I found this forum after searching “I love my girlfriend but still love my ex”. All the stories and responses are so insightful, and have given me much to think about. I am the ex he can’t forget. The one he still loves and cries about. The fear in his new woman’s life… and the one who loves him still. To make a very long and painful story short, I dated my ex in two different relationships: the first one we lasted nine months and broke up for 4 months due tk emotional and physical infidelity on his part. Four months later, we initiated a new relationship that was better, but I think I was traumatized by the infidelity from the previous one. He did seem to be very insecure, and need to have women close by, which made me feel like I was going to fall through a trapdoor. A year later, after losing a a pregnancy, I left them. Again. The thing is, I left them often. And I know that was my mistake. It was not done out of anger or power struggle or manipulation. It was because I just couldn’t stay and feel completely devastated. Our relationship was very passionate, with incredible highs, and many lows. I also found this was the person with whom I could dream, enjoy life, and feel alive. And so did he.  Have you ever had a relationship with someone who can help you dream at the same wavelength? We did. So he went to therapy soon after our breakup 2 years ago. For the first year, we attempted four times to talk about our problems in person. And it was a disaster. Every time we met there was a lot of crying, fighting, and a lot of missing, and a lot of guilt about who left and how much he was offering, or why I left and how much I had suffered. We tried this non-stop communication that was 99% from his side talking about love and loss messages phone calls a lot of crying for a year it was impossible for me to move on, although I knew he was dating a lot. I felt very guilty because I was the one. In January, I asked him to not contact me anymore. For the first time he respected this to a degree. I knew that in February he started a new relationship with the woman he still with today, eight months later. He messaged me for my birthday send me a present which I returned, and again messaged me for his own birthday in July. All this time he had kept in contact with my best friend talking to her and crying on her shoulder about me. And how hard his relationship was emotionally. Then in early October just three weeks ago, he asked me by email to start going to grief therapy with him to help us both resolve the loss of our child. I agreed, but I know his girlfriend is not happy about it. I know she is a very successful woman with three different ivy league degrees, money, position, in about eight years older than him. She is everything he wanted in a relationship partner, and one of the reasons why we separated was because I felt constantly Under Fire for not being enough on paper. Although I have gone to college it just seemed like I didn’t have the glitzy requirements he needed. This woman is definitely a great choice for him as she introduces him to people that can further his career, he respects her, she brings him peace, and I imagine intimacy might be great if they are still together and he repeats how important it is for him to “protect his relationship”.  I never felt any of this toward me when we dated. He has said that I was a chaotic person but that he loves me and that she is calm; finally after our first therapy session, which was grueling, he said he loves me too. And ever since, he has been telling me after each session that he loves me, and the things that he misses from us in his new relationship. He also wants us to “collect ourselves” over drinks after each session. I go and see him cry over losing us before he goes home to her.  I feel conflicted, because I still love him, but I am that EX. The one that he cannot shake off. The one that was crazy and chaotic and likely toxic to the world. The problem is in relationships, not everybody knows what happens behind closed doors and it takes a lot of courage to accept responsibility over our own mistakes. But, what do you do with someone who says that he loves his girlfriend, but he still loves and misses you tremendously? I go to therapy with him once a week three times already, and I’m afraid we may fall in love again, or that he is simply trying to become a better man for his new relationship. So, there is a lot of things we don’t know and for the one who started this thread I hope your girlfriend wasn’t manipulative, and I hope you can move on, but I think we all need to be very honest with our feelings because your new girlfriend may know your feelings now for both her and your ex. Thizs woman knows and she is afraid. I know and I am sad. Sometimes relationships are just too hard, what love is demonstrated on the actions that we take to make them work.

My ex kept his entire department untouched for about 16 months. Every time I visited I didn’t know how other women could walk in there with so many pictures photos and mementos of us. This had been our home. I know now that in August, all of our pictures and mementos were put in a box that he took to his office and he stores it there. The new girlfriend feel safer, I know they fight every week after we have our therapeutic session. And I also know from him, unless he’s lying, that he sits in his office and goes through this box of mementos and two photos many times if not every day of the week. I know he cries closest to box and goes home every day. The ex may live in your mind and maybe that is the safest place to have her. But now that we are seeing each other every week I am afraid. So for all of you out there, unless your ex was truly emotionally unavailable or unaffected by you,she may have felt fear or pain to separate as well.  And then the last question would be how do you separate from that acts you can shake off your head? Should you?