How to get her back from her new man? (Not a rebound)

@patricia12

Hi, thanks for the reply

To answer your question, she will be living quite closeby, around 20 mins away.. I will be on break until the end of August, where then I will be working at the hospital 8-6 and coming back to college to study/socialise… She will be at college

The new guy will be living about 20 mins away from her as well, but he works 9-5 (i think) and doesn’t go to college anymore.

I was thinking of utilising a shortened NC period? Like one week? Given that she is so far… She told me that me not being in her life hurts her a lot as she realises that I’m not going to be there anymore and she should’ve shown how much she appreciates/values me more… this is when we had a talk 2 weeks ago where I said I would be going NC. A few days later I accepted the friendship

The thing is, in 2018 I got her back from a guy she was dating (granted she had hidden feelings for me that she kept denying) by being her friend and i know If i went NC she would’ve just gotten over me… This guy as well, they dated in 2017 and they didnt talk much only here and there but over the past year he had gotten closer to her and they talked more often.. She said she only ever saw him as a friend then one day it switched for her and the feelings kept coming back as they talked more as friends

Even right now, they acknowledged they like each other and hes said he wants to be in a RS with her, but she doesn’t want that rn. She says she might want it down the line but she doesn’t know rn if she will or not. So they are just “taking it chill” and remaining friends who like each other and talking often, getting closer etc. She says the main reason nothing is happneing with them is bc she is still abroad for the next 6 months

Idk if this is a rebound, is it? I know it probably wont last the full 6 months as her feelings have changed every 6 months, but I also know this guy is persistent that even if she turns him down, he will just stick around..

The other thing is that this guy has a chronic illness which he spend 3-4 hrs a day managing, and his life expectancy is cut short to 30-40 yrs (hes 24 rn) due to the illness. So when we were together, she would always say she doesnt want to cut him off as if something happened to him, she would feel so bad for the rest of her life. I know that this also played some part in her developing feelings for him as it may have tugged at her heart strings a little seeing his struggle and worrying about him (I dont mean to sound rude, just being realistic)

@patricia12

So, we dated in 2017, but weren’t serious but on track to be, I wanted to and so did she but I wanted to take it slow. I ended things with that summer and she was v hurt.

Summer 2018, I caught feelings and told her, she said she had none and was dating someone who she really liked. I embraced friendzone and ditched NC. Over 3 weeks, she saw I changed and was kind and caring, she fell in love and lost interest in the other guy (he made some mistakes). She said she would say she has no feelings for me to push me away and avoid getting hurt again by me. But she saw I changed and she fell in love w me and it was perfect

She broke up in April 2019 bc she was going through serious stuff in her life and freaked out a little and couldn’t be in a relationship anymore with anyone, wanted to be independent and she blames herself for the breakup and not so much my mistakes…

That guy stayed friends w her through all of our RS and after and she ended up catching feelings for him last Summer when she would always say what they had at the end of 2017 (few months after I ended things w her) was a “joke”, “nothing” and said she would never go back to him and laughed at the idea… but he stayed friends, they talked a lot (never met up in person over summer, only once before she left in October) and she caught feelings but ignored them bc she loved me. She assumed it was just nostalgia. We were still broken up at that point but still very much in love again and seeing each other.

She moved in October and kept contact with both of us, mostly me. She’d say she loved me every day. But she would be burying her feelings for this other guy, and apparently the feelings “kept coming back”.. It’s odd to me bc a few days before she ended things with me end of 2019, she would be talking about being serious with me, marrying me in the future, and sent cute morning texts saying how she loves me, I’m her everything, her whole world, how no one else makes her feel the way I do, etc. Even when she asked for “space” to consider me and him, she would still be calling me baby, sweetie, and getting jealous over this girl who flirted with me at work… a day later she said “lets just be friends” … she said it was out of habit and she had to force herself not to sometimes… idk how you act cute/flirt with someone out of habit and if you have to force yourself not to then what does that say/mean…

But yeah, don’t want to make this a huge reply but it isn’t about her not trusting I would dump her again, she knows I wouldn’t. We’re casual friends atm. Haven’t talked in 24 hours but we talked all weekend everyday and convo never got dry once. She even initiated and got jealous on V day when I joked about sending flowers 2 years ago to this girl she saw as competition when we were together.. she even said happy V day and said that new guy isn’t her valentine and that she thinks I think they’re more than they actually are..

Them on the other hand, she says they’ve only said they like each other (1.5 months ago) and got closer since but that’s all — she says they’re still “just friends” but they’re “talking”

And to answer your question, I haven’t done NC, but I have started it, it’s been a day. I am thinking of going 1-2 weeks max as we are long distance rn, but I will come back after things settle at the end of that and try and reattract her back. Text is all I have and she mainly calls her guy but I could get her on the phone at some point, maybe once every few weeks. Even when we were together we wouldn’t talk on the phone much, that was just our dynamic.

I am thinking of using text and staying her “friend” to get her back, as that’s what worked for me with her in 2018 and what worked for this new guy with her last year, by staying a close friend.

What do you think? I appreciate your replies.

