came around to the idea that our relationship had to change because being everything and nothing to each other wasn't healthy. And so, miraculously, we ended our nonsense and built a genuine friendship.

In the past year, we've negotiated the awkwardness of becoming just friends despite being used to so much more from each other. We've been really good to each other. His new relationship ended and he didn't lean on me out of respect for how unfair it would be to come running back. I began a new relationship and he was truly lovely to my new partner. I made efforts to keep him in my life and see him. He started seeing someone and made the same effort with me. We're in a comfortable place. We can joke about the past. We talk and meet up regularly. He's become part of a group of my friends instead of just someone who I used to just see one on one, and that seems more appropriate. We're able to say feelings and kind words that used to be strangely strangled in our throats and just wouldn't come out.

Meanwhile, my relationship with my new guy has moved at a unbelievable pace and we find ourselves crazy about each other and already living together. He's fantastic and funny and easygoing and good looking and I'm genuinely as happy as can be.

As far as my 'ex' is concerned, I feel like we get along now precisely because we're not sleeping together and not expecting anything from each other or worried about what we are or what we're not.

But occasionally, because my life has done a full 360 in the past year, I find myself looking at 'On This Day' on Facebook or catching the date and remembering what I was doing one or two or three years previous and getting a rush of nostalgia for the past. I really don't think it's anything more than that. For a lot of years, I was used to my life being a particular way with a particular person and while I love what I have now, sometimes I have to remind myself that life isn't anything like I planned.

So I have just one issue that's really making me dislike myself. There are a handful of moments when I compare my ex and my current and miss my ex's way of doing things.... not him, just the way I know he would apply logic to a situation or something I know he could fix or solve. They're stupid things. Like for example how Ex was stoic in the face of me asking him to do annoying fetching/carrying/lifting/building and would do such things without complaint while current makes huffy noises and really lets you know when he's doing something under duress. Or how ex was able to be more carefree with money than current. Trivial stuff. And believe me I know that if I wanted to I could come up with twenty things that annoy me about Ex and love about current. But I worry that the fact that I compare them means I haven't let go?

Tell me I'm just looking at Ex through rose tinted glasses like everyone does sometimes and my rational brain knows I've got it good with current?!

Magicmatilda

I'm confused as to why you and your ex,when you had that conversation 3 years in, didn't become an official couple? Did he not want to or did you not want to?

TizTaly2015

You are looking at your ex through rose tinted glasses. ;-)

It sounds like you have a good thing going with new guy. Let your 'ex' go, have fun with your new guy, enjoy life, enjoy his company.