Hey guys, I need some help... advice.😔 I have a new boyfriend whom I like a lot and things are looking well. But it is a long-distance relationship for the time being. Before that, I was in a very difficult and kind of toxic relationship for a couple of years. We stayed friends that ex of mine. Unfortunately it has been difficult to distance myself from him completely, I felt I cannot just cross him out of my life.... We were really just friends. However, it happened that my ex called me last night at night, he was drunk and asked me if he can come to my place. I don't even know why, I did let him come at my place and let him in. He hugged me and kissed me. Nothing more happened. He then fell asleep and stayed until morning. I feel very bad about it now and feel like I was unfaithful and ruined the new starting relationship. Don't know what do... I know I let him in because I sort of still have some feelings for him and remember our history.... I loved him a lot, but also suffered a lot in that relationship. With my new boyfriend it is just in the beginning and sort of fragile as he said we will see how it goes... we met just a couple of times because of the distance but I felt very happy about the relationship... Now I am very worried it is ruined...😢😢😢
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Guilt
- Thread starter Marga
- Start date
I would like to hear some advice or opinion of what is wrong with me. I feel like maybe I lack a basic understanding of what is right or wrong. Like I lack a moral compass. Especially I think it is due to my upbringing. My parents are horrible people and I am still with a very close contact with them and talk to them about what is going on in my life and their attitude to life is that of being quite nasty and immoral. They don't know what being fair is, what love is. This is what I have learned I believe. I am generally not sure what is correct, or I have some vague idea, some voice telling maybe this is/isn't correct but I am never sure. I don't know how to behave to maintain love I believe. Do you see how these things are fragile? How there are some rules one should stick to. It's like I don't know the rules... my parents didn't teach me. Or am I just stupid? My ex always told about what his parents taught him, like what is right and wrong. My parents never told me. Or rather they taught me to do wrong... What do I do? How can I learn what is right or wrong?
Hi there,
Won't be around too long, really need to sleep.. so i'll go straight to the point.
The way I see things after my first catastrophic relationship (super toxic etc) is that there's definitely no way common sense would lead me to stay friends with that person.
Generally i don't think much people stay friend with their ex, no matter how it ended.
In cases where it was mutual and no hard feelings then yea i could understand they stay friends.
But in circumstances where it was a toxic relationship, I dont see why you would stay friends with that person (careful not judging huh).
==> Let's say you buy a gallon of juice and put it in the fridge. Everyday you drink a bit of it and almost everytime you don't necessarily feel well about it. But you keep buying the same gallon of juice. One day after you just bought that same juice you learn on the news there's been an alert on how toxic it is. So you end up not drinking it anymore and instead of throwing it away, you keep it in the pantry.
Why would you do that ?
If it's toxic and you know that it's not good for you then you need to get rid of it. No use of keeping it in the pantry, it's toxic, it's needs to disappear, so you don't risk drinking it anymore.
(Just realizing how terrible my analogy sounds, sleep's calling me..)
All of that to say that i've been there and i don't think you should beat yourself about what happened when your ex came to your place, at least imnothing else happened. But keep in mind that if you really want to move on then you need to move on, Completely.
Won't be around too long, really need to sleep.. so i'll go straight to the point.
The way I see things after my first catastrophic relationship (super toxic etc) is that there's definitely no way common sense would lead me to stay friends with that person.
Generally i don't think much people stay friend with their ex, no matter how it ended.
In cases where it was mutual and no hard feelings then yea i could understand they stay friends.
But in circumstances where it was a toxic relationship, I dont see why you would stay friends with that person (careful not judging huh).
==> Let's say you buy a gallon of juice and put it in the fridge. Everyday you drink a bit of it and almost everytime you don't necessarily feel well about it. But you keep buying the same gallon of juice. One day after you just bought that same juice you learn on the news there's been an alert on how toxic it is. So you end up not drinking it anymore and instead of throwing it away, you keep it in the pantry.
Why would you do that ?
If it's toxic and you know that it's not good for you then you need to get rid of it. No use of keeping it in the pantry, it's toxic, it's needs to disappear, so you don't risk drinking it anymore.
