Home › Forums › Dating and Sex Advice › Is this what I think it is?
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Liz Lemon.
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Ali
My ex boyfriend (he’s 32M) and I (31F) dated for nine years. He was head over heels for me. We were very good for each other and made a great team. I’ve never meshed with somebody so well in my entire life. He was just a really good guy for a long time. So sweet and kind. And we had our own little world.
About six years into the relationship, I experienced an unknown health issue that kept me from achieving a lifelong dream I had been working towards. Luckily I am fine now, but it is a condition that I have to keep under control. I was devastated. I was depressed. Felt like a zombie from the depression. Had suicidal thoughts all the time. I did a lot of things to get my life back on track. It was traumatic, but I am a fighter. My ex started to say that I was not the same. It’s not like I was sitting around crying all the time, but I was in a survival mode kind of situation for a few years. I was traumatized and needed to focus on healing so that we could live happily ever after and put it all behind us. He was very supportive at first, but then he started to resent me because I was putting so much effort into meeting my educational goals. He wanted more attention. I wasn’t as care-free as I had been before my health issue. If you knew the specific details, you would understand why I was scared to death to fail at my goal again. I did talk more about my problems with him than he wanted, but I really had no other support systems at the time. I was in an impossible situation. But he made me out to be a monster for talking about my stresses. He started to change when his job became overwhelming.
I knew something was wrong when he told me that he didn’t want to sacrifice for me any longer. He didn’t want to help me solve my life problem. He didn’t have the energy to help me with little things around the apartment like hanging up a picture. He didn’t like that I put so much of my energy into getting my life back together. He knew it would take me awhile before I got it all sorted out, because part of my plan involved going back to grad school. It was taking me a few years to get things back on track, but I was putting so much more effort into my self-development than he was. Mind you, I did this all while pretty f-ing depressed. We still had great times when I was depressed, don’t get me wrong.
His new role at work was stressing him out. He complained about money more. If I didn’t give into what he wanted he called me selfish and put me down instead of compromising. He was around people at work who were more full of themselves, and I noticed it changed him so much. He finally “fit in” with the cool guys at work and it showed. He would come home so stressed at night though about his new duties at work. I used to be the person that “calmed his inner demons” he said, but when I needed to survive, I just wasn’t as available as I used to be. And that is when he slowly detached from me emotionally.
About seven years into our relationship (2017), I noticed he was flirting with a married woman on snapchat that he knew from college. This was not the first time I caught him flirting online with another girl. I found out that her husband had cancer at the time they were talking. I do not know if this girl knew about me. And I don’t know much about what they talked about, but I saw a message from one of them that said “I wonder what things would have been like had we dated.” I don’t know who said it though. I told him what I saw and he stopped talking to her and we figured it out. He was a jerk to me about it though. He got mad at me for getting mad about her. And that was my first instance in our relationship when he was cruel to me.
He broke up with me in a cruel way out of the blue earlier this year. He was upset with me for expecting him to do normal boyfriend things that other people do with no issue. I asked him to be home from his friend’s house by a certain time (that he agreed to) in order to help me clean our messes. He was late. When I expressed my frustration, he insulted me and made it out to be my fault. He said that he didn’t feel connected with me for the past year and that this was really hard on him. But that he doesn’t want to sacrifice himself to help me anymore. This made me feel like a complete monster. I still cry thinking about that comment. I didn’t feel like I asked too much of him. And if I was, I would have changed my behavior if he calmly explained things to me instead of bickering with me. A few weeks after we broke up, the married girl from a few years before was liking his newly posted photos on instagram. I looked her up, and saw on her social media that she donated part of her liver to her husband not long ago to help with his cancer. I asked my ex (we were still living together) about this and he said she is just a friend. I looked at him and said “she is married and her husband has cancer.” He looked up at me and then down at the floor to avoid talking about it. After I moved out, he said I could continue to use our disney plus account. I logged in one night, and he deleted my account and added one for the married girl. And then he deleted my spotify account on our family plan without warning, and I believe he added her. I saw her spotify account, and she has a playlist called “make out sessions” that she subscribed to. I asked my ex about it and he said that he was “hurt that I suspected he was doing something nefarious.” And that he is just trying to help her out because he is one of the few people that isn’t also friends with her husband. It sounds like whatever happened with them… that people are taking her husband’s side I guess. But my ex said that she moved out from her house with her husband. So she is still technically married, but still has photos of her with her husband on her social media, and still has her mother-in-law listed on her facebook profile in the family section. And her husband is going through chemo again for the second time right now (I know somebody who knows her husband). I guess they are separated. Almost positive they’re not divorced and have not even filed for divorce.
I need serious support. What is it about her that I don’t have? Maybe she supports my ex better emotionally because she is a therapist? But this girl is not somebody I could ever see my ex being with due to so many critical differences between them. From what I understand, she likes attention, and my ex tends to have some of that in him as well. If you didn’t know this about her, you would probably like her. That is what is so insane. She seems nice and like she cares about people, but then she is being shady behind her husband’s back. I feel like I screwed our whole relationship up because I was unable to manage getting my life back together fast enough and kept from making my ex happy. I was going too slow. He blamed everything on me pretty much, and would then be nice and say this was so hard for him, but then back to being cruel to me when I would question him about how he went about all of this. I feel like a total monster. And hurt because he wouldn’t go to couple’s counseling with me, but he is somehow involved with this woman, who is a therapist. Why do I hate myself so much for all of this? It feels like all my fault. I feel like he will live happily ever after and that I will always be in shock that he did this.
Tallspicy
I am pretty sure you posted this some time back.
