Betrayed...Not sure if I’m being unreasonable.

[SweetBerries]

Hi all,

I’m prepared for a pasting here to be honest but I’m in a situation in my head and I think I need outside input.

Myself and my baby’s partner separated at the start of the year. I dated a few guys and then met someone who I clicked with instantly. We were amazing together and eventually got into a relationship. It was very intense and we fell in love very quickly. Everything just felt perfect and for the first time in decades, after such a long time of hating myself (history of eating disorders) I felt like a human being again.

Then he broke it off. Very suddenly. He said he was still in love with me and his feelings for me hadn’t changed, but he was in a situation with his mental health and finances and he didn’t think he could cope with a relationship. Like a fool, I believed him and accepted it with a lot of tears.

A week later he was back on Tinder. He said his ego was low and he needed boosting. Again, I just believed him. I still held out hope if he felt that way about me, that we could try again somewhere down the line.

After we broke up I lost my appetite and my anorexia started to return. I was blaming myself as I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that he was looking for someone better on Tinder and it was all to do with my appearance. 3 weeks after the break up, we started sleeping together again. He repeatedly told me he loved me or I wouldn’t have done it...it gave me hope. He still said he wasn’t ready for a relationship with anyone, and that it was just two people who loved each other, showing that to each other via sex. Again, I just lapped it up.

4 days after the last time we slept together and he kissed me goodbye, he was in a new relationship with someone else. He met her via the friends who advised him to break up with me to begin with.

Whilst I realise we were not together, he now says he only told me he loved me and slept with me to try and help me get through my relapse. He should have been ‘clearer’ with me, he says.

I’m now deeply in the throes of anorexia and I’m in pieces. I can’t stop thinking about them together. He wants to be friends and to help me through my eating disorder, but he is the trigger for it to begin with - I’ve been well over 10 years.

I don’t know what to do. I love him but he’s moved on. I don’t know whether I should feel wronged or like an idiot for believing anything he told me. He considers this new girl ‘better’ than me and says it ‘just happened’...I can’t get past it all in my head and move forward.

Can anyone offer me ANY advice with any of this? Everything hurts :( xx

Keep it simple and YES BLOCK BLOCK BLOCK. Do not feed that fragile ego. You can do this, just think of all those wonderful things you have planned for your life - having a scummy pond life who drags you down isn't part of that picture. Your life will be wonderful

Or just, you know, don't reply. Block him and leave him wondering what time you will get back to him about the gaming, then never speak to him again .

I like broken s approach.

By the way he's NOT intrinsically linked to your self esteem; he's intrinsically linked to your LOW self esteem right now. That is a temporary situation. In the not too distant future you're going to be in a place where he doesn't feel like anything to do with how you view yourself.

As a PP said, this is the really hard bit, but you're going in expecting the worst, with fantastic insight, and steeling yourself against it.

I wish I had had your resolve when in a similar situation. I sat around pining and waiting and getting my hopes up. Unfortunately nobody pointed out that perhaps someone that arseholey might be best to block, ignore and move on from and I kept picking up the crumbs and going back until my self esteem was nonexistent. There are WAY better ways to live than that!

Agree with broken.

You have a strength I didn't have back then, you are going into this with some bloody good advice. I know I will be difficult, but I can assure you the end result will be sooo much better than now.

I was in your position erm well over a decade ago. It was quite possibly the worst time in my life. I was made to feel I was mad, it was all my fault, everything was marvellous about him - from friends and family. He evaporated my self confidence, made me feel beholden, waiting for the scraps of attention. I literally woke up and went FUCK IT - this isn't life for me or my child.

I found out afterwards that he had lied /charmed everyone with tales I was mentally ill, alcoholic and he was helping me........

These arseholes. They exist, but should come with a health warning.

On a very positive note, it took me a couple of years and then I found, wasn't looking a lovely grumpy sod, who pursued me even when I said never ever ever again. We have been married for 10 years with a couple more children. It's an equal relationship, yes ups and downs - but it is a real relationship, not built on the fiction of a Walta Mitty.

Ps once I had properly broken free, people, neighbours started to talk to me again - and it was a bit of an eye opener in a positive sense. I got back my reputation and self esteem just by being me.

It will get better.

I hope you are doing better OP. Have you blocked him yet?

I wonder if it would help you to imagine if this narcissistic twat was your DS's role model of a man. That this would form his sweet little personality into an adult who treats women like the twat treated you.

