Have you ever been the filler in ?

[pinkposies]

Not exactly as a girlfriend but fulfilling that role without the sex bit?
When did the penny drop and how did you remove yourself from that situation? Thanks for reading .

You have to have respect for your own boundaries and not allow him to cross those lines. You need to be in control of you. He sounds like a user to be honest, I don't know what you get out of this relationship.

Yes, my friends wife cheated on him and he text me everyday needing support, very huggy with me and complimentary about how important I was and how good of a friend I was to him. I was also struggling with a health diagnosis and he used to ask how I was everyday by text. A few months on he went very quiet and I guessed what had happened, he had found a new girlfriend. 😐
Now it's like we are strangers. I've called him out on it but he is too loved up to care. Do feel very bitter, how can I not? It's like he's used me but come off the best. Makes me angry thinking about it. One thing I for sure I won't be there 24/7 if it ends with his girlfriend although I have a feeling it will last a lifetime as they have been like teenagers since they met 😐

Life can be shit at times. I deserve some happiness and luck now like he has found but I doubt I will get as lucky 😐.

Yes I have told him . One day some months ago we had a chat. He spent an hour telling me all her issues and history and back story . He ten went on to tell me , through general chit chat, how he treats her. I was horrified and disgusted. I was disappointed as I never knew this side to him all. I had never seen it before . I let fly and told him straight up how disgusted I was to hear all of this and completely shocked . He was shocked by my reaction . I felt he was preying on a weak, damaged girl who needed to be minded basically, not a man who pickeand dropped her whenever he felt like it or whenever he hadn't a better offer . He called her a pity, desperate etc etc but said she was a lovely person . From that day on, I have never really seen him in the same light tbh and I think he knows that. He has tried in numerous occasions to convince me what a great person he is and how good he is to her and to be fair, they have more contact now and he seems to be interested, he still lives life entirely on his terms. She still fits in and waits around for crumbs.
The funny thing is that when I try to remove myself from his emotional clutches , he pursues through messaging, calls, contact.
It is not my business I have told him . I cut off from that situation when he told me that he had told her he wouldn't be available for two weeks to see her as all his family and friends would be home in holiday and he would be busy, knowing that she had nobody really to meet or spend her time off with . I thought it was cruel and opened my eyes to the real him.
His response was that it was not his responsibility to fill her time for her .

He sounds narcisstic to me 😐

I'm surprised at some of the posters saying that they don't know why OP is upset. It's hard not to feel upset and used when someone needs your support 24/7, is lovely to you and then drops you like a hot stone when someone new comes along. I guess we learnt the hard way. I know I did.

He does not sound like a very nice person at all.
He comes across as manipulative, disrespectful of people and their feelings.
Talking about intimate stuff regarding his GF...you can bet your neck he is telling her about you as well.
Some men are not happy unless they have at least 2 women to massage their ego.
The also like to keep the GF on the back foot and unsure about the relationship by always having a 'filler in'.

They come across as really lovely and caring but really they are just so self absorbed and insensitive and are very good at acting like someone who cares, when really they don't really give a damn. about any one else's feelings but their own.

I am seeing this in all its glory now @CaptainJaneway62

Following your last update.
You need to drop this so called friendship.
He's an emotional vampire. Awful.awful man.
Happy to treat a vulnerable woman like garbage.
You need to get rid!

Sorry cross post
You deserve a better friend than he will ever be.
You need to look after your own emotional wellbeing and don't allow this man any more of your precious time.

As someone currently on the other side of a similar friendship, I value my friend so much. He listens to me when I need him to but he knows I would give as much to him if/when he needed it. But it works because we both think the world of each other. We both have the same level of compassion for each other.

However I have been in your shoes with someone who I didn't feel the same level of friendship for. It was hard and the only thing I could do was cut contact because the more I gave the more he expected.

I am clingy with my current friend but it works because of the type of person he is. I wasn't the right type of person for my previous friend. Different types of clingy too though.

Not sure if that helps any but my best advice is that clingy friendships only work if both parties are the right type of people for each other. Talk to him. If you matter to him then he won't mind a mature conversation about it.

Yes. First person I spoke to every day, last person I spoke to at night, in bed, called each other multiple times during the day, constant text messages, spent every weekend together, went on trips away together frequently (staying in different rooms).

It was very very intense. I loved him and wanted him sexually. He loved me and wanted me platonically. I was a girlfriend in everything but name and action - so, the important bits! - and it was agony. Every time I tried to pull away, he drew me back in. I had to go no contact in the end and cut him completely dead. It was very very difficult but how could I ever find happiness with a partner that wanted me, when every second of spare time was spent either with or talking to him?

I feel bad. I know he doesn't have a girlfriend/partner, and I know he will be unbearably lonely. But it was really affecting my mental health.

