When their past becomes present.
My partner and I have been together for a year but friends for 18 years before that. During our friendship his second girlfriend was the first person he experienced everything with. At one point he used to view her as his soulmate and would shoe me gifts he got her. He also used to ask me about relationship advice when they got into trouble, he probably dated her for 3 to 4 years and for the last half of it she was distant and ultimately cheating on him.
After the broke up we were fwb for 6 months, but ultimately I pulled the plug on it. We had both been recently out of bad relationships and I had a crush on him for almost as long as I knew him. He wasn't ready for a relationship and I didn't want to get hurt again. I put a little distance between us which I felt bad for because he had a bad falling out with his ex and her own group.
7 years later we reconnected shortly after he made amends with his ex and are now friends again. I feel right back into my role of being a supportive friend and reminding him to keep his boundaries with her after she had hurt him. He admitted it was hard because of past feelings and the fact she is ultimately stunning. Of course the day after that conversation he invited me over and we hooked up. I made it clear I didn't want a fwb situation and thought that was that, but the next day he asked me out officially and wanted to be exclusive.
The first few months were perfect because I've always had feelings for him, but by the 4th month the rj started to bubble up, only around that specific ex. It was made worse by the fact they are still friends, and I almost felt like breaking up with him in October because late summer we all have side jobs in the same place so they were around each other a lot.
I don't worry about cheating because he has set his boundaries with her verbally and after October he fully had no contact at all which made my rj become more manageable again. All holiday season was perfect up until recently. The rj slipped back in a few weeks ago and then recently his ex invited him to her birthday party. It's like getting hit with a truck on the spiral. I was already reading his old messages to me about her and comparing how he was with her to how he is with me.
He tells me every day he loves me and wants to marry me. He always says he wished we had gotten together back in college we first met. In August we will be moving in together, but there is this little voice in my head saying "he loved her more, he misses her, he would trade you for her, she is his true love, you are just the placeholder." I know it's not true, but the more his past bleeds into his current life the more my rj feels like it's smothering all the good in our relationship.