Why can't my silly heart just shut up?

I have been dating a woman for 15 months. We took everything slowly (including physical contact), but we have been in a relationship more than half of the time by now. She is the archetype of what is sometimes called a 'keeper' I think (English is not my native language), and thus she is perfect for me who is looking for a sustainable relationship rather than romantic adventures. The first time we saw each other was probably 2008, then somewhere around 2012 or so and another time in 2015, when we started to get interested in each other before finally 'getting' each other in 2018. So there even is a kind of story.

Everything is going well with her, at least regarding everything I consciously want and expect from a relationship. Well, it is a long-distance relationship, but we still see each other almost every weekend. It doesn't feel like a Hollywood movie, she may be doesn't feel like 'the' one, but then again I don't believe there is somebody such as 'the' one in the first place, as I deem it a completely irrational belief stemming from a mystification of sexual love prevalent in contemporary society. If she is 'the' one, it means she is one woman who fits me and 'the' one I chose for me, or let's say: we are the ones who chose each other.

Nevertheless, in my mind I sometimes reach out to another woman who I met back in 2014 and had a single date with in 2015. Back then, there were two things stopping us from continuing dating: Firstly, I was about to move away, and secondly, by coincidence, she had just become friends with my previous ex, and it was all feeling weird to her. Nevertheless, we kept a very loose contact over the years. When I started dating my now-GF I thought the contact was gone, but she wrote me again last year. Her excuse was that she needed participants for a survey, but from how the conversation evolved I got a strong feeling she really wanted to revive our tiny little romance, or at least check how I would react to some subtle advances. As I noticed that I just stopped replying, and that's the last sign of life I've had from her.
I don't even know her that well. Still, I can't help but think of her from time to time (yearning for her). I don't even believe she could be 'the' one either. I have been in love too many times for that. Moreover, she lives about 700 km away, which is a lot more than my GF. Well, on a superficial visual level she is very much my type, tall and curvy, stronger looking than my GF who is more slim and average to small in body size. On an objective scale they are similarly attractive I guess, though.
Had the outer circumstances been different back then, me and this other woman probably would have made a great couple - just as great as I am doing with my GF now. That's one of the endless possilities in life, although it is not a possibility anymore, as it is gone. It was a possibility at best. Judging from what is now, I neither want to hurt nor lose my GF, not to a real other woman, and of course not to what could turn out to be a mere phantom, a romantic idea, nothing more (even if she holds the same idea!). The feeling this other woman gives me is still the same it was 2015. I suppose there is a sort of yearning I project onto her, but I don't know what it is.
I also should know better than just to succumb to this kind of feeling as I have done it before, when I left my then-GF to get together with another one (who I had slept with before that relationship), which never worked out. I just had lost everything.

I don't even really know what the purpose of this thread is. I guess I just wanted to get this out. My insecure and useless emotions annoy me, but on the other hand I know it is essential to try and understand them, without letting them get the best of me.
Should I text her? Should I talk to my GF? Should I just post here? Should I talk to a friend? Or should I just man up and live with it?

Wish me luck. Thanks for reading. I would be thankful for hearing some life experiences. Cheers.

PS: Going strong NoFap-wise!

 

Thank you for your words @Tao Jones. You reciprocate a few things I said, which helps me to maintain perspective and focus.

Still, the question is how I can finally get over her, from a practical viewpoint. Will it just happen with time? If so, why hasn't it done so by now? It has been long enough already.

I want to make clear that I don't consider "this other path" too much. When I said I am wondering if I should text her, it was more to get her to talk about "us" to make it end. But firstly, there never has been much of an "us", and secondly, I would feel like randomly unloading an excavator right onto her head, which is a reckless act she doesn't deserve. Even if she was actually making advances last year, this doesn't mean she is thinking about me often; and even if she was thinking about me, she would be the one who has to make a move, not me. As for me, sometimes you just have to live with questions unanswered in life.

But still, rationalizing the whole thing à la "there are many potential partners in life, just pick one" doesn't do my feelings justice. From the way I feel about her I can tell she always was special to me. It is this very specific type of yearning I have for her. However, I have experienced this with another woman before, and later I came to the conclusion that it definitely was projection. I saw in her something very important, but eventually she was not the one who would give it to me, and I had to find it myself. (To be more specific, that woman was a religious Christian with a beautiful heart and soul, and it was "god" who I had to find myself, she wasn't for me.) A friend of mine who has had a pychological education has told me this already back in 2015. But even in this case, I would like to understand what it is.

Well, mysteries of life I guess...

 

I wanted to say I agree with most of what you say regarding your first post, but regarding the second one you are over-interpreting what I say and eventually getting things wrong.

