u/Flashy-Raisin1899

I need objective opinions because I genuinely don’t know how to interpret the last two years of my life.

I’m posting here because I don’t trust my own judgment anymore. I don’t want reassurance, and I’m not looking for people to tell me he’ll come back or that I should pursue him.
I’ve always been the kind of woman who tried really hard to not let herself get lost in love stories and end up staying for too long or be humiliated, that’s why the way this story ends feels a bit weird to me.
What I want to know is whether, reading this as a complete stranger, you would think I was led on or whether I completely misread everything.
I’m in my early 20s. He’s about 6 years older than me.
We met through work about two years ago.
When we first met, he had recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend (10 years together). We only interacted occasionally that summer, but there was obvious chemistry. I started developing a crush on him, and I had the feeling the attraction was mutual, although nothing happened because we barely knew each other.
Toward the end of that summer, they got back together.
Life went on.
Then, during the winter, we started spending much more time together because of work. We worked long shifts together, spent hours talking, and that’s really when we got to know each other.
Over the following months we became extremely close.
He would always find reasons to spend time with me. We talked about everything, not just work. We shared the kinds of things people share when they start falling in love; talked about our pasts, our families, our dreams, our traumas, everything. He remembered tiny details about my life. He noticed my moods. We teased each other constantly. We developed inside jokes. When something important happened in my life, he remembered it.
More importantly, he kept making comments that suggested there was something bigger between us.
He would tell me he knew his current relationship wouldn’t last forever. He would actually tell me and my close co-worker that he knows they have an expiration date, and that it’s getting close. He told me multiple times he wants something else implying that something else was me. He even told me he falls asleep every night thinking about someone else other than the woman sleeping next to him.
He would hint that our story wasn’t over before it had even started.
Sometimes he said things indirectly; sometimes he was much more obvious.
Looking back, it felt like he was slowly preparing me for the idea that one day we’d be together.

During all of this, I later discovered something I didn’t know at the time, that his girlfriend was pregnant.
He hid the pregnancy from me for months while continuing to get emotionally closer to me.
When I eventually found out, I was obviously devastated because I finally had hope that things will turn out great for us. That’s how he made it look like, at least.
After that, I kept my distance for months. We still saw each other regularly because we worked in the same place, but I barely spoke to him unless it was absolutely necessary. It made the atmosphere incredibly awkward, but I felt I needed to protect myself. There was a lot of arguing, comments being thrown left and right, he even cried at some point because I got a tarot reading telling me I’m about to get married to a Cancer (not his sign). I’m saying all of this to prove that I actually had reasons to believe he loved me.
Then, around January this year, so about 5 months after I found out about the baby, we finally had the conversation we had avoided for months.
I asked him directly what all of this had meant. I told him I can accept the fact that I was there for his ego, for his validation, to be the source of all the attention he wasn’t getting at home, but he denied all of that and told me I don’t understand what he feels for me.
That conversation honestly confused me even more.
He told me that during the months when we had become close, he had actually intended to leave his relationship because he wanted to be with me.
According to him, he found out about the pregnancy before he could do that. Given the circumstances I understand how hard it is to leave a 10-year relationship especially since he doesn’t get along with his parents and she’s probably the only one who’s been there for him.
He told me he didn’t know what to do because suddenly there was a child involved.
He said it wasn’t as simple as just walking away anymore because there was now a child involved. But when I said he could’ve talked to me and we could’ve figured it out he said “what was I supposed to do? throw them in front of a car and get rid of them both?”
I told him he’ll never be the man I want him to be so it’s good this ended, he said he’ll change.
At one point he even told me that he knows we would eventually get married. Which again was a weird thing considering he once shared he was never ready to propose to his girlfriend, that he even walked into a store to buy a ring but couldn’t because she wasn’t the one.
Again, I know people reading this have no reason to believe him. Maybe I was a fool too.
After that conversation we were on good terms, worked together again.
Over the following months, our dynamic returned.
Other colleagues started noticing there was something unusual about our relationship. People commented on it, joked about it, and there were ongoing rumors about us. Instead of distancing himself from those rumors, he seemed completely comfortable with them. He never corrected anyone or tried to create more distance between us, even though he knew exactly what people were implying.
Even then, I still tried to keep emotional boundaries because I knew he had a family. We were friendly at work, but I was careful not to encourage anything beyond that.
I even told him at some point to stop flirting with me because I care about my reputation and I’m about to go work there for good (I was doing sort of an internship, I’m supposed to start my real job in January), and he asked why I care and why I want to hide whatever this is. Then he asked me if I ever considered being a step mom, and if I would be up for it.
The biggest turning point happened during a work conference a few months later.
One evening, after the official events, we all went out together. We ended up dancing together for a long time at a club. It wasn’t hidden from anyone. In fact, by that point everyone around us was already aware of the rumors, and he made no attempt to avoid them or to behave differently in front of our colleagues. If anything, it felt like he had accepted that everyone thought there was something between us. Of course rumors escalated, we didn’t kiss that night, not on the mouth at least, but we got really close.
What makes this even harder for me to understand is that this happened only about two weeks before his child’s baptism.
During that same trip, after the club, we also had a long private talk.
He told me I was his soulmate, when I said I don’t think soulmates are supposed to be this difficult he said he knows we have to go through some stuff until we’re ready to be together. He told me he wanted a future with me. He asked for more time because his kid really needs him now and he doesn’t want to lose him, and if they break up he won’t get to see him and be part of his life. He also told me he loves her, but that he was willing to throw their life away to try something with me.
He spoke about “us” as though we still had a future somewhere down the line. I even suggested we sleep together to see if all of this is worth it, because it’s been 2 years of nothing physical, not even a kiss, and he said we can’t do that, because how could we sleep together and wake up the next day knowing we can’t live our lives together. Then he told me we’ll only kiss when we’re in a relationship.
When I told him I want someone who’s willing to give everything up to be with me he cried “why can’t you understand that person is going to be me? that we will live the rest of our lives together.”

