Violent ex trying to win me back

Dear Coleen

I’m torn as to what to do because he is funny and can be nice, but he has another side, which I hate.

I fell into a relationship with someone pretty quickly, but it wasn’t long before he became controlling, violent and jealous.

We had moved in together and his behaviour started to get worse – he became very heavy handed. I found myself making excuses for him to my parents and my friends and they all hated him.

I moved back home and we have been separated for four months now. But he is relentless in trying to win me back with flowers, daily messages and phone calls.

I’m torn as to what to do because he is funny and can be nice, but he has another side, which I hate.

I bonded with his daughter during our relationship and I really miss her too. I’m so confused.

Coleen says

Alarm bells are going off in my head. Of course he wants to win you back and he knows exactly how to do it – by pulling on your heart strings with his daughter.

Stop romanticising the relationship – this is a man who has been verbally and physically abusive and I think you need to listen to your friends and family – they can’t all be wrong.

If you feel you’re getting sucked in by him, ask friends and family to remind you why you left him.

And he’s behaving exactly how controlling partners do – nice one minute and abusive the next. You crave that nice side of him and latch on to it, but if you did go back to him, it wouldn’t be long before that horrible side surfaced again.

You’ve done the hardest bit already by leaving him and I admire you for that, so please don’t move back in. You did the right thing.

If he cared that much about your relationship with his daughter, he’d let you see her even if you were no longer together.

Stay strong – there are many great men out there. You don’t need to hang on to this loser.

My fleeting office romance has deleted

Dear Coleen

I was working in an office for 10 months and I met a guy there. On my first day, back in January, I was in the kitchen and he came up behind me and introduced himself.

After that we spoke all the time when we were in kitchen making tea. We seemed to have a really good connection and we got close to each another one weekend.

He took me out for a drive to get to know me better and that’s when he made his first move on me.

Months went by and I thought we were getting on really well, then one day I went into work feeling down and he asked if I was okay.

I told him what was bothering me and he was a big support and told me if I had any problems I could always talk to him. I trusted him and I felt relaxed in his company.

We also chatted online and texted, too, but then one day when I was checking Facebook he was gone from my friends list. He’d deleted me and I still don’t know why.

My friends have said I should let him get in touch, but it’s driving me mad. I haven’t seen him since the end of July when I left the company and we haven’t spoken to each other either.

I really miss him, but I don’t know how he feels. I bumped into an old colleague and she said he was talking about me to her, saying I didn’t work at the company any more. It’s making me think he does still care about me and misses me, too. Any thoughts?

Coleen says

Honestly, I don’t think that suggests he still cares for you. It sounds like it’s more a case of, ‘you’ve left. It was nice while it lasted, but I’ve moved on’.

Instead of being a grown-up and explaining that to you, he’s removed you from Facebook so you can’t hassle him, asking why. It is frustrating – a bit like not reading the last chapter of a book.

But sometimes you have to accept things as they are and move on. If he’d really wanted to get in touch after you left your job he would have messaged you via Facebook or texted you. So, for whatever reason, I think that’s it for him.

And if it’s not, I agree with your friend. Let him contact you.

Maybe he couldn’t deal with whatever you’d told him and didn’t want to get any more involved and it was quite handy for him that you left the job, so he could delete you from Facebook without having to face you in the office kitchen.

Don’t waste any more of your time trying to come up with answers. Trust me, he won’t be doing that. — Online.