need a man's point of view

[ssshhh]

i met this man a few years ago, who i fell in love with. it seemed that the timing was wrong. i was with someone.
he was coming out of a divorce, battling to keep custody of his kids.
we were intimate (i was in the midst of separating with my boyfriend). we seemed to both like each other but he said he wasn't ready for a relationship, he was buried deep in debts, running around like crazy trying to keep up with his work overtime schedule & kids' activities, looking for a new place, etc. He said we live such different lives that he will not be able to give me the comfort & luxuries that i'm used to. although, i tried to explain that i am ready to settle & can move closer to him since distance seems to be one of the issues.
we lost touch. i thought about him all these years but i figured we were not going to be together so i tried hard to forget about him.

he reached out to me a few years later, we reconnected. i learned he married again a few months after we stopped talking. that crushed my heart. he explained that he was scared to be alone & wanted to have a family/partner & that woman seemed right for him. they bought a house. they had kids. yet another divorce on the way. he said he made a mistake with her and was thinking of me all along. He wanted to meet. i am upset with him and was just curious to see him so i can ask him what happened between us that he didn't choose to be with me. i should have stopped myself there. i should have known better.


we became closer & more intimate than we were before. He made me feel that he loves me. we spent most of our free time together. he talked about wanting to be with me. by the way, i still have a boyfriend, i am with the same man that i was involved with before. I was honest with him that my boyfriend & i are considering having a baby, getting married, etc. honestly, i am not in love with my boyfriend. i didn't want to be with him but we have been together for so long that i was willing to settle just so i won't be alone. so, when this guy came back into the picture, i was crazy enough to think that maybe i am supposed to be with him because despite his past relationships & the baggages he carries, i still liked him.


i am in a lot of pressure. my boyfriend is so good to me, i didn't want to cheat on him anymore. i need to be honest with him if i was going to marry him or not. I was going to leave my boyfriend for this guy. so, i started trying to get a sense of how this guy feels for me. I started asking questions to see if he was serious with me. we broke into an argument, much of it brought by my emotionally lability upon learning that he doesn't consider what we were doing as dating, that he is not taking our relationship seriously because he said i am not leaving my boyfriend. same excuses: we live such different lives, that he cannot give me the comfort that my bf gives me, etc. and that he doesn't like the way i reacted to him, that my reaction is a red flag, that i may be another mistake similar to his ex wives.


writing this, i realize how stupid the whole situation is. i walk away from the experience realizing that i don't want to marry my boyfriend. i am such an awful person for doing what i did to him.
as for this guy, I've been played. and yet, i wanted to be with him. i want him to hear my side. i didn't want this to end where he made it look like I'm the mistake, that I'm what's wrong with the situation. that is what hurts me the most.


can somebody please just tell me that I'm stupid, that he wasn't serious with me. that he was just playing me. I want to forget him & i want the pain to go away. he probably has moved on & dating, maybe another marriage underway, and i shouldn't care but i do. because now i feel like there's something wrong with me that's why he didn't want to be with me.

[MartinOhm]

Yes, you are better off without that man.

[ssshhh]

thank you
i'm just battling with my self esteem right now as i am trying to understand why he would just stop communicating with me abruptly when we had such a good connection & spent good times together. we didn't even have a real fight. it was one conversation, there was a misunderstanding & suddenly he tells me I'm a mistake & I'm a major red flag. it's traumatizing. i feel like i can't even speak my mind anymore next time to anyone.