Do you think that you are deeply hurt that he doesn't feel the same for you as you do for him, and you are now, out of anger, wanting to highlight every single bad point and flaw which beforehand didn't bother you? That maybe you weren't the filler in, there were just other things going on which you weren't aware of and you caught some of emotion from that and misread it, and he didn't intend for you to misread it?

In a way you want to know the ins and outs of what is developing with this other woman?

I think that basically rather than post here and get a whole lot of confusing points of view, you need to be brutally honest with yourself about how you feel, about what has happened in your relationship with this man and how it has changed over time, and how you feel now about him and about this other weak (or possibly not so weak) woman with her disturbing (or possibly not so disturbing) life, and process it and move on. Because at the moment it feels like you aren't fully acknowledging how you feel and it is coming out as other feelings which have the potential to hurt you and others.

It may be he has been very confused about this other woman, and over time he has got to know her and has probably realised that he misjudged the situation, and if he now has feelings for her that leaves you raw and he is trying to explain why he misjudged it without realising how raw it makes you. Maybe. He may be worried about how much you know and what you will do with the info, which is why he is staying in contact, even.

The "maybe"s is why you need to sit down and be honest with yourself. Feelings which aren't processed and dealt with can come out inappropriate ways - anger and other.

Tell him to treat her well and to stop over dramatising her life to others.

I was in this position in my late teens and early twenties. Then I found out that he was gay, he had obviously always known it (when I found out he told me about some liaisons he had years before). I was desperately in love with him and he had spent years going out of his way to spend time with me, flirting, telling me how beautiful he thought I was, going out of his way to make me feel as if I was special and one day we would be together. It sounds and seems so pathetic now but he really did a number on me and it took me years both to get over him and recover my self-esteem.

My advice would be to extricate yourself as much as you can from this situation - he obviously has no intention of pursuing a relationship with you, otherwise he would have done it by now. He is having his cake and eating it. I know it is painful and hope what I am saying doesn’t sound too harsh, you deserve so much better than this guy. Free yourself to be open to someone else who will both love and treat you well.

Regardless of whether op is attracted to him or not he does sound like a user and I don't think anyone here can say that his behaviour is kind or respectful to either op or his girlfriend.

Op, you deserve better.

It seems you feel he used you for company. But then you say he still contacts you a lot tho he's got a girlfriend. If you feel you were only a stop gap, then just stop replying.

Thinking about, it might be that he knows you are hurt and is trying to make things better? Which would be a nice thing to do, even if a bit misguided? The other thing is that if his new partner has been through or is going through a lot, she may be in a vulnerable position, but she may not actually want or need "minding" or being occupied or entertained or any other form of patronage, so he may not treating her as badly as you think. Thinking about it yourself, is he the sort of person who would go for someone uber needy?

In relation to "weird and wonderful" imagine you and I were standing at the pub with a group of colleagues. I described something and I then said I thought it was weird and wonderful. A few people agreed. You then said it doesn't sound weird and wonderful to you, it sounds disturbing and off the wall, and a few people agreed with you. Neither you or I would be right or wrong, we would just have different opinions about it. Here you are describing your good friend's perceptions as, basically, wrong, which is why it sounds as though you are at odds with yourself, and as though you are talking from a place of deep pain.

The other thing is that you have gone low contact, you haven't replied to texts, you have delayed reply, you have left it for him to make contact. He might be feeling really worried and stressed about it because he doesn't realise that you need space because you have feelings for him. Or he does realise and he feels bad, because he cares, just not in the way you wanted him to, and he doesn't know how best to deal with it, and he needs you to tell him what you want.

None of this means you were a filler in. It happens to all of us - we are bewildered by someone's behaviour and it takes a long time or never to work out what it was all about. At the moment your feelings are all over the place, and before you judge him or her I think you need to try to sort out how you feel, and make sure you are taking responsibility for your feelings and dealing with them properly.

Thinking about it, not thinking about!

Thank you for all giving me time and effort we th your responses. I have loads to think about now . I have tried to keep it as factually correct as I can to give honesty to receive your honest opinions .
I will be sad to lose him as a good friend but am torn as to who he really is . I just do not know . I am unable to figure out whether he has used me as a filler in or as a crutch to dump his emotions on . Whether this is how he ' does' friendships or whether I am over reacting to his treatment of his girl . It's essentially not my business at the end of iit all. His treatment of her is what he has told me . Not my opinion or thoughts. Just exactly as he has said . No embellishment

OP are you just going to ignore all the people who are saying that the problem might not be him or his behaviour but more that you are not clear about your feelings about him and your expectations? You have said you think the world of him and yet have been extremely unkind about him here, and so it doesn't add up.

I didn't think you were not being honest on purpose, rather than you aren't aware.

