Warning: This is probably going to be a garbled word vomit as everything in my head comes pouring out because I just don't want it in there anymore.
Also hoping that there'll be some mumsnetters who can give me some no nonsense advice on how to snap out of it.
DC graduated from uni recently, it was a really nice event and of course I'm very pleased and proud of DC, but it was the longest amount of time I've spent with ex since we split up twenty years ago and even though he was perfectly nice I've been feeling so sad ever since and I'm crying as I'm typing.
I don't know why, I saw him briefly about two weeks before and nothing, seeing him at pick ups and drop offs over the years has been fine, but a whole day has just brought everything back tenfold.
Just to be clear I definitely don't want to get back with him and horrible as it sounds I don't know what I ever saw in him. Maybe he thinks the same about me.
He cheated on me when I was pregnant and for over a year after DC was born with the woman he's now married to. He also hinted there were more women during that time but I don't know who any of them were.
The pregnancy wasn't planned. If he'd told me he wasn't ready for that commitment and wanted to co-parent separately or even if he'd just walked away and never been a part of DC's life then I would have been hurt but I would have got over it. It's the lies and betrayal that left the scars.
And now I'm going over everything about our relationship and afterwards.
Maybe we should never have been together in the first place. We probably weren't very suited to each other. I was vulnerable at the time. Possibly he picked up on that.
Looking back I can see there were so many red flags. He told me about his crazy ex girlfriend and how he'd promised himself he'd never fall in love again but I made him break that promise and I needed to prove to him that women aren't all heartless bitches. (I know, I know but I was young and naive at the time.) He veered between idealising me and being highly critical. He accused me of fancying other men more than I did him. He could be quite controlling sometimes.
When we met the other woman I could tell she liked him but I was so secure that he was madly in love with me, because he told me so all the time, that I didn't think anything of it.
When I finally found out I went nuclear and made sure all his friends and family knew what he'd done. Not my finest hour, perhaps, but in the words of U2 he "got me with nothing to win and nothing left to lose." (I should have had a quote from With or Without You as my username for this thread, really. We used to listen to that song a lot and in a sort of weird metaphorical way it's the story of our relationship, but I can't be bothered to change my name and re-type all this now.)
Straight afterwards his attitude towards me seemed to be how could I ever have thought he was in love with me, the other woman was the one he loved and always had. But then soon after when we saw each other he would act in a weird coupley way, putting his hand tenderly on my back, kissing me goodbye. I hated that he did that. I think he just wanted to keep me hanging on for an ego boost maybe, or in reserve in case the other woman left him.
It hurt that it felt like he must be leaving me for her because she was better than me. She was the kind of person who would sleep with a man who she knew had a girlfriend and still she was better than me? How worthless am I as a person if that's the case? Part of me is thinking that she is only better than me in the eyes of a lying, cheating twat but it still hurts. Another part of me is thinking that categorising people as "better" or "worse" isn't really a great thing to do, but I'm cutting myself some slack in the circumstances.
I wanted them to break up. Not because I wanted him back, not even because I wanted them to be lonely and miserable for the rest of their lives. If they'd both met other people and been happy with them I wouldn't have minded. I just didn't want them to be happy together. Sometimes I think at least they're not spoiling two couples. Mean, I know, but again I'm cutting myself some slack.
I told myself they only stayed together because they have to justify what they did as being true love or how could they live with themselves. I refused to believe that they could love each other knowing how awfully they'd both behaved. And if they really did love each other why didn't they live together until they married? Was it a coincidence that he proposed to her after I told him I was pregnant with someone else? (Probably, yes, it was a coincidence.)
This has taken me ages to type and I'm not crying anymore and I'm almost feeling chirpy actually.
Thanks to anyone who could be bothered to read all that.