After that conference I genuinely believed that his feelings were real, even if the timing of his life made acting on them impossible. He also mentioned many times that things will change when I go work there for good, so January 2027, and that’s when we’ll start to actually build a relationship.
Nothing changed afterward.

On two separate occasions, he told me again that he knows we would eventually get married.
He asked me whether I could ever see myself being a stepmother.
At another point, he said that we would have children together one day. It was always with the same certainty, like he could see into the future.
Those comments are one of the main reasons I’m struggling so much now, because they weren’t isolated to one emotional conversation months ago. Variations of the same idea kept coming back over time.

Then, today, I found out he got engaged.
That has completely broken the way I understood the last two years.
I’m not asking why he chose her.
What I’m struggling to understand is this:
Why tell another woman that she’s your soulmate?
Why tell her you wanted to leave your relationship for her? It’s not like he did it for sex, he wasn’t getting anything out of this.
Why say you’ll probably end up marrying her?
Why ask whether she’d become a stepmother?
Why talk about having children together?
Why change for her?
Why continue saying those things for almost 2 years?
If none of that was ever meant to lead anywhere.

Sorry for the long read. :)

I’m posting here because I don’t trust my own judgment anymore. I don’t want reassurance, and I’m not looking for people to tell me he’ll come back or that I should pursue him.
I’ve always been the kind of woman who tried really hard to not let herself get lost in love stories and end up staying for too long or be humiliated, that’s why the way this story ends feels a bit weird to me.
What I want to know is whether, reading this as a complete stranger, you would think I was led on or whether I completely misread everything.
I’m in my early 20s. He’s about 6 years older than me.
We met through work about two years ago.
When we first met, he had recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend (10 years together). We only interacted occasionally that summer, but there was obvious chemistry. I started developing a crush on him, and I had the feeling the attraction was mutual, although nothing happened because we barely knew each other.
Toward the end of that summer, they got back together.
Life went on.
Then, during the winter, we started spending much more time together because of work. We worked long shifts together, spent hours talking, and that’s really when we got to know each other.
Over the following months we became extremely close.
He would always find reasons to spend time with me. We talked about everything, not just work. We shared the kinds of things people share when they start falling in love; talked about our pasts, our families, our dreams, our traumas, everything. He remembered tiny details about my life. He noticed my moods. We teased each other constantly. We developed inside jokes. When something important happened in my life, he remembered it.
More importantly, he kept making comments that suggested there was something bigger between us.
He would tell me he knew his current relationship wouldn’t last forever. He would actually tell me and my close co-worker that he knows they have an expiration date, and that it’s getting close. He told me multiple times he wants something else implying that something else was me. He even told me he falls asleep every night thinking about someone else other than the woman sleeping next to him.
He would hint that our story wasn’t over before it had even started.
Sometimes he said things indirectly; sometimes he was much more obvious.
Looking back, it felt like he was slowly preparing me for the idea that one day we’d be together.

