No Contact Rule in a complicated situation..

Thanks for letting me be here. I’m looking for guidance and support – things are unusual to me and I’m having trouble sorting stuff out and evaluating my No Contact approach. This will get long – sorry about that but please stick with me.

So-background. I am 47m – I have been in a relationship with a 33w for two years. It started out very casual/sex buddy type thing but fairly quickly we developed deep feelings for each other. We work together – I’m her bosses boss – so we always kept things deep undercover.

About her – much of this I didnt know until I was already into the relationship. She has always struggled with depression and anxiety. This much I knew. What I didnt know till later was she had been sexually assaulted by a boyfriend years ago and suffers from trust issues with men. Turns out it was worse than that..

About a year into our relationship – January 2021 – a family member died. It effected her very strangely, she got very down and distant – then exploded at me. It took a few weeks to get her to open up – turns out this family member had sexually abused her as a child. When this came out she tried hard to push me away, told me to go find someone else etc etc. She wouldnt hardly see me. I was quite worried about her. We still were fairly casual but also in our feelings – I think she expected me not to deal with it and run. I cared for her maybe more than she knew and made a decsion that I wasnt going to let her go. We texted all the time but she wouldnt see me for a couple months. I finally got her to go to dinner with me, and we had a great evening capped with a 3 hour nighttime walk downtown just talking. We got a better but still werent intimate together. I for sure want to be – I tried not to press, when I messed up and even hinted at sex she got upset. I worked hard on being supportive. We went on a small road trip June of 21 and shared a room. We slept together – me just holding her. Then out of the blue she rolled over – thanked me for being good. We had super gentle awkward sex that night. Soon after our sex life was very back to normal – fairly regular and athletic. Sex with her was always mindblowingly good.

The rest of 21 rolled on pretty much normal. We were still very undercover – all her friends are also co-workers so she never was able to share about me. I realize now this put a lot of pressure on her. We always told each other how much we loved each other. She always told me she was grateful for me – and went so far as to say I saved her life after she remembered the abuse.

Last day of January we hung out together – a hookup if im honest. We talked about how much we loved each other. She didnt know yet but I was planning to take her out on Valentines and tell her I wanted to formalize our relationship and bring it out in the open. Feb 9th we were texting all day and she wrote me a very nice message telling me how deeply she loved me. Then it all crashed down.

She had plans to go out Saturday Feb 12th with girls from work. Some of them were bringing their boyfriends. She was being wierd Feb 11th and finally told me she was planning to bring a date with her on the 12th. It quickly became apparent we had a problem. I saw her at work the evening of the 12th – she hugged me close and again told me she loved me – this about 4pm. That evening shes texting me while at the event with her date. I knew something was wrong. Then she went quiet – turns out she spent the night with him.

I did all the classic wrong moves. I got upset, I cried, I begged. I told her all about what I had had planned for Valentines and went so far as to tell her I had wanted to marry her. I did everything wrong. She told me she felt that she wanted to try a relatioship she could be in the open about and now that she had started with this guy I needed to give her space. I was sad as hell and I tried. Things at work got very awkward between us – but I was trying hard to relax. March 2nd she brought her new boyfriend to work and “accidently” let me see her kissing him. I lost my shit – slammed my office door and left for an hour. I came back very calm and have been trying to do better since. I started reading everything I could online – including The No Contact Rule and other materials.

I really want this person back. Everything I have read indicates to me that she is in a rebound relationship (diving head first, being super demonstrative with new guy, guy being the exact opposite of me). I decided to try the No Contact rule – but there are a couple problems.

1 – obviously we work together. Before the incident with the ex, she was making weak excuses to come by my office. I tried to be short/friendly. Shes giving me some hot/cold treatment as well which is driving me nuts (waving at me in my office window one moment, studiously ignoring me the next)

2- second thing is not something Ive seen addressed anywhere. My ex’s best friend V is also a co-worker of ours. Ex and V are inseparable. When we first had the problem over Valentines weekend – V came to me, sat me down and let me know that she had figured out long ago my Ex and I were together, and something was clearly wrong. I told her and showed her all the messages – V was shocked at what happened and quickly became a confidant, firmly on my side to get Ex and I back together. Now I am doing No Contact as best as I can, but I’m talking to V every day. She has sort become my breakup buddy. Ex quickly figured this out and has been closed up and distant to V. I explained to V that I need her to not talk to ex about me – but she is still sharing info on Ex and her new guy with me. They had lunch Wednesday and apparently Ex talked all about me – mostly good, but also about the things I apparently did to let her down. I defintely think Ex is revising history in her mind.

Right now – I’ve on day 3 of zero contact since the incident with new guy at work. Ex is on a trip with new guy this weekend – which is absolutely killing me to think about. I am determined to stay as businesslike as I can at work, and No Contact outside of work – for at least 30 days. I personally think new guy will be gone within a month or two, but Im also worried I’m wrong. I am worried that V’s attempts to “help” me are also undermining my No Contact approach. Related to that – Ex unfriended me on FB (fair enough) updated her status to relationship literally the morning after her first date/sex with new guy. But V is friends with my on FB and has commented on my page – which I’m sure Ex then saw. Ex blocked me on FB yesterday – probably to avoid seeing such comments.

With these complications – does No Contact have any realistic chance of working for me? My goal would be to at least have a chance at getting back together. It would take me some time to trust that shes going to stick around enough to start thinking about being open or even married again…

As a side note – it occurred to me that we first got together around March of 20- she was quick and hot to pursue me for sex. Then she had her depression and realization of abuse in Jan/Feb of 21 – and now our breakup/her rebound happened in Feb of 22. I’m wondering if this is a pattern that means she’ll have some sort of emotional issue EVERY year at this time.. do such things happen?? New territory for me…