My girlfriend and I never had any real 'contact' before last year as in actively choosing it. We just ran into each other randomly. She is a friend of a friend of my sister, and when we 'met' a decade ago, she was the girlfriend of a friend of mine. I liked her, but of course I liked her as the girlfriend of a friend, without jealousy or second thought. I texted her a bit in 2015, but we were living too far apart to have any perspective for dating back then, so it stopped quickly and there was complete silence, until we randomly ran into each other again last year. We also even are from the same town. She is just not living here right now for work reasons, but it is likely we will both be living here at some point in the future. Moreover, I have already moved a couple of times in my life myself (up to 500 km away), and while I like it in my home and would prefer the vicinity of my family, I can not exclude ending up somewhere else at some point. I can definitely say that the spatial distance is not a problem in our relationship. It is definitely temporary.

She is a woman in my vicinity in the sense that there are friends who connect us. Even when I was single, I mostly had gotten over asking strange girls out, entertaining the idea of finding love with a friend's friend.

Do I have a "scarcity mentality"? Well, isn't the whole concept of a monogamous relationship, and, even more so, marriage based on what could be called a scarcity mentality? Still, I consciously choose it, because I want to have somebody I can rely on in life. I have met enough women in my life, I have fallen in love enough times in my life to know who is good for me and who is not. I don't see where an "abundance mentality" could lead myself today, other than looking at people as interchangable objects.

Also regarding the "next best choice" part, please look again at the time periods I mentioned in my original post. We are talking years, not some daily ups and downs.

 

Ok, I can understand most of that. Still, I've had 'nearby relationships' in the past and they didn't feel much different from the one I am having now. The only thing which might feel different would be actually living together in the same flat.
I also know people who have had both with the same partner. A friend of mine was living together with his girlfriend, now they are leading a long-distance relationship - for job reasons - and afterwards they will probably move in together with each other again and marry. What's the problem?

Sorry, I cannot relate to that. There doesn't have to be any power play between me and 'her boss'. Moreover, my girlfriend doesn't even really have a boss, as she is becoming a medical specialist and thus going through many different departments in a large clinic. It is not even a 'corporation' in Germany.
Going back to the example with my friend. Both he and his girlfriend were - and still are - working on their PhD, when suddenly his whole work group moved and he had to move with it. According to your reasoning, his girlfriend should just throw away her degree and all the work she put in it so they don't have to temporarily lead an LDR?
The issue you speak of does not only arise when the woman prioritizes her goals over 'her man's', but also when both just put each other's goals on an equal level.

 

Thank you for that message. Your devotion is inspiring.

I don't have close female friends much anymore, so this isn't a problem. My only problem is this specific additional woman in my head.

Here we are at the center of the problem, I guess. The question is: Is it? The one thing I am fearing and the one reason I created this thread in the first place wasn't the prospect of not being with that other woman, but mostly the fear that if I ignore these thoughts and emotions (by telling me that "love is a choice and an action") it will eventually backfire on the relationship I am leading now. This is what I want to avoid. I am insecure about whether "self-sacrifice" will work or lead to tension because of suppressed emotions in the long run.

I agree, and I am perfectly aware of it! Thank you for caring, but you really don't have to worry about me in that regard

 

I needed some time to reply, but I had made a list of some points in the meantime with the intention to post them here. I am doing so now:

- One thing which is making it difficult for me is that her last messages gave me the strong feeling she still was interested in me. I suppose if it hadn't been for my girlfriend, I might have visited her and I can well imagine things would have evolved from there. I consider this a realistic scenario.
- But in that case I would never have been with my girlfriend. I must not take her for granted now that we are together. My girlfriend was another woman who I thought of from time to time before we were dating. I still remember thinking about her right before randomly meeting her again at a party, turning highly excited when it happened. So even if, in an alternate timeline, I was with that other woman, I might miss my actual girlfriend just as much. And even if there was no conscious missing, she could still have been the better match for me.
- Contacting the other woman, even pretending to just want to check in with each other, a harmless conversation, can only make things worse. It is either me unloading a ton of emotions onto her with an excavator, i.e. forcing problems onto her which actually are my own, or it is me playing games, i.e. problematic behavior.
- I did some internet search for people with similar situations. I found the advice that you should just take it more light-hearted and definitely not feel guilty for your emotions, as long as they only are emotions (not actions).