Anon
You have definitely posted about this. Your relationship with this man is over. You need to put your life together and the first thing you need to do is stop following his social media and following his life and live your life. He’s moving on living his life and you cannot do anything to control or change that. You can only control yourself. You need to realize it’s over, he’s not that great, and you want to be with someone who cannot wait to be with you. This is not this guy- it might have been this guy- but no longer. Start by seeing a therapist.
Liz Lemon
You have definitely posted about this more than once, I remember the posts.
Anon is right, you need to let go of this and move on, and seek out counseling for yourself. You two got together very young (age 22 and 23 if my calculations are correct) and you may have just outgrown each other. It happens. You are still very young and have time to meet another man and be happy in a healthy relationship (after you process this breakup and heal). But you won’t get to that point until you take some time for yourself and let go of this. You need to stop focusing on him and whether he will live happily every after. You have no control over what happens to him. Focus on your own healing. You say you need serious support, I hope you have friends you can lean on, and seek out a therapist for yourself.
Newbie
Yeah i wrote a response Yesterday like previous ones but it got lost. To me reposting the exact same thing in your case tells me you are only focused on yourself. You dont register your surroundings, things said to you, advice given to you. And thats in line with this relationship with your ex. Trust me i know its aweful when you feel the rug is pulled underneath you and all sorts of different things can cause trauma. Im not minimizing that at all. So i feel truly sorry for you. But the thing is you cant use people like lantarnposts either where you just vent and dont listen, dont learn. Like what youre doing here reposting. You can only burden others with your stuff to some level. There has to be some sort of balance. And sometimes that means you have to do it yourself, on your own. So next time try to find proper outlets like counselors. But and thats the next thing you are also showing very little understanding for him. You judge most of how he acted as in you were in a worse place. That makes you a bit of a narcissist in my book. And i know its not nice to say, but there it is. I cant put my finger on it exactly. Like you went through serious legit drama but also like to enhance it, throw it in other peoples face. In your post there are number of cases you describing that. I would strongly advice you to get that ‘victim’ behaviour under control. It wont do you or the people you love any good. I recovered from post traumatic stress myself and it took me a few years to get stress free. But my problem was the opposite: i never showed any kind of weakness. So the good way has to be in the middle and is about you finding new paths to happiness. This parrot is dead, deceased. So reflecting on the ex is pointless and all The other details about that lady, her husband and het liver are pointless. There is only one way: you trying to rebalance, own your own mistakes and learn from them and venture out again. I wish you all the best but also want to remind you: life is difficult for most people at some point. I think its the help you ask for at that moment counts in moving forward
T from NY
I’m pretty sure you got really good responses last time, in addition to the ones now.
Ali
You are all being very rude. Especially the person who called me a narcissist. You have got to be kidding me. I said I needed support. I feel the need to repeat my story because I have repetitive thoughts that tell me this is all my fault because my ex made me feel like a monster. I know I am not a monster, but have you ever been gas lit to the point that you don’t know reality any longer? I take everything in that is said to me and I digest it. But sometimes I feel weak and reach out online. And I feel relief and I heal a little more each time. I see a therapist. I live alone and have to work from home for the time being. I don’t have as much of an outlet as I once did. I worry all the time that I am a screw up of a human being because of what happened with my career and relationship. Stop judging how I dealt with my trauma. It’s not like I’m out drinking or doing drugs to deal. Talking online is what gives me relief. I am not forcing you to answer. If you don’t have anything helpful to say, then just move on. Everybody who knows me would never think the things you are saying. I can’t imagine being such a hateful person that being awful to somebody online who is clearly hurting is just “something” that y’all do.
ANM StaffKeymasterHi Ali – I’m sorry that the responses to your story have upset you. The community members here don’t want to hurt you. Everyone genuinely wants to see you gain clarity over your situation.
This is a public forum, and by posting here, you are inviting constructive criticism to your situation. I read the responses to you above. I see that people are giving you advice based on what you’ve said in this forum. Their advice is blunt, yes. But in a forum like this, if you post the same story again, and you don’t acknowledge that you’ve posted before, then people are going to think that you’re not interested in listening to them.
So, people are naturally going to be more pointed in what they say. They’re making a sincere attempt to say something that you will listen to. They may even be a little frustrated, maybe wondering if their responses would be ignored or dismissed, only to see the same story posted again three months from now.
Again, I’m sorry that you are upset by these responses, but they’re not trying to be rude or hurt you. They’re just trying to give advice in a way where you’ll listen.
Liz Lemon
OP, I’m not sure what you’re looking for. What does “support” mean to you? Does it mean everyone totally signing off 100% in agreement with everything you say? You won’t find that here (or on any internet boards, I’d dare to say). I don’t see anyone in this thread who is being rude or judgemental. Even Newbie, she is blunt at times but never speaks with malice, and she gives some of the best advice of anyone on this forum.
We don’t know you, your ex, or the woman he’s involved with. We don’t know what she has that you don’t. We don’t know if she supports him better. The point is, none of that matters. That chapter of your life is over. The only way you will move forward and heal is if you stop obsessing over him. You have to accept that relationships end. Life is hard sometimes. I don’t know anyone who has not suffered huge heartbreak at some point in their lives from a failed marriage or relationship (myself included). It doesn’t make your pain less, but it’s just something you have to accept in order to let go of the pain.
The sooner you can process this and let go, the sooner you will be able to be healthy enough to date and meet someone new, and better. It sounds like this guy was a pretty crappy boyfriend for at least the past several years. He put you down and flirted with other women– that’s a crappy boyfriend. It may sound like hogwash to you now, but one day you will be happier with someone else. I’m glad you’re seeing a therapist because I’m pretty sure you need more help than anyone here can give you.
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