Salam,
I am new on this forum. I have a dilemma that I would like to get advice on. About two years ago, I was engaged and very much in love with my fiancé. For various issues, his family didn’t approve and called the engagement off. A few months back, they got him married to someone of their choice, but he is not happy and still keeps in contact with me on a daily basis. The breakup was really tough for both of us, as our engagement had lasted about 1.5 years (albeit much of that time was spent trying to sort out issues his family had); we both thought ultimately we would end up together and when both families will see us happy, they’ll accept us too. Now that he is married, I wanted to end things on a good note and advised him to “love the one he is with” and let me go. But he says that he can’t live without me. He messages me day and night (our families aren’t aware of this), and proposed the option of second marriage. I said no to that because I don’t want to go down that road. I don’t want to break another girl’s house to make space for myself. But no matter how much I push him away, it doesn’t work on him (he is one of those ziddi types that if you tell him not to do something, he wants to do it that much more).
He says that for awhile he tried making an effort to accept his wife, but when you’re not emotionally connected to someone, it’s really tough being intimate with that person. He insists on being friends and says he just wants to know I’m okay etc. He promises that when I get engaged or married, he will disappear from my life and not bother me anymore (I don’t trust him on this because there are times where he says what’s wrong with being good friends before or after marriage). He says when you have so much history together, you can’t just switch it off in one day. He agrees with me that maybe with time, someday he’ll be happy with his wife, especially once he has kids…but according to him, for the time being he is miserable. He didn’t go anywhere on honeymoon and didn’t do a mehndi function because he didn’t feel like it.
I feel like if I keep talking to him, he wouldn’t be able to fully commit to her. Also, if he keeps messaging me, he is forcing me to constantly keep him at the back of my mind and not fully move on to consider someone else (which my family has been unsuccessfully trying to do for some time now). Even though I want to fully cut him out of my life, I find that when I try to do that, even I can’t live happily. I am not really sure what is the solution for all this. I used to be a happy person. Now I feel my heart is full of sadness. I have all this anger toward his family which I sometimes take out on him, and ruin his day as well. (By the way we don’t meet anymore…just keep in touch over the phone)
Another thing is that when we were together and his family started saying rubbish about me and my family based on their own fears and assumptions. He tried his hardest to convince them not to end the relationship. At that time, I was bitter hearing all this negativity and false accusations directed at my family, so in an effort to defend ourselves I said some harsh things about his mom (who is an extremely bossy/controlling/mean person). He really took that to his heart (at the time) and said that maybe his parents are right about my personality. So now that he is married, he is having some problems with his wife who goes to live at her parents for weeks sometimes … this is one of the things his family used to say about me that I will do this after marriage because I’m so attached to my family … so now, he apologizes to me that he was wrong about me to assume that. He also complains about his in-laws who are very proud of their “high class” background and they interfere every time someone says something to their daughter in his house (this too is a point his parents used to think would apply to me, but it’s not true. My parents are not the interfering type, nor is my family as rich/influential).
So whenever something big happens for him, he shares with me. And if I tell him to go to his wife instead, he tells me that if I do get married to someone else, only then will I realize how tough it is to put up with their crap when you don’t love them. So one day I got fed up and said ok fine, if you really can’t live without me, then you’ll have to leave your wife because I can’t be a second wife. I didn’t mean that, I just wanted to see his reaction. He basically got mad and said he will never leave her and that it’s complicated (her family will kill him or his parents will never forgive him etc.). It reminds me of the time when his parents were fixing his rishta last year and he was still being all lovey-dovey with me, so I got frustrated and said ok if you want to marry me against your parents’ wishes then come talk to my parents, present your case and ask for their help, and we can do a court marriage…but he got mad at that time too, saying his mom is a heart patient and if something happens to her, it will be on him and in turn on me etc. and that he can’t start over without his family’s inheritance/blessings.
Other things he says that scare me, he tells me he will befriend my future husband and come to my house/susraal just to be near me. Or sometimes when he misses me, he sends me hug/kiss smileys on the phone that make me uncomfortable, knowing he belongs to someone else now. When I point out that it is wrong, he cleverly dismisses it saying it’s just a smiley, not like we are doing / ever did anything wrong.
Anyway, so I don’t really know how to push him away at this point. He seems to be more and more into me with every passing day (now more so than ever before). Like for instance, we used to fight before and he would say hurtful things sometimes (as would I). But after an hour or so, we will be fine again.
But now even when I blame him for not taking action in time, he still says prayers for me and my heart melts that we could’ve been a happy couple. With that said, he is very proud of his wife’s education/family background/social activities, etc. So for all I know, he could be having a perfectly normal life with her and just misleading me so I can’t go anywhere. What should I do?