During all of this, I later discovered something I didn’t know at the time, that his girlfriend was pregnant.
He hid the pregnancy from me for months while continuing to get emotionally closer to me.
When I eventually found out, I was obviously devastated because I finally had hope that things will turn out great for us. That’s how he made it look like, at least.
After that, I kept my distance for months. We still saw each other regularly because we worked in the same place, but I barely spoke to him unless it was absolutely necessary. It made the atmosphere incredibly awkward, but I felt I needed to protect myself. There was a lot of arguing, comments being thrown left and right, he even cried at some point because I got a tarot reading telling me I’m about to get married to a Cancer (not his sign). I’m saying all of this to prove that I actually had reasons to believe he loved me.
Then, around January this year, so about 5 months after I found out about the baby, we finally had the conversation we had avoided for months.
I asked him directly what all of this had meant. I told him I can accept the fact that I was there for his ego, for his validation, to be the source of all the attention he wasn’t getting at home, but he denied all of that and told me I don’t understand what he feels for me.
That conversation honestly confused me even more.
He told me that during the months when we had become close, he had actually intended to leave his relationship because he wanted to be with me.
According to him, he found out about the pregnancy before he could do that. Given the circumstances I understand how hard it is to leave a 10-year relationship especially since he doesn’t get along with his parents and she’s probably the only one who’s been there for him.
He told me he didn’t know what to do because suddenly there was a child involved.
He said it wasn’t as simple as just walking away anymore because there was now a child involved. But when I said he could’ve talked to me and we could’ve figured it out he said “what was I supposed to do? throw them in front of a car and get rid of them both?”
I told him he’ll never be the man I want him to be so it’s good this ended, he said he’ll change.
At one point he even told me that he knows we would eventually get married. Which again was a weird thing considering he once shared he was never ready to propose to his girlfriend, that he even walked into a store to buy a ring but couldn’t because she wasn’t the one.
Again, I know people reading this have no reason to believe him. Maybe I was a fool too.
After that conversation we were on good terms, worked together again.
Over the following months, our dynamic returned.
Other colleagues started noticing there was something unusual about our relationship. People commented on it, joked about it, and there were ongoing rumors about us. Instead of distancing himself from those rumors, he seemed completely comfortable with them. He never corrected anyone or tried to create more distance between us, even though he knew exactly what people were implying.
Even then, I still tried to keep emotional boundaries because I knew he had a family. We were friendly at work, but I was careful not to encourage anything beyond that.
I even told him at some point to stop flirting with me because I care about my reputation and I’m about to go work there for good (I was doing sort of an internship, I’m supposed to start my real job in January), and he asked why I care and why I want to hide whatever this is. Then he asked me if I ever considered being a step mom, and if I would be up for it.
The biggest turning point happened during a work conference a few months later.
One evening, after the official events, we all went out together. We ended up dancing together for a long time at a club. It wasn’t hidden from anyone. In fact, by that point everyone around us was already aware of the rumors, and he made no attempt to avoid them or to behave differently in front of our colleagues. If anything, it felt like he had accepted that everyone thought there was something between us. Of course rumors escalated, we didn’t kiss that night, not on the mouth at least, but we got really close.
What makes this even harder for me to understand is that this happened only about two weeks before his child’s baptism.
During that same trip, after the club, we also had a long private talk.
He told me I was his soulmate, when I said I don’t think soulmates are supposed to be this difficult he said he knows we have to go through some stuff until we’re ready to be together. He told me he wanted a future with me. He asked for more time because his kid really needs him now and he doesn’t want to lose him, and if they break up he won’t get to see him and be part of his life. He also told me he loves her, but that he was willing to throw their life away to try something with me.
He spoke about “us” as though we still had a future somewhere down the line. I even suggested we sleep together to see if all of this is worth it, because it’s been 2 years of nothing physical, not even a kiss, and he said we can’t do that, because how could we sleep together and wake up the next day knowing we can’t live our lives together. Then he told me we’ll only kiss when we’re in a relationship.
When I told him I want someone who’s willing to give everything up to be with me he cried “why can’t you understand that person is going to be me? that we will live the rest of our lives together.”