I want to understand my emotions. True understanding will make them lose their power over me and vanish, eventually. What are possible causes?
- I have never really had a functioning long-term relationship in the past. May be I just need to create problems for myself where there are none, because I cannot trust a long-term state of peace and calmness, although I will always claim that's the only thing I want.
- As I have said, there is something very specific in my yearning for her, something which makes her seem unique to me, even some sort of 'angelic' vibe. However, I cannot pinpoint it to anything, it is entirely intuitive. It could be that she incorporates something for me and I need her as an object for projection. I've had this before, even including the girl reciprocating the attraction, and including it taking several years (of little, but still sporadic contact). The difference between the girl back then and the woman now would be that the girl had some issues, while I don't think she has. She would have made a good match without pathological co-dependencies.
- Still, there clearly is some mystification involved. Am I really seeing her the way she is? Probably not. May be it would all be easier if we had spent more time together. She never really was part of my everyday life, and seeing her always was 'special' in a way. This probably contributes to the mystification.
- May be the spatial distance between me and my girlfriend contributes to this, too. I am not sure about that, though, as my yearning actually got more intense when we recently spent a couple of days together.
- I must admit that my thoughts about her are, to a large extent, of a sexual nature. This ic clearly problematic. They could be a remnant of my porn addiction. But they don't have to be, as I consider sexuality a gift from nature.

 

I have already waited a few days. It might take a little longer. I can not really overcome my feelings by making a certain decision. I can only decide to do the right thing despite them and hope they will go away at some point - or just live with them.

Thank you for your message @Empty shell of a girlfriend.

It wasn't that simple, though. She had known me for about a year back then, my ex for half a year may be, we were all at a sports course. I did chat with my ex there on a regular basis. She had befriended her only a short time before we met, and learned that me and my ex had been together a week or so before I asked her out, which was a plain coincidence. So it was all new to her. Moreover, don't forget that I was about to move away, which she had also learned only a short time before.
(In case you wonder why I hadn't asked her earlier: Somehow I never got the idea, although she was so beautiful, kind and everything and we kept texting each other sporadically. It really just didn't come to my mind that I could possibly end up dating her. May be I had the feeling that by approaching her with 'wanting' something like this I would spoil something pure. It only came to my mind after we hadn't seen each other for a couple of months, as I had been physically hurt and thus couldn't attend the sports course.)
She also did not end anything after we had our date, but instead she told me her worries beforehand, which I still consider an amazing and even intelligent move of honesty.
And finally, this was years ago. If it was only about this, it wouldn't matter much anymore. As I said what makes it difficult for me to let her go is that she gave me the impression she still was interested in me last year, although that was just in a digital messenger.

I repeat that I believe she would have been a great match and it would have been a realistic scenario. Of course I can't know for sure, but it feels like it doesn't do her or my feelings justice to 'condemn' her by telling myself that she never was for me. There have been enough women in my life who I can say that about; not her. But, as you say yourself, it's the "what if" that I have to get over. This is a totally different question. As I say I don't really believe in a person being 'the one' for me, the only 'kindred spirit' in the world or even 'fate' holding us together in the first place. Instead, what I do believe in is watering my own lawn, as you eloquently put it, and not worry about the grass on the other side. My lawn is doing well and it shall continue to be. But I still would like to be aligned with all my emotions.

 

Thank you for your unbiased and open-minded reply which obviously relies on personal experience. (Ich bin übrigens auch deutsch, aber mache mal auf Englisch weiter ) Two things about me: I have noticed my interests, even passions (sports, music, ...) changing over the years. I don't know how they will look in the future. So they do not play much of a role. Moreover, one passion of mine is philosophy, and I am becoming increasingly serious about it (studying and writing). I wouldn't even want my significant other to have much interest in it, as philosophers tend to form radical ideas, which can lead to conflict rather than open dialogue (the history of philosophy is full of stories about friendships and teacher-disciple-relationships ending because of this). When I 'chose' my girlfriend, it mainly was because I believe she has the right attitude to lead a stable relationship in socially unstable times (too many people, too many places, ...), aside from chemistry of course, and because she was in my extended (or at least 'extended extended') circle of friends, as I had told myself I didn't want to date perfect strangers anymore. She is immensely realisitc without being cynical the tiniest bit. This is what I love her for.

True, true... well in theory I would mostly agree with that, but I can feel this part of me wanting to ignore this kind of responsibility Also, I suppose there is no such thing as pure thought or pure emotion, they are always mixed. But the saying can still make sense, of course.

I decided to text the other woman, though. I said I didn't want it because I would either unload a ton of emotions onto her or play games. But I realized that I don't have anything to lose with her anyway, so I might as well unload my emotions - in a respectful way, of course.
Moreover, one more reason she is on my mind could be that our last conversation ended so abruptly. I acted entirely different from how I would have without my girlfriend.

I have also gained a more optimistic perspective: May be this struggle is simply a signal that the honeymoon phase is over. I haven't gotten beyond that point before in my life. I shall do now.

If this continues to be a problem, I can still talk to my girlfriend. It won't hurt to discuss our relationship in some way at least, especially since I might move again in about half a year.