A Jeremy Kyle/Jerry Springer episode

[Leveller73]

My ex and I split up in February. It was a mutual split and I was depressed after losing my job and having to move back to my mother's - I was like this for a couple of months and by May I had got myelf sorted enough for her to say 'If you were like you are now we would still be together'.

She got with someone straight away (probably before we split) and is now 'in love' with him. She is 45 soon, he's 50/1 and I'm 36 so we are not kids. We stayed in contact and still are. The last contact (from her) being three weeks ago. We slept together twice in March and six times in May and I went NC until July when she went back to her bf after a period of the silent treatment from him/her.

As a microcosm of what has gone on when I got back in contact in July she gave me 20 questions about my (virtually non-existent) love life, got jealous, demanded to know where I had spent the previous night, couldn't stop touching me and flirting and stated her reasons for not going back out with me without prompting and said nothing about her bf.

She says I am like her best friend and 'loves me as a person' and wants me in her life still and often flirts with me whilst telling me she no longer finds me attractive despite her body language saying the opposite. They have their ups and downs and have broken up, gone NC multiple times but she sees him 'as a challenge'.

She knows I still love her and would take her back. Her last meaningful text to me said "I get on with you too, but probably all my fault as we said don't know what I want but it will all work out. I do think positive. We'll both be ok in life, we know that. Don't matter what choices we make x".

We live 30 seconds apart and cannot avoid each other and have many mutual friends in the small place we live. She says the only thing that stopped her going back with me was my lifestyle - from what she has says this revolves around a skewed view of my career and how she would fit in. I am an academic (unemployed at the mo) and she is a homecare worker. A secondary issue is that my mother and her do not get along - she stated both reasons again the last time we spoke.

I am of the FIRM belief that her present bf has any knowledge of me, has limited knowledge of her past and doesn't know we are still in touch. I have never seen them together, her best friend has only met him five or six times in six months. Her father and son don't like him (not that this matters) and he tries to be controlling and posessive which I never was and this is what leads to them arguing. She wants to 'stay friends' which in my experience is what led us to the FWB scenario we had in May.

I 'chased' her for three months, dropped contact in May and have pretty much dropped contact again because I do not want to be used or taken for granted and it is hard, particularly as we still get on so well. I don't know whether I am doing the right thing in dropping contact and letting them get on with things. I would walk through walls for a lasting fresh chance with her but it has been too easy for her to pick me up when they run into problems and then drop me.

I would be grateful for opinions. Thanks in advance.