Will He Come Back or Stay Away?

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Visitor's Question:
I am 45 years old and was recently involved with a man for the past three years that I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. It was a sort of long distance relationship, in that he lived an hour and a half away from me, but we were making it work.

Last winter we started talking about my moving to where he was. When he first mentioned this, he wanted me to just move in with him, but since I own my own home and have a job that I loved, I wanted to have a solid committment from him to make such a move, like marriage or at least an engagement, a subject of which he skirted around but then vaguely agreed.

Over the last six months, he began to discourage me in subtle ways about moving and two months ago he told me that he could not move forward with me because he was still tied to his past and he was going to try to work things out with his ex-wife even if it meant remarrying. They had been separated for six years and legally divorced for two.

I am devastated by this. They did not have the most amicable divorce, a lot of issues about money and she asked him to come back twice in the four years before the divorce was final and she sent him away both times. He now travels 3 hours to see her. I don't understand what he is thinking.

Does this actually have a chance of working out? It has been two months and every day I think about him and cry for what was lost. I just want him to realize that he made a mistake in trying to go back and that what we had was worth moving forward with. What are my chances that he will work out his issues with the past and return to me?

Our Suggestion:
It sounds like he never was really over her and while he enjoyed his time with you, he didn't want to make a solid commitment in case something with her ended up working out. When you started cranking up the pressure and demanding for him to make a final cut, that made him start thinking that maybe he should make sure it was REALLY over with her before he did anything concrete - which then led him to check things out with her.

People fight for all sorts of reasons, but it sounds like there is a shared feeling there that is strong too. As much as you love him, you really need him to be fully FREE of his past and able to commit. If he is always harboring some secret hope that his ex will get back together with him, it is always going to keep a wall between you two.

So if anything, let him do his 100% best to try with her, with therapy and whatever else it takes. That way if it fails he knows that he gave his best and it's not left as a lingering question. If you really want him back, that's the way you want him back. But if you don't want to wait, or if you want to move on with your own life, that is of course a good choice too. I wouldn't wait forever, but I wouldn't try to rush things either.

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