Looks a lot less appealing, right? Maybe even repulsive enough to block...

Good luck.

I need some strength. I’ve been talking to him trying to force myself to be polite and just talk about films and things but now he’s saying he feels ‘really really shitty’ and ‘doesn’t want to be a bad person’. I’d written the bye bye message prior to this but now I don’t know what to do.

This is the message

I can’t do this. You’ve treated me like a piece of dirt and that’s how I see myself now. But you’re happy. Please don’t pretend not to be. Your actions haven’t been those of someone who cares about me at all, neither is ignoring me on here for someone you met a week ago. I’ve tried so hard, despite what’s been happening with me, to be there for you and support you through your hardest times, built up your confidence when you felt low and lost, and for what? To be discarded and used like this? You won’t understand how that feels and maybe you never will. Maybe that’s why you think everything is ok now. But it isn’t. I’m poorly and I have to now try not only to deal with what you’ve done, but to actually survive. I trusted you completely. I’ll never understand why now, but I truly did. I wanted to believe I was wrong, we could be friends, but I’m not wrong. Asking me flippant questions when you know how poorly you’ve made me has proved that, at least. I can’t change what you’ve done. I can’t change who you are. But I can change whether I let someone like you be a part of my life.

Don't send it. For people like him attention - any attention, good or bad - is oxygen. He's going to love knowing he had such an impact on you, it won't make him feel bad, as it might a normal person. For him, the worst thing in the world, the thing that will send him spiralling into existential gloom, is being ignored. So: don't say anything. block his number. Turn off your phone. And do something nice for yourself. Have you got Netflix? I recommend Crazy Ex Girlfriend. It's funny enough to take your mind off things, and there are three series on there

You need to block him. And think about what you're getting out of talking to him. For him it's an ego massage. What are you getting? Do you pretend for those few minutes of conversation that he's with you again? The longer you drag it out the harder it will be. Rip off the bandage and block him everywhere. Who cares what his reaction is? Worry about you, and making it through for your DS.

Come on, you can do this.

You don't want to feel like this, you want a better future than one with him in, and you don't want someone like that having the privilege of being in your sons life.

Block block and block again. Don't message him as he will never understand what he puts you through. He's like an addiction and you need cold turkey. Turn your phone off and go to sleep.

Don't send - just block and retain your sanity

SweetBerries You need to recognise that you're on a rollercoaster and it's time to get off.

I know you want to avoid being an asshole. You're a sensitive person, you've been hurt before, you know how awful it feels, and you don't want to hurt someone else with your actions.

That is the weak point that this narcissistic douchebag is exploiting. Despite the fact that he has used and hurt you, he knows that you don't want to do the same thing to him. So he's dropping you when he's got some other girl to boost his ego, and reeling you back in when he needs a bit of a top-up from you.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that you'll be able to send him a message that will make him understand how he's hurt you. The only thing you'll achieve by continuing to engage with him is to give him material to drag out a conversation about how he's so emotionally conflicted and he never intended to hurt you or anyone else but he's trying hard and needs to you stick with him. Don't fall for the trick. IT WILL ALWAYS BE ALL ABOUT HIM.

I hereby give you permission to be an asshole and just jump off the rollercoaster by blocking him without further ado or notice. It's fine. You don't owe this guy anything. Not thanks, not consideration, and certainly not friendship. Remember that he only wants your friendship as an feed-source for his ego.

Although the initial jumping-off period will hurt, it's better than the ongoing nausea of continuing to be involved with this guy. Until he is completely out of your life, you will never have the chance to start to feel better.

I did it.

He kept talking about how he wanted us to get to the stage that we could be ‘really good friends’ like his feelings for me in any other way just evaporated into thin air. I wanted to ask him how and why but I managed to maintain my self respect and just said ‘ok’. He told me how I’d hurt him and he was finding it hard to talk to me because of the awkwardness. He admitted he had caused me hurt but the rest was all him. So after he disappeared offline I’ve just quietly blocked him after the message ‘no feminist on earth treats women the way you treated me. You are a bad person. No more’. The longer message would have given him something to show to his girlfriend and mates when ‘all he tried to do was be friends’ or something. They won’t know the full truth of course. Anyway.

It’s done, I feel sick and regretful and more hurt than ever, but it’s done.

Well done.

The fucker saying you have hurt him makes me want to scream!

One day at a time x

This whole concept of being friends after a relationship is BS anyway. (Unless both sides are happy with the relationship ending, or you are in a social or work circle that means you can't help but bump into each other.)

