Six months ago, I left my girlfriend for another woman. Today, I am still with that woman, but I cannot get my ex out of my head.
We were together for four years. She was the woman everyone said I was going to marry. We never had a major breakup. She never cheated on me. She never made a scene. The problem was entirely me. At the company where I worked, a new colleague arrived. At first, we talked about work, then we started having dinner together, later we were messaging each other at night, and eventually we ended up in a relationship, both at the same time, for almost three months.
My girlfriend never suspected a thing. While she was asking me how my day at work had been, I was often leaving the bed of another woman.
There came a point when I grew tired of lying. One night, I called my girlfriend from a park and told her I no longer wanted to be in the relationship, that I had stopped feeling the same way, and that she deserved someone who truly loved her. She asked me directly, through tears, over and over again, if there was another woman. I looked her in the eyes and told her no. I said my love for her had simply ended. She believed me. She hugged me before leaving, and the last thing she said was, “I just hope you don’t replace me, because that pain would be too much.”
Nine days later, I posted a photo of myself hugging my new girlfriend. I didn’t even wait two weeks. She didn’t call to insult me, didn’t make a scene, didn’t message me on social media, and didn’t look for the other woman. The only thing she did was block me on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and even TikTok. She disappeared from my life completely.
I was convinced I had made the right decision. The first few months with my new partner were intense. We went out every weekend, traveled, met each other’s families, and I kept repeating, “I’m finally with the right woman.” Meanwhile, I heard absolutely nothing from my ex—no messages, no calls, no questions through friends. It was as if our relationship had never existed.
A little over a month ago, something changed. A friend of a friend posted photos from a birthday party, and there she was—sitting next to a man I didn’t know. They weren’t kissing, but he had his hand in hers, and she was smiling. I felt a wave of jealousy. I couldn’t sleep that night. I started checking her social media every day (using accounts where I wasn’t blocked). I discovered they had been dating for weeks. I saw photos of them going out, cooking together, and even having lunch with their families on a Sunday.
Since then, I have been doing things I am ashamed of. I have spent hours looking at her old photos. I have gone back and reread conversations I never deleted.
I took a bag of old photos and mementos from her and kept it because I thought it still carried a trace of her perfume. I started comparing my current girlfriend to her in every way. If my girlfriend cooked, I remembered how my ex used to cook. If we went to a restaurant I used to visit with my ex, I would feel embarrassed for the rest of the day. I stopped enjoying our relationship because my mind was constantly occupied with the woman I had chosen to leave.
I texted her from a friend’s phone, saying I needed to talk to her for five minutes, that I wanted to apologize for everything I had done and explain a lot of things. She never replied. A week later, I wrote to her from a new email address. She didn’t respond.
A few days ago, my current girlfriend found her profile open on my computer. She asked me why I was spending so much time on my phone and sitting in silence for hours. After several minutes of silence, I finally told her the truth: I didn’t know if I was still in love with my ex. Since that day, our relationship has begun to fall apart.
The worst part is that now I understand so many things I never saw before. My ex never checked my phone. She never forbade me from going out with friends. She never made scenes of jealousy. She always believed me when I said I was working late. And I took advantage of that trust to cheat on her for months. Today, I am the one spending nights checking if she has posted a new story, wondering where she is, who she is with, or whether that man has already met her parents. I am still living with the woman I left her for, but all I want is to see my ex and tell her that I still love her.
