Being replaced

[brainache78]

I am absolutely broken and confused.

My DP of 5 years dumped me out of the blue a few weeks ago. He said it 'wasn't working' and I don't understand what he meant.

We were friends for years before we got together and had a wonderful (I thought) relationship. We have the same sense of humour, taste in music, outlook on life, taste in pretty much everything. We have a million in-jokes and deeply care for one another. We rarely argued and, when we did, worked through it in a adult fashion and made up quickly. I thought we were so, so happy.

And then bang. I'm dumped.

I've been struggling with that for a few weeks. Doing the usual heartbroken things - not eating or sleeping and crying pretty constantly. Not knowing where it went wrong.

And then - guess what? - he's seeing someone else. He says there was no overlap, but I don't believe that.

It doesn't really matter either way - the fact is that he has chosen someone else over me.

And I know it sounds arrogant, but I don't understand what someone else can give him that I can't. We are such a good match. It has totally destroyed my faith in everything I believed about me, him and our relationship and I'm grieving.

He says he still loves me. He has been on the phone crying about how much he misses me - yet he is sticking to his guns (before you say it - I have blocked him now - but we have the same mutual friends, so I saw him at a funeral yesterday and there are always going to be times where we see each other).

Our friends are as baffled as I am and are mostly calling him a fucking idiot. I believe some of them have said it to his face.

So what is all that about - and how the hell do I get over someone throwing away everything we had and replacing me before my side of the bed is even cold?!

I am scared I will never love anyone again the way I love him.

Good luck @brainache78 I bet it will be nice, I found work a help. (Have been off ill now which is annoying).

Thank you @Sausage101

I'm both looking forward to it and totally shitting myself. It has been a long time since I was at work and it is a relentless treadmill.

My Head Teacher just sent me a lovely text saying she hopes I'm ok, is looking forward to having me back tomorrow and that I only have to take it one day at a time - she has my back.

Bloody good boss, she is. You don't find many like her!

Yeah good to have support, my manager is really nice, it's nice when they have your back. That's really sweet of her to send the nice text. :)

@brainache78
Good luck for your first day back tomorrow!

I feel sick, I've avoided all social media but I've just looked up her instagram and it's plastered in pictures of them all over each other. What a horrible feeling. Why did I look.

The pictures are like something from a catalogue, like how you'd pretend to act if you're in love, like sacchirine sweet in a creepy way. Ugh. Help.

God I feel horrible, none of it with me was real was it. How do you get over this, I'm having a right wobble.

Good luck @brainache78 👍. You got this! 💪🏻

@Sausage101
None of it is real with her either.
When she gets bored of him she'll be off like a shot and with a few weeks she'll be taking selfies with some other bloke.

I don't know how these men can go on about loving you so much etcetc and you're the best thing that ever happened and let's get married etcetc and then someone else comes along or there is a small problem in the relationship and then they are off like a shot and claim that it was never real anyway. Users.... use a woman when everything is going great until "something better" comes along and then they are off.

@sausage101 don't do it again. It isn't worth it! I split with my ex in October (he is in his 40s and had an affair with a work colleague in her mid-20s...cliche stuff). The first thing I did was to block both of them on social media to avoid anything like this. I have no temptation to look on their profiles because it truly isn't worth putting time and energy into something so predictable. These twats will get their comeuppance one day, believe me. We (the replaced) are worth more than they ever were!

@sausage101 - I totally get the temptation to look but it only causes pain, block the profiles if you can. I’m sorry you had to see it but remember social media isn’t real, people only post what they want the world to see. Xx

Good luck @brainache78 Hope today goes well.

Thanks carrot 'PInkmonkey and missbee* yeah I know I've avoided it all for months but my sister told me something and curiosity got the better of me. I thought I was stronger than I was to be able to look. Ugh I know I sound dramatic but those images are now burned into my retina, he's 38 and she's 19 but you'd think they were two 14 year olds, it made me want to vomit. Matching onesies and pictures of them staring at each other. She seems to take a lot of pictures of the back of his head lol. I know social media is a bit of a smoke and mirrors thing but bloody hell that hurt.

Well I now feel like just packing a bag and running away.

Wow! I have just read your thread from start to finish OP and although You may not see it, you have come a long way already!!

Your first posts were heartbreaking. You were in a fog of confusion - You could not understand how this 'perfect man' could do something so cruel and you were questioning yourself in every way.

Slowly and surely you have started to see him for what he is & have posted many many small details about this man which paint a different picture to the person you described at the start.

I think you're realising that he is NOT a nice man!
At some point OP, read YOUR posts from start to finish and you'll see what I mean.

One thing that stood out for me was 'Christmas presentgate' where you said that you had lost your dignity. You didn't lose any dignity OP. You rightly gave him the mouthful he deserved and what was his response?'
He said I never fought or argued - that I packed up and moved out without fighting for it. And I know I did - but I was hurt and in shock and trying to maintain some self-respect and dignity.
The FUCKING BASTARD tried to pin it on you.

As for all the bullshit compliments and 'I'll always love you' Oh, OP... 

I hope work goes well today!

Take the days one at a time. You are doing brilliantly!

You have proven that you can ride the storms you'll face in the days and weeks to come.