Graciela - Yeah the level of hurt he has caused can’t be expressed here. I mean I’m anorexic FFS. How can I ever be friends with him after what he’s done?! I put so much effort into ‘trying’ to have a civil conversation last night and when I said that I couldn’t do it, I wasn’t feeling up to it he had to actually ask ‘what’s wrong?’. It’s like he just parcels it away. Made the point that he hasn’t self harmed over it, despite the fact he did on multiple occasions when we were together. God it takes some sleep to realise when you are talking to a pure narcissist.

Ellisandra - Yeah he has been very scathing about the message I sent about him causing my relapse. As I say, I had protected him from it until he told me he had a new girlfriend and it ‘just happened’. Because I’m NOT a bad person, but I do realise that he’ll never accept it now and that I need to move on somehow. And I can’t meet anyone new until I’m better, because frankly at the moment I’ll scare them.

I feel like death. I mean not suicidal death but just horrible. I think I’ve been the bigger person here, it just hurts that he sleeps soundly at night and I’m having to drug myself because of what he’s done. And I can’t tell him because I’ll never accept it. Argh.

WELL DONE.

This is the bit where you are bumped and bruised and grazed from jumping off.

Give it a month and you’ll be so glad you did it.

Vwlphb - We just got on so well. All the same likes, dislikes, views on everything. It made me think maybe we COULD be friends. But I’ll always want more and know what he did before he met his better girlfriend. I just don’t think I could do it. Maybe that makes me weak but he was with his ex for over 3 years and their break up was pretty mutual hence why they are now best mates I guess.

DS has just gone with his Dad. I’m alone now. I don’t think I can go out. I feel too scared of seeing him somewhere. This is going to be my life for a while - petrified of going out as we have all the favourite places.

sweet it’s ok to stay in. It took me a while to go out, for me it was even harder as my ex was abusive and I had an injunction out againsed him for harassement, I was scared of seeing his car (looking out for him all the time). I would not go to the places we used to enjoy going too. After a while I realised that these places were not ‘our places’, they were ‘my places’ as most of the places were places I used to go to before I met him, I showed him these places, why should I stop going just because of him? In the summer I even went back to the place we went on holiday together because it wasn’t ‘the place where we went on holiday together’ it was ‘my favourite place’, I took the dd’s and it was hard at first but I’m not going to let any man ruin my life and stop me going to the places I like. I have never bumped into him, never seen his car hanging around, I don’t even know where he is or what he’s doing, I don’t need to as he’s not a part of my life anymore.

Take your time, I used to try and go out to begin with, often I had to come back home because I felt so anxious. I remember last year having to take the dd’s Out to spend their Christmas money, to the town where he was staying, I felt awful but I had to do it for my dd’s.

Love - Yeah they were always my favourite places but I know him and they will be the places he’ll be taking his new girlfriend. I can’t see that or it will set me back a long long way. I’m still coming to terms with it all, despite having accepted it. I actually texted him a couple of days ago to tell him where I was going to be all day - not because I wanted to see him, but because I didn’t want him to come anywhere near.

Apparently (he said last night) his therapist has told him to ‘protect himself’ from me, which I suppose goes to show that he hasn’t told them the full truth of the situation, why would he. That’s just upset me a lot. All I’ve ever done is buy him things, support him, be good to him. Until he utterly destroyed me. I had a weekend where I wanted to die (son not with me) but I sought help and haven’t spoken of it since and he slept with me multiple times AFTER that. I don’t know why I’m torturing myself with this, maybe it’s just because I just don’t want to have been to blame for this new relationship. I guess this is what I’m going to have to go through. X

Massive massive well done. It will be tough now for a few days but try to keep yourself busy, you will get through this and you will feel better. Be kind to yourself in the meantime and don’t beat yourself up. You will go through sadness, anger and lots of other emotions. That’s perfectly normal and all part of the grieving process. You will feel better sooner than you think right now.

Graciela - Yeah the level of hurt he has caused can’t be expressed here. I mean I’m anorexic FFS. How can I ever be friends with him after what he’s done?!

I have no doubt that that is true, however my point is: even if that weren't the case, being friends after a relationship ends is a futile waste of time (except in the unusual circumstances I mentioned earlier).

Yes I've done it myself, but in retrospect it was a mistake and I would have been better off letting go completely. Which is always my policy nowadays.