Does he really cancel with her last minute? Did he actually say that? Did he give a reason why? Can you can give an example of the weirdness without being outing?

I am not ignoring any advice or opinions. I have a lot to think about .
I think highly of him as a man but not as a boyfriend . I am conflicted .
I am concerned about being outing .
Yes he has cancelled on her in a number of occasions. He told me this in the context of her being upset with him and himthinking that she was being irrational when his reasons were that he was tired or a family member asked to meet him despite not seeing her for a week or two.
Once more and I am being vague , imagine you had experienced ongoing coercive control sexually, emotionally etc in the past and imagine telling your partner this and imagine him telling his friend all of this , not t in a concerned or upset way but rather in a ' can you believer that!!/ isn't that crazy!! type of way where he was intrigued and as if it was gossip . That was a turning point for me .i didn't like it and was shocked .

Tbh I am very sensitive to this type of thing so it i is entirely plausible that my reactions are totally emotional. They hit a nerve for sure. In his defence he can be immature and innocent .

Op you have done nothing wrong. He does sound unkind and narcisstic. Probably better to distance yourself and realise that some people are all about themselves and their own needs.

OP, the outrage you feel about how he is in his relationship - isn't all this just to avoid your real feelings - you wish she'd bugger off out of the picture and things would be back on with your friend, as before, is that right?

Anyway, this is based on my experience and it may or may not help:

• I have male friends who I have held hands with and hugged, and who have told me they loved me and that i am beautiful. The friendships were totally platonic both sides. Other posters have said this or similar too. My male friends and female friends and I will all frequently share a lot (too much) with people we trust - ie talk about personal and intimate things. I think that this is quite normal. I think you should read through the more unkind things you have written about the man you think the world of again in that context.

When he was saying "can you believe that?", did you try to talk to him to explain what it is like to be in a relationship with coercive control and how common it is, how many women are affected, to try to get him to understand better? It sounds like he doesn't have a clue how horrific it is - could you not have told him?

• Some of my male friends will sometimes treat women badly - and I make it clear I disapprove. In my world men like that are known as "players" and basically they find emotional intimacy hard and they treat women they are in relationships with badly to try to keep them at a distance. The same for women who play games. It may be that this is the case for your friend, or was.

Has he recently seemed to change his outlook about emotional intimacy, hence him wanting to have a relationship with this other woman? If so you may have been thrown into a tailspin, if you don't just see him as a friend.

It is easier for you to feel outrage about him and make out to yourself he has done something wrong (even though you think the world of him as a man...) than deal with your own feelings.

If that is right, I can tell you for sure that if you don't accept, deal with and process your feelings, then your feelings will come out in inappropriate ways - being angry, feeling badly done by, taking out your feelings on other people, losing your temper more quickly, treating other people badly.

But if you could start to focus more on your feelings, rather than his wrongdoings, then it is going to hurt you badly for a while, but you will get though it, and you will come through it stronger, more self aware, and more ready to find the right person for you.

I hope that things get better for you, for him and for her. I have been in a similar triangle hence me bothering to write all this, but I have nothing else to say so will now just leave it there.

I do feel Op has the right to feel as she does. Sounds to me like she is starting to see him in a new light now. He sounds like the kind of guy who wants to have his cake and eat it.
What I will say op is that you need to set boundaries. Same as with me. If my "friend" came back needing support daily because his girlfriend has dumped him, it's on me to not allow that to happen again. I won't be the stopgap and neither should you be.

Thanks for replies . Loads to reflect on. I don't have the ability to psychoanalyse myself @promocodesforall but what I would say is that I simply do not like the way he treats his girl and I do not like the way he uses me as an ego boost and a crutch when he is needy . I do not excuse it at all. It is who he is and as I said it is factually correct.

Of course I spoke to him about coercive control and going against what you want sexually and emotionally and how that impacts on a person!
I was horrified by what happened and his response to it .
This girl is years younger than him and has had a shit childhood and life, generally. Shit life meaning violence, alcoholism, infidelity in her childhood home, neglect, mental health issues and suicide attempts in her family .

I will take time to process all of this and everyone's advice and opinion one but at the moment my overwhelming feelings is loss of respect for him and disappointment in our friendship .

OP have you posted about this relationship a few times over the last few months? And every time you say "I am waking up to this now" and you get the same advice and then a few weeks later you post in the same vein with a few details changed?

This isn't about psychoanalysis, this is about emotional intelligence, I think. If you google it you will find some really useful info and exercises (if you are interested).

What you are now suggesting sounds really outlandish - that he has preyed upon a young girl and he is being emotionally abusive to her, and she is effectively being emotionally abused by him? Please don't tell me that is what you are suggesting?

I understand that you are hurting, that your feelings are real, but surely the above isn't true?