After that conference I genuinely believed that his feelings were real, even if the timing of his life made acting on them impossible. He also mentioned many times that things will change when I go work there for good, so January 2027, and that’s when we’ll start to actually build a relationship.
Nothing changed afterward.

On two separate occasions, he told me again that he knows we would eventually get married.
He asked me whether I could ever see myself being a stepmother.
At another point, he said that we would have children together one day. It was always with the same certainty, like he could see into the future.
Those comments are one of the main reasons I’m struggling so much now, because they weren’t isolated to one emotional conversation months ago. Variations of the same idea kept coming back over time.

Then, today, I found out he got engaged.
That has completely broken the way I understood the last two years.
I’m not asking why he chose her.
What I’m struggling to understand is this:
Why tell another woman that she’s your soulmate?
Why tell her you wanted to leave your relationship for her? It’s not like he did it for sex, he wasn’t getting anything out of this.
Why say you’ll probably end up marrying her?
Why ask whether she’d become a stepmother?
Why talk about having children together?
Why change for her?
Why continue saying those things for almost 2 years?
If none of that was ever meant to lead anywhere.

Sorry for the long read. :)

I’m posting here because I don’t trust my own judgment anymore. I don’t want reassurance, and I’m not looking for people to tell me he’ll come back or that I should pursue him.
I’ve always been the kind of woman who tried really hard to not let herself get lost in love stories and end up staying for too long or be humiliated, that’s why the way this story ends feels a bit weird to me.
What I want to know is whether, reading this as a complete stranger, you would think I was led on or whether I completely misread everything.
I’m in my early 20s. He’s about 6 years older than me.
We met through work about two years ago.
When we first met, he had recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend (10 years together). We only interacted occasionally that summer, but there was obvious chemistry. I started developing a crush on him, and I had the feeling the attraction was mutual, although nothing happened because we barely knew each other.
Toward the end of that summer, they got back together.
Life went on.
Then, during the winter, we started spending much more time together because of work. We worked long shifts together, spent hours talking, and that’s really when we got to know each other.
Over the following months we became extremely close.
He would always find reasons to spend time with me. We talked about everything, not just work. We shared the kinds of things people share when they start falling in love; talked about our pasts, our families, our dreams, our traumas, everything. He remembered tiny details about my life. He noticed my moods. We teased each other constantly. We developed inside jokes. When something important happened in my life, he remembered it.
More importantly, he kept making comments that suggested there was something bigger between us.
He would tell me he knew his current relationship wouldn’t last forever. He would actually tell me and my close co-worker that he knows they have an expiration date, and that it’s getting close. He told me multiple times he wants something else implying that something else was me. He even told me he falls asleep every night thinking about someone else other than the woman sleeping next to him.
He would hint that our story wasn’t over before it had even started.
Sometimes he said things indirectly; sometimes he was much more obvious.
Looking back, it felt like he was slowly preparing me for the idea that one day we’d be together.

