I am sorry for your pain Claudia.

My rule-of-thumb is to never be involved with someone who is in relationship, separated or just out of a long term relationship. They need to process, heal and learn to be on their own in order to be emotionally available for a relationship… period. I don’t care what they say how they were totally “done” with their relationship. I don’t trust their perception of themselves.

Good for you for bettering yourself. You cannot lose for doing that for yourself. Keep focusing on yourself for that is what you need to do regardless of who you have in your life.

He’s moved on. Time for you to move on.
Mark

Dear Claudia:

I wonder how it is that the co worker didn’t know that he and you were in a relationship (and a three year relationship). Was the relationship a secret?

He told you that when he moved to Fresno “his whole life turned up side down”. He didn’t just change a location, he moved back with his mother. Maybe he had a good relationship with his mother, but if he didn’t, moving back in with her could have been very distressing for him. If so, I wonder if he rushed into a new relationship, one with a local woman, so to distract himself from the … trouble at home, same trouble he had as a child living with his mother.

I also wonder about the fights you had before his move, what were those about.

If you don’t want to explore what happened further, as I suggested, it is fine with me, of course. My comment in that case is that it seems like the relationship suited him in the context of the place you lived, his relationship status as was (divorcing), and no longer suited him in his new circumstances, the new context of his life. I do hope you feel better very soon.

anita

Dear Claudia:

You are welcome. In the beginning of your relationship with him, he told you “that there had been cheating by his ex and that how badly she treated him”. In the past, if I heard a person sharing this I assumed that he did not cheat on her, that he treated her well and that he was a victim in that relationship. And therefore, he will not cheat on me and will treat me well, because I am unlike his ex.

Such an assumption has no basis in reality, because a person who has been cheated on is not necessarily one who did not or will not cheat on a girlfriend or wife.

He may have been a victim in his marriage, she cheating, he did not. But in the relationship with you he betrayed your trust in him, he had a relationship with another woman going on without telling you about it, and then when you  found out he either denied it or minimized its significance. This is the wrong he has done to you.

In the title of your thread you wrote that he “claimed to have loved me”- I suppose he did. But what you can definitely be certain about is that he was dishonest with you for a long time. I wish it wasn’t so. I wish he had let you know what was going on when it was going on, that would have been respectful to you.

Understanding what happened is important so that when you try to move on, you know better what it is that you are leaving behind, learn all you can from the experience, and in so doing, increase by much your chances for a future healthy, loving relationship with another man.

anita

Dear Claudia:

If loyalty in an intimate relationship is a top value for you. If you don’t accept 50% loyalty, or 75% or even 95%, if in action there must be 100% loyalty, then there is no compromise and that is okay. It is for you to determine. And if so, then the love and care for him, that should be a sacrifice on your part, in keeping this 100% value.

You are conflicted. You don’t have to decide today, what to do. Take a bit of time to figure this out. Do what you can do to be calm. We do our best thinking when calm. I will be back to the computer in about 16 hours. Hope to read from you when I am back and then reply to you again. I do hope you feel better soon.

anita

Dear Claudia:

I apologize: in my last two replies to you I confused you with another member. In my last two posts to you I was thinking about another member’s story, not yours. I think that this is the first time it happens, that I answer one member with another’s member’s story in mind.

Still, much of what I wrote to you (having another member in mind) applies to you too.

If you post again, I will be attentive and see to  it that I have your story in mind as I reply again.

anita

Claudia – I think you have gotten some good advice in this thread. I just wanted to say, if I knew you in real life, I’d give you a hug and shoulder to cry on. I know how hard this is. Things will get better.

Dear Claudia:

I re-read your posts. You wrote that you don’t know why he blocked you from texting him. Is it possible that he blocked you because panicked, like you wrote that you were, you texted him repeatedly telling him how much he hurt you, that you hate him for hurting you and such?

(Reads to me from what you wrote that he told you that he was aware of how badly hurt you have been, saying that he has to live with knowing this, something like that. So I am thinking you have let him know how badly hurtful he has been, how badly hurt you were. Then he blocks you).

You wrote in your recent post: “I just don’t know what changed or if it was all a lie?” It was most likely not “all a lie”. But what changed, you ask. Well, two things changed: he received full custody of his son and he moved to his mother’s house in Fresno. There were other changes in his life, employment is a third. What changed in the relationship with you: distance, for one.

So by “I just don’t know what changed”, what do you mean?

anita