In one of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet tells Ophelia, “Get thee to a nunnery.” In other words, leave the world and go to a convent so you stop the damage you may do in the world. In a way, that’s good advice for you…at least for now. You have been the victim of a pigeon drop; a Ponzi scheme. Most people who have been swindled won’t admit it; it’s too embarrassing. This includes women who have been intimate with a man who is unworthy of them.
It is both unfair to your new beau and to yourself to long for your ‘ex’. He took from you something he had no right to, and continued to work you up when he had no intention of following through. It is wrong to say you love someone who treats you despicably.
You haven’t done the first step in recovery, which is to acknowledge your ‘ex’ is a villain, an absolute villain. He betrayed you. You can’t un-victimise yourself by claiming it didn’t happen.
The important thing is to reframe your experience so you acknowledge what actually happened, and recognise this man as a person of low character. And, of course, end all contact.
The danger now is you will toy and tamper with other men, and let them love you, while you think, “I still want that scoundrel.” Your current beau loves you with all his heart. If you lead him on and disillusion him, how will it affect his next relationship?
You hurt him; he hurts the next woman…it’s an endless cycle. It’s like an infectious disease spreading from one person to the next.
In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare wrote, “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, that then I scorn to change my state with kings.” But that applies only to reciprocated love.
When you put this experience in light of what in fact occurred, you can re-emerge and take your rightful place in the world.