During all of this, I later discovered something I didn’t know at the time, that his girlfriend was pregnant.
He hid the pregnancy from me for months while continuing to get emotionally closer to me.
When I eventually found out, I was obviously devastated because I finally had hope that things will turn out great for us. That’s how he made it look like, at least.
After that, I kept my distance for months. We still saw each other regularly because we worked in the same place, but I barely spoke to him unless it was absolutely necessary. It made the atmosphere incredibly awkward, but I felt I needed to protect myself. There was a lot of arguing, comments being thrown left and right, he even cried at some point because I got a tarot reading telling me I’m about to get married to a Cancer (not his sign). I’m saying all of this to prove that I actually had reasons to believe he loved me.
Then, around January this year, so about 5 months after I found out about the baby, we finally had the conversation we had avoided for months.
I asked him directly what all of this had meant. I told him I can accept the fact that I was there for his ego, for his validation, to be the source of all the attention he wasn’t getting at home, but he denied all of that and told me I don’t understand what he feels for me.
That conversation honestly confused me even more.
He told me that during the months when we had become close, he had actually intended to leave his relationship because he wanted to be with me.
According to him, he found out about the pregnancy before he could do that. Given the circumstances I understand how hard it is to leave a 10-year relationship especially since he doesn’t get along with his parents and she’s probably the only one who’s been there for him.
He told me he didn’t know what to do because suddenly there was a child involved.
He said it wasn’t as simple as just walking away anymore because there was now a child involved. But when I said he could’ve talked to me and we could’ve figured it out he said “what was I supposed to do? throw them in front of a car and get rid of them both?”
I told him he’ll never be the man I want him to be so it’s good this ended, he said he’ll change.
At one point he even told me that he knows we would eventually get married. Which again was a weird thing considering he once shared he was never ready to propose to his girlfriend, that he even walked into a store to buy a ring but couldn’t because she wasn’t the one.
Again, I know people reading this have no reason to believe him. Maybe I was a fool too.
After that conversation we were on good terms, worked together again.
Over the following months, our dynamic returned.
Other colleagues started noticing there was something unusual about our relationship. People commented on it, joked about it, and there were ongoing rumors about us. Instead of distancing himself from those rumors, he seemed completely comfortable with them. He never corrected anyone or tried to create more distance between us, even though he knew exactly what people were implying.
Even then, I still tried to keep emotional boundaries because I knew he had a family. We were friendly at work, but I was careful not to encourage anything beyond that.
I even told him at some point to stop flirting with me because I care about my reputation and I’m about to go work there for good (I was doing sort of an internship, I’m supposed to start my real job in January), and he asked why I care and why I want to hide whatever this is. Then he asked me if I ever considered being a step mom, and if I would be up for it.
The biggest turning point happened during a work conference a few months later.
One evening, after the official events, we all went out together. We ended up dancing together for a long time at a club. It wasn’t hidden from anyone. In fact, by that point everyone around us was already aware of the rumors, and he made no attempt to avoid them or to behave differently in front of our colleagues. If anything, it felt like he had accepted that everyone thought there was something between us. Of course rumors escalated, we didn’t kiss that night, not on the mouth at least, but we got really close.
What makes this even harder for me to understand is that this happened only about two weeks before his child’s baptism.
During that same trip, after the club, we also had a long private talk.
He told me I was his soulmate, when I said I don’t think soulmates are supposed to be this difficult he said he knows we have to go through some stuff until we’re ready to be together. He told me he wanted a future with me. He asked for more time because his kid really needs him now and he doesn’t want to lose him, and if they break up he won’t get to see him and be part of his life. He also told me he loves her, but that he was willing to throw their life away to try something with me.
He spoke about “us” as though we still had a future somewhere down the line. I even suggested we sleep together to see if all of this is worth it, because it’s been 2 years of nothing physical, not even a kiss, and he said we can’t do that, because how could we sleep together and wake up the next day knowing we can’t live our lives together. Then he told me we’ll only kiss when we’re in a relationship.
When I told him I want someone who’s willing to give everything up to be with me he cried “why can’t you understand that person is going to be me? that we will live the rest of our lives together.”

After that conference I genuinely believed that his feelings were real, even if the timing of his life made acting on them impossible. He also mentioned many times that things will change when I go work there for good, so January 2027, and that’s when we’ll start to actually build a relationship.
Nothing changed afterward.

On two separate occasions, he told me again that he knows we would eventually get married.
He asked me whether I could ever see myself being a stepmother.
At another point, he said that we would have children together one day. It was always with the same certainty, like he could see into the future.
Those comments are one of the main reasons I’m struggling so much now, because they weren’t isolated to one emotional conversation months ago. Variations of the same idea kept coming back over time.

Then, today, I found out he got engaged.
That has completely broken the way I understood the last two years.
I’m not asking why he chose her.
What I’m struggling to understand is this:
Why tell another woman that she’s your soulmate?
Why tell her you wanted to leave your relationship for her? It’s not like he did it for sex, he wasn’t getting anything out of this.
Why say you’ll probably end up marrying her?
Why ask whether she’d become a stepmother?
Why talk about having children together?
Why change for her?
Why continue saying those things for almost 2 years?
If none of that was ever meant to lead anywhere.

Sorry for the long read. :)

Bună! Cum v-ați pregătit pentru examenul de licență? Am înțeles ca se repetă întrebări și ca dacă refac subiectele din anii trecuți e ok, e adevărat? Totodată, nu găsesc decât pe Educato variante vechi. Menționez ca învăț pentru rezidențiat but it’s not going great si mi-e teamă să nu îmi pic licența.