My Ex Married His Ex Before Me

Hello everyone! I don’t know if you remember me…
Sorry this is tooo long. So we were classmates back in college since the year 2012. I always liked him but never let him know. Back in 2014 he started dating this girl and he was REALLY into her. They were about 22 back then. She was his first real girlfriend. They dated for a total of nine months and about 3 months of their time together she got a scholarship to Italy so it was kinda long-distance for 3 months. When she got back after those 3 months, the girl’s mother asked to see my ex and told him that her daughter was at an age to get married (she was only 22!!) and that she didn’t think he was in the proper state to marry her. He told her that he loved her and that he had a house and a car but the mother told him that he needed to have a place near their own house so that she would be able to come and go and do the house chores since her daughter couldn’t do them herself. He said that she had told him to be in contact and they could possibly be together in secret but he had refused. He even had to ask her to get out of the car. She kept texting him so he blocked her. (These are all what he told me, I’m not really sure about the complete truth though). Long story short, they broke up and I was there for him sometimes and he got better. We slowly moved away from a simple friendship and 7 months after his break up he asked me to be his girlfriend.

We dated for about 3 and a half years. Now, I know my story is very messed up but we were mostly okay and treated me well for the most of our relationship. He talked about wanting to get married early on, maybe 6 months into our relationship which I thought was too early to even think about. He told me about his past and childhood and the fact that his father was an addict and an alcoholic and that he would beat his mom all the time. The father had also hid the fact that he was married twice before he married his mom. My mom was kinda against our whole relationship once she found out about this but I stood up to her and we stayed together.

He was my first boyfriend and I experienced all my firsts with this guy and well I noticed some red flags but I was naive and inexperience enough not to act upon them. Little by little, he told me things that made me a bit anxious. I knew he had slept with a lot of girls before me which was not that much of an issue before in an attempt to tell me how different I was and that he didn’t love me for the way I looked he told me all the girls he had slept with were prettier and hotter than me. I got upset, he apologized and told me that I had misunderstood his point. Later on, he wanted to tell me how the way he feels about me was something he had never experienced before even with his ex. He was even kinda annoyed when she would call him all the time when she was in Italy. He told me he had to change a lot of things because of her and during all that time he was ready to snap back and that he had a hard time staying faithful to her. I asked him what he meant and he told me when she was in Italy he went to a party, got drunk and almost had sex with this girl who was at the part but stopped himself in the middle of action. This is still cheating to me. He told me he didn’t feel that way toward me and that he wanted to be the best version of himself but I still felt a bit uneasy. He also told me he used to drink a lot and that he didn’t remember some days since he drank so much. He didn’t do that when he was with me but I was worried he might revert to his old habits when things got bad. We waited a year to have sex and he didn’t really pressure me into it and during our first time he was really careful and tried to be gentle but when we finally managed to do it he suddenly lost control and when I asked him to stop because I was in pain he didn’t. I tried to move away from him but he held me in place and went on. This only added to my worries and made me feel like he had no impulse control but I didn’t trust my instincts enough back then to leave him.

He tried really hard to get a good job and to get a new house on in which we could live in together when we got married later. Two years into our relationship he hit a really bad spot after he had trouble sleeping for a long time and after referring to the doctor he told me that he had depression and that he had managed to hide it from his family and me so well! I know in his own mind, he thought he was trying to protect us by not telling us but it made me feel like the fact that he could have hidden it for so long means that he could hide other things later on as well. He had even told me once that hiding is the same as lying and this kinda brought the whole fear of being cheated on back to the surface. He told me he thought about death all the time, that he’s always been like this except for the four years we went to college and even told me he had put aside some money for me. He even asked me to leave him when he was really depressed and told me I didn’t have to stay with a depressed guy but I stood by him and tried to help him. I persuaded him to seek therapy and found a gym he could work out in. Of course he dropped therapy after only a few session when he thought he was feeling better. َI guess I never recovered from this though and I myself felt depressed and anxious for while. A few times I felt like he didn’t love me and when I confronted him he told me that’s what his family tell him too and that he was really feeling numb. He got better of course but I had grown too insecure.

He and his family hit a rough patch afterwards with a crazy neighbor and had to file a complaint against him and change their apartment. This really took a toll on an already depressed guy and he couldn’t really be that available which I would have understood had I not been so anxious and emotionally starved myself. I even asked him if we should break up, he cried (which he was almost incapable of) and asked me to give him some time to make this right and I did since I really did love him (I know, my bad, love is not enough). He later wanted to drop out of college because he couldn’t write his thesis so I offered to help him and I ended up writing the whole thing pretty much by myself. After that he had a job interview and I kinda helped with that one too. You see, our government is very religious and if you want a governmental job they really probe into your private life and they are not okay with extra marital relationships so when thy were doing a field research on him one of the professors in our university introduced me as his fiance and I just went along with it and asked my parents to do the same in case they were contacted.

During the last few months of our relationships we had a lot of fights, some due to his inconsideration and some due to my somewhat childish behavior. Every time he did me wrong I felt like what happened to his ex might happen to me again and I would communicate my fears to him. (I know judging someone based on what they’ve done a few years back is not the right thing to do and he told me that he was not a cheater and that he was never gonna do such a thing again). We had so many fights I even threatened to leave twice which I know is not cool, but he was such a conflict-avoidant person that I felt like that was the only way I could get him to actually sit down and talk with me. I know now that this is not the healthy thing to do, if they’re not willing to talk you walk out. I’ve learnt my lesson. Anyways, the fights really escalated and he asked for a two week break right after we had sex and the condom broke!!! After those two weeks we only lasted for 2 or 3 days and he said he still loved me but that were beyond help and that we had to break up. I really tried to get him to try again almost to the point of begging (I know!! NEVER AGAIN) but we did break up and he said that we were gonna stay friends and who knows we might even find our way back to each other one day.

