Why the fuck can I not get over this tosser YEARS on?

[Queen0fFuckingEverything]

Basics of the story...

Had a boyfriend for a few months in my teens who after we split and I left my hometown remained a solidly good friend. Years went by with me living all over the place but every time I was in the area seeing my family we'd meet up for a pint, we got on well, we'd sometimes talk on the phone etc.

After 8 years living away and following a difficult breakup with my DS's father I moved back to the area. Hadn't seen him for the previous year as we'd not managed to meet when I'd been visiting. Back about 6 weeks before I bumped into him in town, went for a pint, swapped new numbers. He started coming round in the evenings every so often (I was a single parent at the time), we'd have a fire in the garden and a beer and swap tales of woe - he told me he'd recently broken up with his fiancee - and he took me and my DS camping for the weekend. He told me he was living back at his mums for the time being.

We were sleeping together again within weeks. I was keeping it quietish mainly because I'm not one to go telling all and sundry the details of my love life anyway, and I could tell that he was slightly cautious about the whole thing. Which I was too, and in my case that was due to recent relationship trauma, so assumed the same was true for him too.

But... then I saw him in the pub a few times and got not only ignored but then laughed at by his mates. Turned out, of fucking course, that his story to all them was that I was a mad stalker. I rang him, pissed (yes, yes, I know ), to say, what the actual fuck is going on here. A woman answered the phone wanting to know who I was and why i was calling her partner at stupid o clock in the morning. Because, of fucking course, he was still engaged.

So that was that. Turned out he'd been lying to me, and taking me for a fucking idiot. I would never knowingly sleep with someone else's partner because quite frankly, its a headfuck for all involved that I know is best avoided. He knew me well enough to know that yet lied to me anyway to get me to do just that. I was gutted and ashamed. They got married and had some kids and I moved away again and now have a lovely partner and more DC of my own.

So tell me someone - why, whenever I visit my hometown (as I did this weekend), even SEVEN YEARS ON, does all that hurt come flooding back? Why do I still feel teary and shaky and fucking FURIOUS all over again? Is there something I need to do to lay that particular demon to rest?

You still feel hurt because what he did was bloody awful.

It would perhaps help if you stooped associating this ghastly episode with your home town and started associating it with him, and only him, the useless, unhinged loser.

Then put the episode on a shelf in your mind and leave it there, labelled 'Loser'.

And enjoy your life.

stopped not stooped!

If you were away from your home town before and after this horrible experience happened it's become a sort of 'Hurt Island'... isolated as a place where very bad things happened. If you spent long enough there to build happier memories, having lunch with your family for example in the pub where you were ignored and laughed at, it might help.

The other angle is the guy himself. Did you ever satisfactorily confront him over the way he treated you or, once you spoke to his fiancee, did you do a disappearing act?

Thank you both, I really appreciate the replies

I just did a disappearing act. Slunk off, cried a lot, licked my wounds in private kinda thing. Never spoke to him again, ever. Oh, he did approach me once months later when I was at a gig with my brother, but I wasn't in the mood and told him to fuck off and never come near me again.

It was only this weekend after all these years that I even told my closest friends the full story (turns out one of them goes to a toddler group with his now wife). For some reason, even though I've been through far worse things, the whole sorry episode has become this Big Thing for me that I can hardly talk about

I would carry with that with me too, what he did was hideous - being laughed at by friends of the guys you're sleeping with is humiliating, lying to you is vile, making you into the ow without your consent... He's scum.

The advice above is good - I would feel the same way, I can easily think of times I have felt humiliated or cheated and I am grateful that these memories are not triggered when I go to my hometown! Trying to create good memories which can be triggered instead sounds wise, as does filing the horrid memories and laying them to rest.

Chanting a mantra and deep breathing helps me when i feel inappropriate rage bubbling... Just a wee reminder for a few seconds repeating in your head "I'm in a happy place now" or remembering that youre due good karma and he really isn't... just until you feel more like yourself again.

Ha, guy not guys. Sorry!! Bad typo.

You feel awful because you are a decent person.

Don't beat yourself up about it. It is perfectly understandable.

I still get the rage about a horrible colleague that I worked with 20 years ago!

:D Yes, I think he must just be someone that is always going to give me The Rage!

There's a little bit of me that would have loved a chance to shout and scream and say, how the fuck DARE you abuse my trust and our friendship, you vile pigdog It just feels..... unfinished, you know?

Hey ho.

Have you tried getting a bit drunk and doing that talking-to-an-empty-chair thing? You know, and say all that you never said and perhaps needed to say. Really cry and shout and just vent.

I agree what he did was vile. The scabby useless twat.

Because you felt humiliated and because you thought he was a friend and he let you down. What a loser x