The other night, my now ex was on vacation with friends and told me that she danced with another man for a bit at a nightclub. From what I was told, she said it was “her hands around him and his hands on her hips” type of dancing. When she told me this, it made me feel sick. I could not believe she would dance so intimately with another man like that. I have never been controlling or had trust issues of any sort so that came as an absolute shock to me as I felt my trust had been broken and taken for granted.
Well fast forward to tonight and we talked about it further. It made me realize that I had deeper-rooted issues with how things were going in the relationship (not feeling like a priority, feeling worthless after what happened) that I let all out when talking with her. It ended with me saying it’s best if we go our separate ways.
God this emotionally hurts like no other pain I have experienced. There is so much doubt creeping into my mind that I really don’t know what is right and what is wrong at this point. Part of me feels like the trust I had in her was taken completely for granted and the other part wants nothing more than to see her again. Does it sound like I overreacted here?
Tl;dr: My ex danced with another man when on vacation. I have now ended the relationship. Did I move to end things too soon?
5 comments
I would not, by default, consider dancing to be an issue, unless two people in the relationship explicitly agreed that it was, but it doesn’t sound like you broke up with her because of the dancing, but because the dancing made you realize it had been a bad relationship for a while. That means you should have been more in tune with your relationship and discussed the issues you were having with her a while ago, as it’s bad to let problems grow, and you can work on fixing that in your next relationship. But since the problems had grown large enough you wanted to end it before you were able to start trying to fix them, it does make sense that you ended the relationship.
Taken alone, it seems an extreme move. But this was the catalyst for examination of other points. It’s those other points which brought you to this decision. As a general question to ask yourself, could those points have been worked on? Problems identified and addressed? Can this still be done if she’s open to it? Approaching the situation in a more considered fashion, exploring the issues and determining if those are show stoppers may be something to do before deciding you’re done.
I think this is one of those areas where there is a major gender based double standard. When a woman goes on vacation with her friends and close dances with another man, she just likes dancing. If a man goes on vacation with the boys and dances closely with another woman there is only one conclusion, he was flirting and maybe looking for more.
It sounds like your insecurity is the problem here and my experience says that it will follow you into other relationships unless you get help with it.
I personally think you kinda overreacted maybe just asking for a break would’ve worked so you can see if you want to continue the relationship. But your wife shouldn’t have been dancing like ‘that’ with another man