Do I have a future with my cheating, cruel ex?

DEAR BEL, MY EX-BOYFRIEND and I started dating back in 2012 — he was loving and the sex was great, but honestly not the best I’ve ever had.

Six months on, I had a gut feeling he was being unfaithful, because of how he was acting.

I went through his emails and found messages between him and a woman planning a holiday together. When I confronted him, he swore he was only joking with her and wasn’t going to do anything.

Fast forward to March 2013, and I saw half-naked pictures of another woman on his computer. I threatened to leave, but he swore they hadn’t had sex — it was all just flirting. Stupidly, I believed him.

We continued dating and the relationship went from strength to strength — we did have fights like all couples, but nothing major.

However, there were times when I felt more single than in a relationship, as if I was always chasing him.

In 2015, he and I were on holiday and he was in the bathroom when his phone rang. It was the same woman he’d had the pictures of two years earlier. I confronted him again and he said that they were simply friends and nothing more.

Now jump to April 2016 and I get pregnant — totally unplanned. Nine weeks later, he decided to end our relationship, saying that no matter how much he loved me, he

WHAT, I am wondering, can you possibly mean by the phrase, ‘a man of his calibre’?

I assume you’re rating his education and job — things that you, an accountant, respect and value.

But is that the full extent of the balance sheet? His social status in the credit column?

Because the debits have mounted up since the beginning of your relationship.

Item: he cheated and lied. wasn’t attracted to me and he’d rather we co-parent as single people than stay together for the sake of a baby.

If I’m honest, I don’t think he ever loved me, and at nearly 25 I wasn’t ready to be a single mother — just not mentally stable enough — so I decided to terminate the pregnancy to give myself a chance to move on.

During that time he was horrible to me, mean and rude, and hurt me more than I ever thought possible. Somehow, I managed to keep going and one day I realised I didn’t miss him any more.

Earlier this year, he contacted me, saying he missed me and wanted me back. He’d call me about 50 times a day. Now he says he knows he wants to spend his life with me, but is still not certain he is attracted to me!

I still love him, but I’ve grown so much as a person since the break-up — not to mention the exhilarating sex I’ve had with others. Much as he was my dream man, I don’t see how we can ever go back and date again — or can we?

I’m an accountant with a good job; the women he cheats with are not what you’d expect from a man of his calibre. Yet I’m scared of a life without him. Am I being foolish? Can attraction return? Can a couple move on from a termination? Can I ever trust him again? CHERYL

Item: he left you when you were pregnant.

Item: he treated you with neglect and cruelty.

Item: he therefore contributed to the death of a foetus conceived by irresponsible adults.

Item: he then had the nerve to contact you and suggest you pick up on this useless relationship.

Item: all of this — and at the same time he says he’s not sure he fancies you.

Oh, my sweet Lord, if that’s ‘a man of calibre’ and your ‘dream man’, then let me hang out with

the loving, sincere failures of this world.

Don’t think I’ m not sympathetic to t he f act t hat y ou w ere i ll-treated by this person. Yet in truth, I’m far more exasperated that you can conclude your account sheet with a set of questions which no person with any judgment would dream of asking — given what’s gone before.

Nothing adds up here. In your place, I’d be ‘scared of a life’ with this man who has hurt you so much — a nd w ould h urt y ou a gain. You are ‘foolish’ to think for a second that there is any future-with such a guy.

Since y ou’ve b een h aving ‘ exhilarating sex’ since the separation and abortion, I can only conclude that this whole experience didn’t traumatise you too much.

Therefore, it’s bizarre for you still to wonder about a future. What for? To mess up again?

No, attraction cannot return in circumstances like these — especially when it was never really there in the first place.

Remember, neither of you were entirely satisfied by sex with the other.

Yes, a couple might be able to ‘move on from a termination’, but only if there is a great love present, and the mutual, mature ability to make sense of love, loss, sorrow and guilt.

Do e ither o f y ou r eally c are m uch about what happened? I doubt it. Can you ‘evertrusth im again’?Only if you are a very misguided woman w ho s eeks o ut h urt, w ishes to be humiliated and is incapable of adding up two and two.

Time to reckon up — and close the account.