A friend points out that I omitted a whole section, in my last blog, about the possibility that it’s not YOU obsessing about the ghosts of girlfriends past, but the man you’re going out with himself. “Goddess, he won’t give her memory up. if he’s so focused on her, and wants to keep focusing on her, what do I do?”
If you’re the one he spoke with about the breakup while it was taking place, it’s a hard decision to make. Drawing the line between natural preoccupation and true obsession is incredibly tricky. Is it a little too soon to be expecting full-out attention from him? Or are you being taken advantage of? Is he moving toward you, or just using you? After all, whom is he now sleeping with? YOU, right? So let’s look at some hard facts–not about his old girlfriend (for that, see my last blog) but about him:
Is he in some way using his one-time affection for her to provoke you, make you jealous, or push you away? Do you spend a lot of time together talking about his wounded feelings? Or his rage? If so, he might be genuinely reluctant to get involved again but not be able to say so outright. Particularly if, in the process of nursing him through the breakup, he kind of “promised” to be your new boyfriend….but now isn’t sure he’s up to it. So in letting you know how deeply he was involved with her, he gets to keep his distance from you for awhile. This is merely a scared man’s mixed signal. Read it this way: “I was deeply in love once, so I can clearly sustain a relationship. But I’ve got doubts about diving in again.”
Not terribly worrisome if you get the distinct feeling that things are moving toward more than friendship. But you’re right to worry if he is giving you short shrift and is genuinely obsessed with her… If he talks about her constantly; if his home is still cluttered with her stuff and her photographs and if he dwells on how much she hurt him, adored him, infuriated him. Then, dear earth lover, take heed and listen to this old, wise goddess. He wants her there in the midst of you and him. If he wants to “share” more and more about the two of them and their now-over love, then it isn’t over. And if he isn’t moving past it, and you’re there to hear about it all, then you’re a Transitional Girlfriend. And, worse, his shrink. There is nothing worse than being a Transitional Girlfriend and a Shrink to a man who’s still in love with an old girlfriend. Why? Because statistically, you aren’t in line to become the new girlfriend.
Be tough here. If this is where you suspect you are–in the middle of his old love affair– the only way out of this truly no-win deal is to step out. Remove yourself as the transitional girlfriend and the psychiatrist and every other fill-in role he might cast you in, and say, “When you’re ready to have a new love affair, let me know. I hope I’m still there.” Simple as all get out (and very hard to do.) Let him talk to others about his obsession with his Ex. When he does, when someone else fills in the shrink role or the friend role, he will start to see the light. He may begin obsessing about the woman who was there for him for all these weeks and who then suddenly realized there was nothing in it for her. That would be you. And he may also realize that , in the midst of his self-pity, he lost something important. That would be you. And he may see that it isn’t the old girlfriend he loves, but the one he didn’t give half a chance.
And then, when you begin again, the ghosts will be gone. 