@sausage101 - I can honestly say I’d feel exactly the same, I dread the day I see a picture of them together considering he hated photos and would always moan about having one!!
I know the packing a bag and running feeling but it only gets us so far. Focus on hour by hour and day by day and remember that you will get through it.
It’s jist shitter than shit, there really is no dressing it up!

The previous time my ex did off he was having a whatsapp "friendship" with some woman in another country which came to nothing. He also mentioned another woman - let's call her "Valerie". He talked about her and how he had flirted with her etc and then after we had split he continued to meet up with me and phone up etc and would "threaten" me with Valerie. He could have her any time he wanted etc and she was way better than me. and she'd leave her boyfriend for him (I can't believe now that I took this fucker back after all of this).
Anyway, this was a year ago - I found out this morning that Valerie got married in the summer - I'm dying laughing - fuckwit could never have had Valerie.
Now starting to see what my Dad meant about fuckwit and his "imaginary girlfriends". Some woman just had to look at him and talk to him and he'd imagine an entire relationship which would naturally be better than the one he was in.

Sorry if I'm a broken record but those images keep playing in my head on a loop. I feel as bad as I did at the start. Why did he stay with me for the best of 7 years. Why does a near 40 year old fancy a teenager? Because she has no worries? I feel sick. I could never have acted like that with him, is it me after all then? I just want to run right now, I hate this and wish I had never met him.

Hi @Sausage101
He fancies a teenager because it makes him feel young. It makes him feel like the big stud again.
He's shallow. She's pretty with presumably a slim teenager's body.
It's just so pathetically predictable.
What a piece of shit he is.

It's not you. It's him. You're not going to behave like a lovestruck teenager because you aren't a lovestruck teenager. You have way more dignity and worth than that.

Don't run even if you want to. If you do want to eventually move out of the same area as him then plan it carefully. What do YOU want to do? Where do YOU want to live? What is the best for YOU?

Agree with @carrotflinger. These men who go for much younger women are almost like vampires...thinking they can gain some youth and it really is a predictable cliche. Looking back with my ex-OH and the big red flag came from his own mother when I moved in with him "You are moving in with Peter Pan, you do realise that?"....god, didn't I?! I thought some of his immature traits may have ironed out over the years we were together, but they didn't. In all honesty I think he has met his match with the OW, 17 years younger. She may be a teacher, but one of her colleagues (who I know) says she's as thick as shit and very airy fairy. So they are welcome to each other.

Thanks @carrotflinger I hate to be a bitch but she's not that pretty, she's a bit gormless looking but it's clear she hangs on his every word, I mean on the instagram she sounds besotted, obsessed, in a bit of a weird way, he met her family after a few weeks (I'm guessing that could be the age gap and that they wanted to check him out)

I dropped every barrier for him, I was quite a closed off person and I wish I had never bothered.

I don't know, I'm tempted to go back to my home area but scared to make any decisions when I'm in a mess and have been ill for a bit.

Every post says 'perfect man' couldn't get more perfect' and all this crap.

@sausage101 how likely is it for you to bump into your ex? I'd definitely evaluate the pros and cons of moving away when you feel up to it. I've moved across the other side of our town and there aren't many opportunities I envisage of bumping into my ex...although his best mate lives around the corner from me. In all honesty, my ex will be shitting himself to come face to face with me again.

"Perfect man" my arse.
There's no such thing and she'll soon find out.
She's "in lurrrrvve" for the first time and therefore completely besotted.
"Gormless" is about right (love that word by the way).
I sometimes think these men like "gormless" because it is non-challenging. I am pretty sure that when my fuckwit ex finally gets a proper girlfriend they will be completely gormless. I was "intellectually hard-work" he informed me. What? I made you think?

It must be really awful for you sausage but do you really want to dress up in his and hers onesies and plaster photos of the pair of you on instagram. Absolutely ludicrous.

Could you take yourself off on holiday somewhere for a change of scene? Couple of weeks?
What's your work situation? Could you move back to your home area and find work?
But if you have an established life where you are - work, friends, home etc - why should you give that up for that fuckwit?

I was considering moving away and am still sort of thinking about it but then I thought I will hang fire for the moment. I like my life here and I don't see why any fuckwit and his shennanigans should take that away from me.

He moved within walking distance. I know I need to go, it's just hard as I like this town and it's become home. I just don't know what to do for the best. I can feel my mental health declining with all this. I'm off to the doctor today as the paramedics I saw last week think I have ptsd from my injury last yeaar. How did things end up like this.

@sausage101 - Go back to the beginning of this thread and read all your amazing comments and words of advice to everyone over the last month or so. You have come so far and you know yourself this is all him, not you. Him jumping to a teenager isn’t a reflection on you, it’s a reflection of him and his midlife crisis... this won’t stick. Is she going to take him as her plus 1 when all her friends start getting married? Or get involved with the beer pong / slut dropping / crazy house parties for her friends 21st ... No. I give it a year..

@carroflinger101 - LOVE the gormless comments. My STBX took his new girlfriend to meet some of our friends recently, I didn’t ask what she was like but one of them said to me “She’s literally the complete opposite of you in every single way and stands next to him like his obedient good little pet” .. I did not stand next to him like a pet, I was always first on that dance floor!