@patricia12

Yes, I meant she used to do that over summer of 2018, but then she saw I changed and she allowed herself to trust me, which she did for so long and still does.. basically what would happen would be that recently, she would express love for me, then her mind would directly go back to those events and she would feel hurt and upset like how she did back when that all happened, and she would get upset at herself (she hated who she was back then, she said she was weak and felt small all the time) and upset with me, then would snap herself out of it to forget it and go back to loving me again

It wasn’t about her not trusting me to not dump her again or hurt her again, but it was more so she was sick and tired of loving me, then remembering the events in 2017, even though I’ve treated her so sweetly ever since summer of 2018

She also said, she would remember those events and she would get mad at herself because she was allowing someone who hurt her to be with her, and felt like she was throwing away her self-respect and dignity by allowing that.. It was really all a product of her overthinking. She has always been an overthinker and it comes out much much more when she goes through any kind of emotional stress ie what she’s been going through for the past year and why she broke up w me last April, and then even more so after she moved away in October 2019 until August 2020, she had a lot of time to overthink and be alone with her thoughts and it became more pronounced.

And the thing about me joking about sending another girl flowers on V day 2 years ago, I said that on V day this year, that I sent them 2 years ago (when we weren’t involved) and we aren’t in a relationship right now either, we’re just casual friends as I said. I would never do that if we were together. And the reason is, this V day, she jokingly said to me that her new guy sent flowers to her workplace (she was joking and pulling my leg) and so in return I was teasing her and “pulling her leg” in return as a joke. She was nice about it and laughed a lot.

Also, I know the name calling can be a habit, but is it a habit when you claim you have no feelings for the other person? She has a history of hiding her feelings from me….

And yes I agree w the NC plan, I might even end it after 1 week or 3-7 days as I don’t want to give them too much time alone to talk all the time and call etc.

Also, going back to the 2017 thing, she’s recently acknowledged that it’s her fault that she kept overthinking it and going through that cycle I described, and that’s mainly why she ended things bc I for sure treated her amazingly and fulfilled in every aspect.. she acknowledged it was “her fault” we broke up and why she ended things recently and nothing to do with me, she just couldn’t keep going through that “toxic cycle of me and you” anymore, it was driving her crazy by overthinking. This never came up the first 6 months of our RS back in September 2018 to like Feb 2019. After Feb 2019 her life became v unstable and so did she and it has been ever since.

Right now, she seems relaxed, relieved and happy. But she does still hate being in the new place and hates her job, having no money, no license, no socialisation etc. So all of this gave her time to overthink a LOT starting last OCtober.

When she told me she loved me again in October, it was because I made her feel comfort, stability and security and she felt safe and warm around me. She said after she moved away, she would overthink and the love she had for me would be short-lived and would come and go every other day or so, and she was tired of feeling like that and feeling so up and down all the time, that she had to end it, and believes “me and her are done forever”…

But she said recently that, she doesn’t see us being together again as a posibiltiy right now but she is “a fool if I know what’s in the future” .. she also said, anything can happen, life is unpredictable, life is very funny etc…

She told me last April when she broke up that we would never happen again and she couldn’t bring herself to loving me again, but she did. A month later, in late May, she started kissing me and that never stopped ever since then. We were “casually dating” and just enjoying being in love with one another. But she would have her off days where she felt she was leading me on and would get upset at me or angry at me for flirting with her… a day or two later she would be fine and calling me baby etc

@patricia12

Hi Patricia thanks for the reply

Again, I don’t think it’s a trust thing, I was mean to her in 2017 and said some hurtful things, her jealous BFF at the time manipulated me into being this way to her, through lies and whatnot. Afterwards, that BFF put the girl through social torment. When she dated one of my friends at the time (she had known him for years before) it lasted less than a week and he also was very mean to her, due to the jealous BFF feeding him lies… She admitted later to me that she only got with him to get closer to me, and it was a stupid mistake

So when i say that she loves me, then is reminded of the past, she is reminded of these traumatic events and she gets upset as she starts feeling how she used to feel back then, in the present. A sort of trigger would go off in her mind to be reminded of these events, which she would associate with me then temporarily fall out of love w me, then forget it and fall back in love. It was a toxic cycle for her.

She even acknowledged for a long time that I’m changed and a completely different person to who I was back then and that I’ve treated her perfectly ever since we got together in 2018.. but because she had a connection with me and not with the BFF or others, is why she would associate those events and bad feelings from that time and how she felt back then, with me. So not a trust thing, more like PTSD for lack of a better term. Where a trigger would reminder her every time she felt love for me, that those events happened. She was frustrated by it and just wanted to move forward, so recently ended thinsg at the end of 2019. It seems like a very pessimitic way of thinking and pretty self-destructive as it ruined what we had… she does know she has a major overthinking problem

She said recently that she doesnt associate those bad feelings with me when we’re just friends, only when we’re in love. But she told me she will now try and dissociate me completely from the person back then which is nice

And, it has always been our kind of humour to “pull each other’s legs” and slightly irritate the other by making these kind of jokes, so wasn’t a big deal neither of us were doing it out of malice. We aren’t romantically involved right now at all and would never do that when we were involved. 🙂

Do you thinkI have a solid plan? I made a video of myself playing her favourtie song on guitar.. so might send her that soon she will love it as she’s never seen me play guitar

@patricia12

She actually reached out today, to ask about how my appointment went… and we talked the rest of the day here and there. She had a podcast up online from work and I listened to it and she said she appreciated it a lot.. something that wouldn’t have happened in NC! it is hard to go NC right now, but I am going to try my best. Hoping maximum from tomorrow until the weekend is over.. then I will continue contacting every day or every other day (sparingly) 🙂

Thank you for all your input, it really helped!

@patricia12

It was a doctors appointment! About something potentially serious so she wanted to check in