Getting your ex back is just half the battle... My story.

The magic of beginnings…
I have met my ex over 4 years ago. We were both middle age. Our lifes were in a complete mess. After 3 months we have decided to move to another country and to start everything from zero. We were hardworking and motivated and eventually we have succeed: we have built something we could proudly call “our home”, we have finished education and we have made a career.

We tried also to get her daughter back (her ex-husband is extremly toxic person). We furnished a room for her and we hired lawyers. Altough she was able to take her parent rights back partialy (holidays, conversations on Skype etc) she was kinda depressed. It was a first time, when I felt like she is giving up on this and she is not happy with what we have achieved togheter.

We both have good jobs, but we are both working on contracts. Which means that we work average 8-9 months/year and for the rest a couple of months we live from our savings. My ex has great problem with her budget as she doesn’t have an emergency break when she is shopping and she is helping her lazy family which never cared for her untill they saw that she is doing good.

I felt like everything was on my shoulders as I was working more and more to cover our expenses and to afford better lawyers to get her daughter back. We started to move away from each other. The rutine can kill any relationship. You know the scheme - work>school>home. We lost the spark. We were not hanging out or going for a holidays anymore. We started to argue about the money.

And then it happened…
February last year. She came home from the holidays which she has spent with her family in her country. She sat on the bed, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and she said - “I don’t love you anymore. I want to leave”. The same day she moved to another room.

Suddenly, my life has turned up side down. I wasn’t prepared for that. The worst part is that I started to grief and to be needy. Ofcourse, the more I was trying, the more I was pushing her away. Then I have discovered that she has rebound relationship, altough guy was living in a another country and they were just talking on messenger, but I freaked out again.

After one month I felt like I’m about to lose her. I needed a plan, a tactic - fast! I started to read articles and watch videos on YT about break ups, no contact etc. I started no contact, got busy, I started to hang out with friends. After 3 months I started to date with one girl. My ex was in shock when she heard that from our friends. From now on she was the one who wanted me back. After one week we were togheter again. We have made promises - I promised to give her more attention, stop to push her about kids and marriage, to help her more at home, hang out with friends more often… She promised… well nothing. This was my mistake, which I’m going to regret later.

Nothing has changed…
I kept my promises. We were hanging out, we went for a couple of trips. I was helping her with home duties. But she didn’t change nothing. Actually I felt, like she took control over our relationship. I felt like that if I make one small mistake, she will leave me again. Last summer I asked her to start to save herself a money because she wants to visit her family in the winter, make a driving licence and we both gonna have a 3 months break from work in the same time - she almost screamed in my face, that if she wants to buy herself something, she will just go and buy it! I gave up.

September last year she had an accident and she was living in a big pain for a couple of weeks. She couldn’t walk. I had to take care for her at nights and go to work next day while hire a nurse for the day time. Eventually she got better after few weeks, we even get closer to each other.

In november my ex’s mom got sick. Unfortunetly she died in december. I couldn’t go there, but I tried to be with her in these difficult times on the phone. Someone had to pay the bills - our apartament, cars, credits, my life here, her life there, private clinik and ceremony for her mother, driving licence… But she couldn’t accept this - I wasn’t there and she started to move away from me.

For the next 3 months I could barely catch any contact with her. I was the only one who was initiating it. She was always busy, she had a little time. Sometimes she just called me to ask me to send her money. I felt like a cashmachine. In the last week of february I have decided to break up with her - few days before she was going home. I knew it was comming, so I wanted to do it before we really gonna hate eachother, altough maybe I should have waited for her to go back.

Current situation…
It’s been 1,5 month since we broke up. We are still living togheter, because we share apartament, cars, credits and we need to sort it out.

Fun fact is that she has changed. She started to think about her future and more important things in the life than having a new pair of shoes. For almost five years I couldn’t change her and she changes few weeks after I broke up with her! I hope these are real changes…

She is moving out december and she is going back to her homeland. She has organised herself a nice work there. She says she can have a more contact with her daughter this way (which is nice thing). We are living in the friendly atmosphere.

She says that she doesn’t want to be with nobody in the nearest future. Im also trying to focus on myself, but I feel like everytime I try to move away from her to heal myself then she is trying to drag me back and when i’m doing a little step towards her, then she is pushing me back. I know from her friends that she is mad at me for the break up. She said, that I was a first man in her life, who broke up with her. Not like it makes me feel better.

I also feel that she thinks, that if it’s not gonna work out for her in her country, then my doors will be always open for her, which is not entirely true, as I don’t want her to be with me just because she doesn’t have a better option. It’s because I was too needy and desparate before and she didn’t notice that I have changed.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with her. I felt like we are getting closer to eachother lately, so I asked her if she misses me in her life. Big mistake. She said that she respects me, but she doesn’t want to be with me. Never. Again. Yay, it hurted me, but I have accepted this like a man.

My plan is…
I have started no contact today, altough it’s extremely hard, because we are still living togheter. I’m going to focus now entirely on myself for the next couple of weeks or months. This time I want to make no contact for that long as long I need it.

Anyway, what would you do on my place? Maybe some nice tips? :wink:

“In november my ex’s mom got sick. Unfortunetly she died in december. I couldn’t go there, but I tried to be with her in these difficult times on the phone. Someone had to pay the bills – our apartament, cars, credits, my life here, her life there, private clinik and ceremony for her mother, driving licence… But she couldn’t accept this – I wasn’t there and she started to move away from me.”

