This 42-year-old man has been dating a lovely 35-year-old woman named Nat for around three months.
He and Nat get along great and even told one another that they’re in love after just a month of dating.
He is aware that Nat was engaged before they began dating and that her ex-fiancé’s name is Tim.
He thinks that Tim sounds like a really awful guy, based on what Nat has told him so far. He also knows that Nat met Tim through a speed-dating event, and they got engaged after six months of dating.
When Nat attempted to talk to Tim about wedding planning details, he was incredibly evasive and said they should discuss this after they made some more money.
Tim wouldn’t talk about wedding colors or who he wanted to ask to be his groomsmen. Another six months went by, and Nat discovered that Tim had been cheating on her.
Tim said sorry and pleaded with Nat to take him back, and she did. Nat gave Tim a second chance, but he blew it.
“After about another 6 months, not only did she catch him cheating again, [but] she found out he had never really stopped; that he was seeing multiple women throughout their entire relationship, and the thing that made her the most upset is after going through his text messages, it was clear as soon as the day after she caught him cheating the first time he was still texting multiple women for hookups like nothing happened,” he explained.
“She broke things off and stopped dating for about a year. She wasn’t seeking anything out, we just happened to meet at her job (she works at a vet’s office, and I had been bringing my dog often for a health issue), and we eventually hit it off.”
“Last week, I was going for a run when I was struck by a car (honestly, my fault, it was night, I was dressed in clothes that were too dark, kinda came out of nowhere). It was pretty bad – I was intubated and in the ICU for a couple days with a chest tube. I recovered pretty quickly, but it was a little scary the first day.”
So, while he was in the hospital recovering, Tim reached out to Nat to say he heard about the accident via social media and wanted to send his wishes for recovery.
Basically, Tim then said to Nat he was sorry and that if they ever needed anything, to reach out to him.
Tim also asked Nat to grab coffee and catch up, and Nat agreed. Nat met up with Tim at a coffee shop close to the hospital before she went to visit him.
“My GF is gorgeous and sweet but a bit naive,” he said. “Honestly, I feel like Tim targeted her for this reason. She always sees the good in people, [and] never has anything unkind to say. Does things for anybody without expecting anything in return.”
“So she meets Tim, and of course, he makes a pass at her. It was clear he was trying to use the fact that she was emotional about my accident to try to manipulate her, but she’s gained some confidence since they were together and didn’t go for it.”
“He tried to kiss her (yeah, in the Starbucks), tell her she was even more beautiful than before…”
Nat refused Tim’s advances, and then Tim said that clearly, he wouldn’t be able to take care of Nat physically after the accident, so he could help out on the side.
Nat got super upset about that remark, so she got up and left while Tim hurled insults at her. Nat later showed him the messages Tim sent her while informing him of what happened at coffee.
He got uneasy about all of it and questioned Nat why she would agree to meet up with Tim in the first place.
Nat maintained that she wanted to hear what Tim had to say since he sounded genuinely sorry, and she wanted him to apologize to her face.
Nat figured that hearing an honest apology would give her some kind of closure on their relationship.
He then asked Nat why she even required closure, considering the fact that Tim had been nasty to her all along.
“She admitted that she knows it’s dumb, but she still has feelings for him, that she knows it’s stupid, but she’s still in love with the guy she thought he was, and that it’s hard for her to move on – she had imagined a future together, kids, etc.,” he continued.
“I had a hard time with this and asked if she still loved him, and she said the same thing about how she loved the person she thought he was, not the real him. So, all that to get to the conflict. I was having major aforementioned insecurity issues (guys, I looked like a car wreck – I was hit by a…car) and was feeling very “second best” and “settled” for. I asked her if she met up with him that morning, and it turned out to be that he had changed, that he wasn’t [a jerk], maybe didn’t come on so strong – that he had become the man she thought he was, would she have broken things off with me and tried to patch things up with him?”
“It was probably an unfair question; she’s been honest about how much he hurt her, how she struggled to get over him – I mean, I sort of knew the answer. But Nat, being honest with her heart, with a degree of shame and guilt, said that, yes, she would have probably tried to work things out. I was devastated. The fact that this…happened like a day after I was intubated, like literal life support, just blew my mind.”
He responded to Nat that he felt awful knowing she would leave him for some nasty man who cheated on her two different times.
Nat tried to reason with him and claim that because they had been together for close to two years, she and Tim had a lengthy history.
Nat also said their conversation about Tim was pointless since Tim doesn’t exist as the man she wanted him to be, so she only wants to be with him.
Nat then burst into tears, which made him cave and say sorry to her. But ever since, he does not feel secure in his relationship.
He feels terrible for Nat that Tim messed her up so much, but that only makes him feel worse that Nat would pick this guy over him.
“I love this woman and appreciate that she was truthful about all this, but I’m having a really hard time resolving these emotions,” he concluded.
“How can I get past this? I don’t wanna blow this great thing I have with her, but my insecurity issues are in hyperdrive right now.”
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
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