I’m sorry if this is a bit long. I want to go back and explain a bit so I can get some responses based on as many of the “facts” as possible.
I was in a bad relationship for 5 years between the ages of 19 and 23… I was emotionally abused, but not mature enough or confident enough in myself to realize it at the time… I’m 5’8 and during the first couple years in the relationship I weighed 145 pounds and was a size 4. However, I was continuously told that I needed to lose weight, and encouraged constantly to exersize. We would be out for dinner and he would tell me not to eat certain things, wouldn’t let me order what I wanted (because it was fattening) while all the time maintaining that he was only telling me these things because he cared about me. Unfortunately I think that that was what led me to start emotionally eating, and pushed me to my heaviest weight ever in 2007-2008 190 pounds…. I used to stuff my face whenever he wasn’t around… now I realize it was because I was very very unhappy. I finally left him in 2007 after I went away on a trip to Europe and was able to re-evaluate my life…
I was single for almost two years after that… I didn’t want to date anyone and felt like I needed to figure out who I was and what I wanted because I hadn’t had a chance to do that at all during the time in my life where I would have normally made all sorts of those discoveries… In July of 2009 I met a really nice guy while taking a motorcycle course and we fell head over heels for each other… however, I ended things in October of the same year.
Honestly now looking back the reasons I had at the time for the break-up seem so ridiculous… I can barely remember any of them. But in hindsight I think the real problem was that it was too much for me too fast and I was afraid… he made me feel amazing in a way I had never experienced before because he loved me for me, and told me I was beautiful all the time (which the first one never really did). I felt like he was putting me on a pedestal and that I wouldn’t be able to live up to his expectations. It made me feel like what we had wasn’t real love… but now looking back I’m not sure… I’m afraid that it was me that didn’t know what real love was and that I was afraid of something I had never experienced before.
After that I took some more time off from dating… and then started to date around again in May 2010… I just wanted to have fun and so I went out with several guys, none of which I felt were right for me. Then in July 2010 I met my current boyfriend… he is a nice guy…. Outdoorsy and took me to try things I’d never tried before (like off-roading in the middle of nowhere)… I felt like I wen t into the relationship cautiously and we eventually moved in together about a year after we met… it’s now going to be coming up on a year we’ve been living together and two years since we met. I love him, a lot, and so does my family (they also loved the motorcycle boyfriend), but he’s very different from me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He’s really quiet, keeps all of his emotions inside, and is very hard to read. Comes from a small family that don’t show much outward affection to each other and isn’t very close to his brother. I come from a big family, we are loud and my brothers and I are very close – like friends –and we hang out all the time.
My problem is that in the past couple of months I find myself thinking about my ex boyfriend a lot (I had another dream about his last night). There are things about him that I miss a lot. He loved my family and fit in like he’d been a part of it all along, he’s outgoing and he loved my parents like I do. I don’t feel that from my current boyfriend. My ex was also very tidy and neat whereas my current boyfriend isn’t. I know what all the differences are and I knew that going into the relationship with my current boyfriend, but I don’t understand why I can’t stop thinking about my ex. And now I’m starting to wonder if it’s normal. I do feel like my current bf and I have been growing apart, and I’m not sure why… I’ve told him that I’m worried about us but he’s confident that we can figure things out. I haven’t told him I’ve had dreams about my ex bf and find myself thinking about what it would be like to be with him again, because I know that would hurt him so much, and I don’t even understand my own feelings. I’m the type of person that feels that once you break up with someone you can’t go back... because things will never be the same, and I feel like I’m breaking all my own rules. I’ve even had thoughts about what I would do if we did break up now… where I would live etc. I’m just wondering if any of you have ever been in a similar situation? Any advice? I haven’t seen my ex since January 2010 (when I saw him at a motorcycle show), and I haven’t talked to him since the day we broke up…
In case it makes a difference over the past couple of months there have been a lot of changes in my life… I lost my grandmother, my job has become quite stressful, I’ve started limiting my carb intake to try and control the addiction I think I have to white sugar and starch… so sometimes I wonder if maybe it’s just hormonal or something?
Anyway, I’m so sorry for how long this is… but if I’m going to get unbiased opinions I figured it would make sense to try and tell as much of the story as possible.
Thanks so much guys... it helps a tiny bit just to get things down on paper.