I broke up with my husband and left our home back in Sept/Oct 2016. I started dating pretty soon after, using Tinder.
I met this guy, we got on well, he seemed keen. He said he didn't want to rush into anything, neither did I. Basically our relationship was quite casual, but I still got attached. He was texting me every day, we were seeing each other every week or so. I asked him a few times where it was going; he kept giving the same answer: he wasn't ready to rush into a relationship but it didn't mean that he would never want to be with me.
I kept seeing him because I liked him, even though it made me feel anxious and bad about myself. I started to distance myself from him and he started to make a bit more effort - texting me multiple times a day, saying nice things about me, insinuating things were going to go further.
We ended up going away together. The weekend before, I noticed he had been tagged in a post with a girl. I looked at his Facebook profile and I noticed she had tagged him in quite a few pictures of them together. I asked him about it and he said she was just a friend; there was nothing more there.
On our first night away, I noticed he had lovebites (really severe ones!) on both arms, just below his t-shirt sleeves. I asked him about them and it turns out they were from the Facebook girl. He had been dating her the whole time he was dating me. I had no right to accuse him of cheating etc as our relationship was casual, and I knew it was. I told him I couldn't see him anymore if he was seeing someone else and he said he needed time to make the right decision.
The day after we got back, he gets tagged in another photo with the girl. I lost my shit. We never saw each other again, but I went proper crazy. I messaged him every time I got drunk, I called him a couple of times. I used to go out in the area where he lived hoping to bump into him.
I stopped messaging him about five months later. No contact at all, but I got obsessed with checking his social media and the girl's social media. I stopped doing that after Christmas, promising myself I'd stop thinking about it. On Tuesday he added me on instagram. It made me go crazy again. I added him on Facebook. I saw more posts of him with the girl. I deleted him. Then I added him again. I messaged him asking him to block me. Then I blocked him on everything. The point is - it makes me completely insane. I now feel pretty ridiculous and I have definitely confirmed my crazy status in his mind. He never replied. I don't even know if he read the messages.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? How did you stop feeling like this? It's like I'm desperate for his approval, for him to want me. It's ridiculous and I really want to feel less pathetic. Help.