She isn’t an understanding reasonable person! Middle age men usually don’t want to be miserable for the rest of their lives with so much drama and wouldn’t stay with this type person! She said she doesn’t love you and she cheated with the rebound guy. She’s taking advantage of you. She said she doesn’t want to be with you ever again! Take her at her word and don’t try to change her mind as it will cause more drama. It’s a good thing she’s moving out in December so you can move on with your life and hopefully find someone nice without all the problems… but it would be better for her to move out sooner rather than later.

Otherwise, no contact isn’t possible when you live with someone, but you can be polite when you see each other and not engage conversation.

First of all Patricia, thank you for your answer! Honestly I wasn’t even expecting nobody to answer me, but I felt better after writing this post as it has helped me to sort out my own thoughts.

She is not a bad person, otherwise I wouldn’t bother to even think about saving this relationship. We had really wonderfull 3 years togheter, before everything when downhill. She is good person, I think she is just lost and she doesn’t know what she wants. That’s why I’ve started no contact - so both of us can have some space and chill.

There is one more thing I forgot to mention. My ex has one best girl friend. She knows her already for 12 years (including few years no contant - when my ex’s life was in mess). This woman is comming to us since two years for 6-7 months to work in Germany and we are renting her a room.

So the problem with this girl is that she is extremely toxic person. She is 40 y.o. and she doesn’t have a man since over 10 years. She is changing jobs and moving all the time. I could shortly describe her as very negative, jealous, loudly complaining person. She is also a lier and she tries to impress everyone with her crazy stories, “connections”, friends that nobody has ever seen etc.

When I think now about it, I started to argue with my ex for the first time, when this girl started to live with us. She was also very negative towards me from the beginning. One time she said that my ex is not a woman for me. I must point out here that she is very fussy when it comes to men (probably this is a reason why she is alone) - she is waiting for a Brad Pitt with red Ferrari, while the truth is that she is unatractive woman without any ambitions. She doesn’t have any friends so in one moment she has taken over my ex and I even felt that she is jealous for her. We even argued about this, because my ex was spending more time with her than with me.

This girl is also the one who has organised a new work for my ex, so they can work togheter in their country. She also wants to rent an apartament togheter with her. Now, I know that reasonable person wouldn’t let some “friend” to ruin his/her relationship for no reason. Just like I understand, that if our relationship was healthy it would have never happened.

But I’m still confused - should I just let her go with her and focus on myself? I mean this woman is a lier and I’m sure that at least half of the things she has promised to my ex is a lie. It makes me so sad, that she will be so dissapointed, because she is already in the dream about how nice life style she will have and she is so excited about moving out that she doesn’t even see that she is being manipulated.

Ps. Yesterday I broke no contact. I have recieved a fantastic contract for the next two years. I was sooooo happy and I just wanted to celebrate it so I made a wonderful dinner for my ex and her “best” friend. Guess what? All I heard from this woman was - that the dinner is sh*, my contract is sh*, and complaints about her new job (which I have organised for her because she was unemployed). I just ate fast and I said “thanks for the nice evening”. Lesson taken.

In order to get away from all the negativity and drama, you should move out.

You say your ex is a good person, but that does not mean staying in the relationship is a good idea!

Like I said, your golden years should be happy and drama free.

Update after one month…

So it’s been one month of no contact (at least as much it’s possible when living togheter) and 2.5 months from break up. No contact went quite smooth. We have managed to keep a friendly relations. We are both focused on our lives now.

She has started to post alot of things on fb. I have noticed that in between silly clips from YT she is posting some qoutes like this one yesterday “Have patient for the thing you want most. Don’t chase it. Don’t run after it. If God wants you to have it, he will give it to you”. Or "It’s true, we don’t have it as easy as ordinary couples. But this is no ordinary love.”

I know she is texting with somebody, but it’s hard to say if this is serious or not since she has been always active on social media. Shall I reach out? Should I make a step?

This is why I’m glad I got my ex to block me on all social media it’s all these stupid little pearls of wisdom that annoy me and it’s all fake it’s not the reality of it all mate. I only managed 2.5 weeks no contact because I had a weird gut feeling last night that I should message her and we had a good few messages and I asked to go out for a coffee next Saturday and she agreed

Good luck mate! I know that my EX is playing games with me and that she is testing me. When I make a little step forward she is pulling up defenses, but when I move away the she is trying to pull me back. I’m really exhausted and tired of this game. There are momements when I want to start dating someone else just to let her feel how it is when somebody flush your feelings and everything you do for this person in the toilet and only a fear that I could lose her definetly is stopping me from doing so…

It’s tough mate and there is no one solution everyone is different, my ex has bad anxiety and depression and due to circumstances last September I started pulling away and being depressed myself so we drifted apart over a 6 month period and she nearly self harmed and had a breakdown twice, she split with me first week in March but we messaged every other day till two and half weeks ago when she told me it’s best if I ban myself from getting in touch with her till I am in a good place. We saw each other when I was driving past her on Tuesday and we smiled and waved to each other and her kid and mine but I could see the anguish on her face, then en the next day and yesterday I just felt that she was thinking about me it’s hard to explain but that’s when i made the decision to message her last night and luckily it was the right thing to do fingers crossed mate

Switch - She chose her friend over you. She told you she didn’t want to “be with you”. She is using you for a place to live. If you want a chance for happiness, think about moving out if you can or give her a timeline to leave… and start dating someone more stable who doesn’t have so many problems.

Lee Brads - I hope everything works out for you.