Am I insane or was this emotionally misleading
I genuinely don’t know if I’m losing my mind or if this situation is just emotionally chaotic.
I was involved with a guy for a while after he lost his wife. Things became really intense between us emotionally — amazing chemistry, loads of contact, future talk, emotional intimacy etc. Then he panicked and ended things saying he wasn’t ready.
Months later we slowly started talking again. At first it was casual, but over time it became emotionally charged again. He was:
- checking in on me late at night,
- telling me he missed me,
- asking if I missed him,
- saying he was thinking about me,
- wanting phone calls,
- getting jokey if I didn’t reply,
- admitting to mutual friends that he missed me a lot,
- saying he didn’t want to hurt me.
So eventually I finally opened up and admitted I still had feelings.
That’s when everything became confusing.
I then found out:
- he’s apparently seeing another woman seriously enough that her family know about her,
- he also slept with another girl while I was away working,
- and THEN I heard he’d also told someone on a stag do that he “didn’t really have anything good to say about me.”
When I confronted him calmly about why I felt emotionally confused, he started saying he thought we were “just chatting as adults” and that he thought enough time had passed for us to say we missed talking without it meaning anything deeper.
But I honestly feel like most people would read emotional meaning into:
“I miss you,” “thinking of you,” emotional reassurance, late night check-ins, asking if I missed him, etc.
I’m not even angry he dated other people because technically we weren’t together. I’m more hurt/confused by the emotional inconsistency. One minute I’m hearing he misses me and doesn’t want to hurt me, the next he’s acting like I imagined the emotional side of this.
Now he’s gone quiet after a really emotional conversation and I just feel completely scrambled.
I genuinely can’t work out if:
- he does care about me but is emotionally messy and conflicted,
- he wanted emotional comfort without emotional consequences,
- or if I massively misread this entire situation.
Short version:
Widower reconnects with me, repeatedly tells me he misses me/thinks about me, mutual friends say he admitted he missed me a lot, I finally admit feelings back, then I find out he’s seeing/sleeping with other women and now he’s acting like we were “just chatting.” Am I insane for feeling emotionally misled?