My Girlfriend Is Still Hung Up On Her Ex

I'm a year (almost) into a relationship that has been beset by difficulty and that has been on and off again and again for a long time.

I love her and want us to be happy but one of the issues that we have is that she is still not really over her last boyfriend. She admits this.

Tonight, we went for a drink and I felt really positive and happy about the potential for us but everything changed when she made some negative comments about someone moving into the area. I didn't know who she was talking about to start off with but then I realised that it's the new girlfriend of her ex, who she can never mention without making a disparaging comment about.

It has always bothered me that she feels a need to be negative about this new person in her ex's life because from my perspective her need to criticize this person means that the relationship bothers her and it leaves me feeling bad.

So, tonight I went from being really upbeat to suddenly being reminded about her ex and that part of her must still be in love with him. She asked what was wrong and I told her. She tried to change the subject and make me feel better and although I didn't want to labour the point or indeed keep thinking about it, it completely ruined the mood and it kept niggling at me.

I've only had one serious relationship before this one, it was my marriage for 20 years and by the time it was over the love had died out. As a consequence I don't miss her and when she moves on to another partner I am pretty certain I won't be jealous. Although that's positive in some ways it does mean that I can't properly empathise with my girlfriend and how she is feeling.

I'm left feeling that I don't want to be second best to someone else and that the knowledge that she is still hung up on this ex will always bother me.

Should I try and be more understanding, to make sure that I'm so good for her that she stops feeling this way about her ex or should I see it as a massive warning sign and be worried about our future?

Thanks for reading.

its tough man i feel you....when i started dating my ex she was sort of fresh off of a broken relationship which i had been lead to believe she ended....but in actuality it was him that ended(he had thee samle issue i dealt with where she woudlnt grow up into a responsible adult)....even though we had always known each other and she had a crush on me since we were kids....i always had this inclination that what she told me wasnt the truth.....even though we lasted 2.5 years i always felt like a part of her still had feelings for him...and when we were over and i found out that he ended it(i talked to him)....realization set in that she was probably blindsided by it and couldnt believe that someone deemed her less than perfect.....she fancies herself as perfect in almost every aspect...and it probably caused great trauma to her mentally....and she took me and got me in deep very quickly.....she was good to me...very loving and everything......but sometimes i felt like i was used to make her forget or feel better

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Main thread here:

http://www.loveforum.net/threads/79826-My-Girlfriend-Is-Still-Hung-Up-On-Her-Ex?highlight=