If anyone actually reads all the way through this self-involved, self-indulgent post I'm about to write, bless your heart.
My ex and I dated for four years. We broke up almost two years ago. He broke up with me, technically (even if it was based on mutual doubts), but he's been trying and trying to get back together since then. He's taken all the right steps: He started going to therapy. He read books like Attached and reconsidered our relationship in the framework of attachments styles. He started taking better care of himself.
I've pushed him away over and over again since we broke up. I went on slews of dates with plenty of people -- some fabulous, some terrible. I searched high and low on every dating app for a person that would satiate all my doubts and fears and be so perfectly and completely right for me that I would stop wondering if my ex was, at the end of the day, my person.
Sometimes that would work. Sometimes it wouldn't. And, sometime in the last few months, with my 30s creeping along and a string of especially bad dates behind me, with internet trolls telling me my value falls with each day and each new sexual partner, I started to worry that I was pushing away a very good option.
But I didn't act on it. And then he had a big injury, and I started taking care of him, and we fell back into something that resembled dating. Since then, he's been making big romantic gestures and doing everything he can to win me back. He's been kind and sweet and funny and attentive. I find him extremely handsome, and when he stares at me with his big chocolate brown eyes I just find myself wondering--
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why the fuck can't I be happy about this?
As a woman that wants kids, I'm so terrified of wasting time -- but it's leaving me feeling paralyzed. If I were a few years younger, I think I would jump back in -- it would feel more like we had time to sort through whether we really, truly could build something new.
I also have feelings for someone. I met someone (40M) last year that felt like a fantasy at first -- a .001% successful, very wealthy man whom I also happened to connect extremely well with. But he doesn't want kids, and that's my one line-in-the-sand deal-breaker. So we decided not to date. But we still talk all the time, and I'm clearly stuck on him. He's the opposite of my ex in so many ways -- pretty much all of my ex's short-comings are his strengths, and vice-versa. He's the intellectual, hyper-logical counterpoint to my ex's goofy, follow-your-heart self. He's the nerd that grew up to win it all even if it pushes some people away; my ex is the handsome, naturally-athletic kid from your hometown that's friends with everyone.
I want love and partnership and joy and stability and kids and a life and have all those things being offered up to me and I don't know why I don't want to take them. I just want clarity and I don't know how to get there. If I continue down this path with my ex, I feel like I'm building a relationship with an unstable foundation because of all this doubt and fear. But if I let him go, I'm positive I'll spend the rest of my life wondering if he was the one for me. Am I crazy? I feel like I'm going insane.
TLDR - I'm exploring getting back together with my ex but have unresolved feelings for someone and feel like no matter what I do I'm going to be miserable.