Boyfriend is still communicating with his ex - just friends or more?

Redacted

Relationships boil down to trust. You can never know what someone is feeling or thinking - there's no litmus test for it. You either trust what they tell you or you don't. More often than not your choice will be guided by your own feelings - how much you love them, fear about your life after a break up, etc - rather than certainty about their feelings.

There will be some people who will believe what their partner tells them despite overwhelming evidence showing it's not true. There will be others who can't believe their partner despite all evidence showing they're telling the truth.

You can't protect yourself from pain. If he's going to cheat it will hurt whether you uncover it or he tells you and breaks up with you. It will hurt if it's this week or next month or next year. So, is he worth the risk, the investment? Or is he a poor bet? Can you trust him? If you can't, if you'll always be wondering, checking, spying, the chances of this working long term are poor. But only you can choose.

beautiful_ravens

I would go with the gut instinct you already have, OP. Somethings not right.

'Hoping' this and that - you might spend your whole relationship hoping this and that about this bloke. Take it from me, hoping that things change is a bad sign. Its the way it is now - and youve got your doubts. Cut your losses.
Let him go. See if he starts texting you the way he's texting her.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

You know it's a doddle to delete texts from a conversation or to remove calls where they ask to get back together again from the mobile call log, don't you?

Hell, I've done it on the offchance that OH needs to use my phone for something (he tends to use whatever phone is closest if he wants to listen to something and, sometimes, his phone has run out of battery but he's needed to send a message) - in my case, it was because I knew he would have been extremely upset to read a conversation with a mutual close friend about how looking after him during a longterm illness was affecting me.

All it took was one tap on the relevant texts and selecting Delete, thus leaving the rest of the messages sent to the friend, so if he did need to use my phone to message him - or decided to check it for the first time ever - he'd see a string of messages relating to times of rehearsals, which pub to meet in and a few stupid jokes, not the ones where I was agonising over whether I could cope any more.


And anybody who can't handle the idea of watching The DragonPorn and Murder Show without the person they used to get jiggy with by their side, really isn't worth your effort, especially as you've only been involved for less time than the standard warranty period for a game controller.

Primrose

I suspect they still have a lot of fondness for each other and if their break up wasn't viscous or across knial that,s probably a good thing. But it does mean that you will either have to put up with this situation or decide you can,t live with it. As somebody else has said, it would have been better if he could have got her more out of his system before moving on but that hasn't happened and may be they both now feel comfortable being friends.

I wouldn't put all your hopes in this basket at this point. Only time will tell whether things are exactly as he professes.

sulphate

Break it off. Plenty more fish in the sea.

System

but if she's in love with him. Surely by responding to her texts he is either fanning his ego or stringing her along.

justme111

Judi wrote: »

but if she's in love with him. Surely by responding to her texts he is either fanning his ego or stringing her along.

He says to op and she got over him and they are just friends

lobbyludd

when I was about 24 I went out with someone who had recently split up from his long - term girlfriend (much more recently it turns out than he had led me to believe as there was a period of on again off again). He was still very good friends with her - they shared a lot of friends together, and I was fine with that, as I was friends with some of my ex's too.

However, there was always something a little off about the way he spoke to her, about her, the way he reacted when she got a new boyfriend. He clearly (looking back) hadn't processed the emotional attachment he had with her. He had ended it, (and was looking around for someone new when he was with her - before I knew him) she was devastated, stayed single for a while and then moved on. I got to know her whilst we were together, and she was lovely, she had no interest in him, other than a fondness and hope that his life would work out well. We did not stay together - not because of his relationship with her, but because it was clearly a pattern he had, he was always keeping his options open, grass was greener on the other side, I found out later he'd been unfaithful to her, he was unfaithful when with me, and with every woman he has been with since.

I was with him for 4 years, much of it with me thinking - am I being unreasonable and jealous or is he still attached to her/attracted to someone else, etc? and that's pretty soul-destroying. As time went on, I found out more things about him, or he would do other things, that just didn't sit well with me, but because I'd invested X years and I was determined to try and understand if my feelings were reasonable enough I stayed.

However, what he went on to do is pretty irrelevant - at the beginning I was filled with self-doubt and doubt about him - and I should have listened to that, and realized that whatever the reason, this relationship wasn't a good thing for me.

You are still supposed to be in the "honeymoon" period of the relationship, which is not the best bit of a relationship - that comes later, but it is the bit where we start to find out about how we fit with someone else, and also where we are often blind to things that later annoy us. So if you are having these doubts now - odds are that these are pretty big red flags for you.

It therefore doesn't matter whether he is interested in her or not, or something bigger is going on or not, your gut is telling you very early on that he isn't a good fit for you. He doesn't have to do anything "wrong". The question instead is, does this relationship support you feeling happy and confident. If not, then you just don't work as a couple together, and you can say that, and end the relationship without blame.

I don't think it is supporting your happiness, otherwise you wouldn't be asking this on a forum a few months into the relationship?

emberlyn

Thanks for all the comments. I'm learning so much from them. It's hard because this is the first relationship I've ever been in so I don't wanna screw it up, that's why I keep overthinking things.

I know my gut instinct is telling me to be careful (that's why I posted on here in the first place) but I'm an insecure person with not much confidence in myself so even if there wasn't a problem I'd probably look for one knowing me. My dad cheated on my mom when I was a toddler and they divorced so I guess the issue is something I've always worried about.

He does make me happy. I really really like him and if it wasn't for the contact with his ex, I would have no doubts at all as he seems super invested in me.

Person_one

emberlyn wrote: »

It's hard because this is the first relationship I've ever been in so I don't wanna screw it up

You're not the one screwing it up.

It isn't a failure to walk away from a bad situation. Its a huge success to see that somebody isn't right for you and break it off before it gets worse.

Have you talked to your mum about all this?