Hi folks,
I will try and keep this short - but truly it's quite a long story - so thank you in advance for reading! I'm 26 years old, and she's a few years older.
Our story:
I started casually dating a girl I work with around 8 months ago. We did a lot of fun, active things and we suddenly realised that we were extremely compatible. Our relationship from then on moved extremely fast - we stayed together for weeks at a time and the big L word came out after only a few months. Suddenly, out of the blue - her ex boyfriend traveled across half of the world to win her back. That weekend, she ditched me for him - for the first time. I was extremely hurt and disrespected, but soon after, we got back together - we had so much in common (and work together!) that we naturally started spending more time together again. She told me that they were completely over, had spent the weekend arguing and crying.
We soon fell into the same old happy pattern - except something changed - they started texting a lot. Fast forward three months of probably the best relationship I've ever had, to the Christmas period. She went abroad to see her family and somehow it turned out that her ex was also going to visit that city. She told me a couple of weeks before she left. We argued a lot in that period. I couldn't understand. We went through a phase of me ending things with her, and her coming crying back almost daily. She explained that she still had some feelings for this person, which she didn't fully understand. She wasn't sure if it was anger, resentment, affection, habit - and she didn't think it fair to keep our relationship growing until she was clear on her feelings.
Their story:
They had been dating for the past four years. During that period, he was in a rocky marriage...the whole time. He kept promising divorce but failed to pursue the relevant action. The whole time, she had extremely deep emotions and feelings with this man (her words). They had been on and off, the whole time. A few months after they broke up *for good*, he got his divorce. This coincides with his impromptu visit to win her back.
Now
During her trip away, we had kept in significant contact. We didn't fight. Until around Christmas day - where for the past few days, she's been extremely distant. She is arriving back tomorrow - he is flying with her, to catch another flight a few days later back home. I suppose I'll find out a lot more when I see her. I don't know if they are planning to stay together when they get back - I don't know what the deal is.
I don't want to act rash - I've put myself through this, and only have myself to blame. She has told me that they haven't been intimate in any shape or form, but at this point, I don't know what to believe (obviously!). She mentions that she feels extremely close to me, has very deep feelings for me and that she simply had to face him and the internal damage he has caused her for the last time. On the one-hand, if she had underlying feelings for this person - I'm happy that she's sorting them out. At the same time, I can't help but feel betrayed - especially the last few days. At the end of the day, I know how hard it is to find the good parts of this relationship - we are seriously similar and I don't want to just dump that because of her past. I also feel from past experience, that you really need to go through very tough moments to get close to someone, however, this feels different, this feels like betrayal.
Thank you for reading my soap opera. Any advice, even if it's critical, I would be grateful for. At the end of the day, I know what my brain is telling me - but my gut is telling me to trust this woman and see what happens, because honestly, I've never felt this way before.