Two weeks later he asked to see me and he started kissing me and wanted to go for more pretty much forcefully but I stopped him, he apologized and left. He later asked me if I would “ever him” again and I said no. I said I either wanted a relationship or nothing at all and he said he gave our relationship a long shot and that he had imagined his whole life with me, even his kids but that I had made him want to avoid relationships altogether. He said if he slept with other people that would be it for us and I said I could still be his friend. (I was stupid, I know). We would get in contact with each other every two weeks with him asking for sex and me asking to see if we could be friends. Once I was stuck in some protests on the street and had nowhere to go and he kinda came to my rescue. I said I wanted to talk to him and know what he was so bitter about. We saw each other the next day and he forced himself on me again, I had a semi-panic attack and being the stupid girl that I was after I saw how bad he felt about him I DID sleep with him. I also slept with him once more on his birthday but that was actually me initiating it. Once he told me that his mother was in the hospital and knowing that he was alone I went to check up on him but he didn’t open the door. He later told me how guilty he felt for almost raping me the other day and that I shouldn’t show up near his place anymore because he thought he might not be able to stop himself again and that was why he hadn’t let me in the other day. Of course that didn’t stop him from asking me for sex again. He said some pretty messed up stuff like he had this fantasy that I were pregnant or that he would be executed for killing me, something that would bind us for good. He said he wanted to be with me without having to make the choice, that he wanted to own me or for me to own him. He was also angry at me, saying that I would sleep with gorgeous girls but I close my eyes and see you no matter what I do. I had let him know that I wanted to give our relationship another chance on the condition that he accepted to go to therapy. His attitude was so new to me that I had a hard time accepting this is actually who he is. He said all girls love him but no one would ever be able to love him as much as I did and that if he asked to get back together I would come back running. Yeah, my therapist says he’s kind of a narcissist so I guess that makes sense.

He later apologized to me for everything, told me the relationship had failed mostly due to his inability to let me in and that he was sorry for all the times that he had made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. He asked me to get back together with him and told me even though he didn’t feel like going to therapy, he was taking anti-depressants and he was feeling much better. So we did get back together. I did know he had slept with 6 other people during the time we were broken up and I thought he was willing to help me build back the trust that was kinda broken. He told me I shouldn’t have taken him back if I couldn’t handle what he had done and that he was tired of my insecurities and my constant need for reassurance and that I was ruining our relationship all over again so he broke up with me again a week later and went back to asking me for sex. He told me he still loved me but that we were never gonna work out. He said that the love he felt for me and the crush he had on is ex would never be repeated again. He said the way he felt for her was different he was really eager at first and then it went away but that with me the love was like an elevator. His family was really insistent on him getting married and asked him his plans everyday. He said he didn’t have any plans but that he might do something stupid and actually get married to someone and that the loneliness might push him to do it. Little by little, he gave up when I refused his offers time and time again. Once, when I was really down I reached out to him and he told me he was over the idea of having me even though he still loved me. I didn’t contact him afterwards and just sent a Happy New Year text a month later and he replied with “hey love” and talked to me a little bit. Two weeks later he texted me with another “hey love” and the apologized the next day and told me he was drunk and that he was having the worst hangover of his life. He asked me to come over to his place and make him some eggs and take care of him for old time’s sake multiple times that day but I refused. (I guess I was starting to see things more clearly at least a little bit).

I texted him every once in a while afterwards just to see how he was. I didn’t wanna get back together with him anymore. I’m in therapy now and I’m working on my self-esteem issues and the fact that I shouldn’t take care of everyone and that I’m not supposed to act like a mother in my relationships. I knew it was the worst idea in the world no matter how much I felt like I was in love with him and he replied very casually and I even realized that he had deleted my phone number. His sister and I used to follow each other on instagram and once when I was checking if she was still following me I realized she he had recently followed his ex before me. I texted him that day and realized he had gotten the job he had applied for years ago (the one I helped him with) and it made me feel really bad. He had promised to let me know if he got the job even if we were broken up. When I complained he said he wanted to tell me when he invited me to his place but I didn’t go. I asked him if he was back with her and he acted like he had no idea and said no. I wonder if he didn’t tell me because he was afraid they might still call me from his workplace and he thought if I knew I would sabotage his job or relationship (which is not like me at all to be honest) or he just didn’t wanna lose the option of having me in case things don’t work out. I haven’t contacted him since then and I don’t plan on doing so ever again. Three months later, the ex updated her bio to “Married to XY” and that’s how I found out they had gotten married. They got married only 6 months after he asked me to come over to his place! Probably the ex’s mother is okay now that he has this fancy new job! It really made me wonder if he was in love with this girl all along. I mean during the first month of our relationship, I found a folder of her pictures on his computer but he told me he had no idea he had them and deleted them and once toward the end of our relationship when I was really insecure I asked him if he was truly over her and he said why would I even plant such ideas in his head and that he had even thrown the empty perfume bottle that she had given him when she went to Italy away when they moved to their new apartment. I don’t know if he had kept it all these years knowingly or if he didn’t even know if it was there. I don’t know if these are all signs that he had never gotten over her in the first place.

I wonder if he is going to treat her the same way that he treated me or that he treated me that way because he never loved me as much as he loved her. I wonder if she had always been in the background or if they really got back together and got married in those six months. I know it shouldn’t matter anymore but I really wanna know the truth about all these years. I know nothing justifies some of the things that he did, but the way the events have unfolded makes me wonder sometimes what if I was the one who brought all these issues to the relationship and if he could be a normal human being in another relationship.