(Just realizing how terrible my analogy sounds, sleep's calling me..)
All of that to say that i've been there and i don't think you should beat yourself about what happened when your ex came to your place, at least imnothing else happened. But keep in mind that if you really want to move on then you need to move on, Completely.
Thank you for your answer... I guess this is the harsh truth. 😔 Your analogy is very good actually, illustrates things very clearly.
It's so hard to accept for me things didn't go well with that guy because I loved him really a lot. And also because I played my part in why the relationship failed. But I guess I need to accept that.
Sleep well!
It's so hard to accept for me things didn't go well with that guy because I loved him really a lot. And also because I played my part in why the relationship failed. But I guess I need to accept that.
Sleep well!
If nothing else happened, nothing else happened. But your current boyfriend will never believe that, and asking him to be okay with your ex spending the night is unreasonable.
I don’t think you can be just friends with someone you dated. You cannot erase history, you cannot pretend what happened didn’t happen and you cannot expect others to do the same.
Granted, you can hang out with them without having sex, but that doesn’t make you “just“ friends.
And like @Temis31 said, if the relationship was so toxic, why do you even want that? I mean, I believe that the relationship was toxic, you are still willing to damage a new relationship over it after all. But why?
It sounds like one, the other, or both of you just want to keep the other on the back-burner to have your emotional needs met. But you can’t really move on while one of you does that.
Being civil, even friendly, towards an ex is one thing. You probably live in the same area, your friend groups may have intermingled. Odds are good you’ll see each other around. Hanging out with them, especially just them, is something else entirely.
You feel guilty because you are starting a new relationship and you put yourself in a position were you have to lie (by omission), or try to convince him of something it would be perfectly reasonable for him to disbelieve.
The vast Vast VAST majority of people in LDRs who say “my ex slept over but nothing happened” are liars. It would not be weird for him to group you in with them.
I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you feel bad. But I do want to make you understand why that was not a good idea.
I don’t think you can be just friends with someone you dated. You cannot erase history, you cannot pretend what happened didn’t happen and you cannot expect others to do the same.
Granted, you can hang out with them without having sex, but that doesn’t make you “just“ friends.
And like @Temis31 said, if the relationship was so toxic, why do you even want that? I mean, I believe that the relationship was toxic, you are still willing to damage a new relationship over it after all. But why?
It sounds like one, the other, or both of you just want to keep the other on the back-burner to have your emotional needs met. But you can’t really move on while one of you does that.
Being civil, even friendly, towards an ex is one thing. You probably live in the same area, your friend groups may have intermingled. Odds are good you’ll see each other around. Hanging out with them, especially just them, is something else entirely.
You feel guilty because you are starting a new relationship and you put yourself in a position were you have to lie (by omission), or try to convince him of something it would be perfectly reasonable for him to disbelieve.
The vast Vast VAST majority of people in LDRs who say “my ex slept over but nothing happened” are liars. It would not be weird for him to group you in with them.
I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you feel bad. But I do want to make you understand why that was not a good idea.
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Is it going to bother you a lot if you don't tell your new boyfriend?
If you can just put it behind you, it might be better to forget about it. Another option might be to wait until a later time to tell the new boyfriend. If you feel like it's just going to torment you if you don't tell him, then you have to tell him now, though don't be surprised if he becomes very suspicious.
It sounds like you either have to decide you want to be with the old boyfriend or let go of him. If you let an old boyfriend come over when he's drunk, it's basically inviting something to happen even if it doesn't. If you're serious about being with the new boyfriend, that's not something that you should let happen again.
If you can just put it behind you, it might be better to forget about it. Another option might be to wait until a later time to tell the new boyfriend. If you feel like it's just going to torment you if you don't tell him, then you have to tell him now, though don't be surprised if he becomes very suspicious.
It sounds like you either have to decide you want to be with the old boyfriend or let go of him. If you let an old boyfriend come over when he's drunk, it's basically inviting something to happen even if it doesn't. If you're serious about being with the new boyfriend, that's not something that you should let happen again.