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.

OP I will say this as gentle as I can: NO CONTACT. None. You need this in order to be able to move on. And if someone asks, you can say as much.
You are going through the 5 stages of grieving. And so may he, to a lesser extent. But while contact makes it easier for him (it can help delude himself that, given he ended it, he could come back anytime, even though he knows he won‘t. That quite alleviates the grieving) it makes it harder for you (you‘ll only feel dragged along, given false hopes).
Take this advice from a woman who had her ex (ex for 4 months, because Long distance issues) visit her from overseas and trying to persuade her to stay over night (I declined) - only to ‚confess’ a week later over phone from overseas, that his girlfriend of 4 months was pregnant, 3 months in and he knew since 2.5 months. And that he looked forward to the baby.

No contact! Give it a year, at least. Until you really don‘t give a shit any more, whether you have contact with him or not.

Thanks Deepwater. You are, of course, completely right. I haven't been in touch all weekend as I've been with my family. I am not going to block him on anything because I'll be scared he will turn up wanting to discuss it.

I will, though, ignore him if he contacts me.

I will count the days of no contact on here, so you can hold me accountable.

And for help when I'm faltering.

I need to do this for me. X

I like your idea, Dowser. I'm going to pick a day this week and spoil myself. I'll get some stuff for my holiday.

OP you could send him a quick message telling him you need space and therefore you block him, and to please respect this, no hard feelings. I (believe I) know you hesitate doing that, I did. But ignoring is not enough in my experience. Asking for no contact and then blocking is hard, but it does put you in the driver‘s seat and is therefore the first step to healing, in my experience.
You need to consciously decide to cut all ties, including depriving yourself of any option to spy on him or his new girl.

Do you think they stll go through a grieving process if they left for someone else? Or would that be later?

Sausage it seems they mostly do. Some may gloss over it with a new relation, but at some point it hits them, too. Was definitely the case for said ex. Was also true for a room mate I had, who told me he ended his relationship with gf, they stayed in contact, he never understood why she took it so hard, when he told her, his good old friend, about his new life, new gfs. Until she had a new guy, then it hit home.

They also lose the prospective future they invested in, the partner and life they got used to (l believe there is also a physical component to it, like withdrawal symptoms).

I once heard a divorced woman, who went on to write books about it, say that both partners, the one who left and the one who was left, go through the same 5 stages of grief, but never at the same time. And I think this is true. You may be depressed and fondly remember the good times, but if the guy who left you feels the same and tries to connect over it, that feeling disappears rather quickly, in my experience, and all that is left is the desire to kick his teeth in.

Thanks deepwatersolo, that's really interesting. My ex was strange, he took ages to get all his stuff from our home so I saw him quite a bit after he left. One day he would be practically whistling, the next time he wouldn't be able to look at me, another time seeming desperate to talk about all sorts, I found it really confusing. Never been through anything like that.

He was so cold the first weeks he left, it made me wonder if he was some kind of sociopath lol. I try not to think about it all too much but I am curious about it sometimes.

Yeah, Sausage that sure sounds that leaving was harder for him than he had anticipated. I actually don‘t think it is helpful to dwell on it when you are in the middle of coping with being left, as it may feed into false hopes, but with some distance it is fair to acknowledge that the person who left may also have struggled with the separation. It is quite common they do. Even when there is already someone new in the picture.

Yeah I know, probably not best to dwell. Not been great lately, weather has been affecting metalwork in fracture so haven't been out and about as much. I know it's not healthy to dwell. Sometimes I think if I can understand it all fully then I can move on but there's another question in my head that I'm trying to figure out. Probably best to let go I suppose as I'll never know. Thank you. :)

Sausage, and for you, too, OP.

I'm another that would suggest no contact. I'd also not contact him to say that is what you are doing. No contact means just that. Also don't reply to any messages. Zilch ! Why would you want to massage his ego ?
He has left you for another woman and is happy to introduce her as his new gf. He is trying to prove to himself that he is a good guy by keeping in contact with you ( to help with your heartbreak and trauma ah bless the fucker )
You need to do what is right for you. Start your life by creating a new 'normal' i.e with him not in it.

I was going through a bad break up years ago and my mothers friend told me her story.

She was engaged to a man and they were so happy, but overnight he changed his mind and left her. He then went on to marry someone else. Anyway, this lady spent 10 years pining, crying and was in total shock really about what happened. She never looked at another man.
Then after about 10 years she got together with her friend and things slowly progressed, she was still not over the first fiance and her heart was still broken.

Anyway, she eventually married her friend and years and years later, she was at a dinner dance with him and she saw the first fiance there with his wife. He was pissed out of his mind and abusing his poor wife publicly and she said she finally was grateful for what happened.
What she thought was the end of the world was actually the luckiest escape of her life.

Now when she told me this i was stunned because she had been married for about 30 years and herself and her husband were madly in love like teenagers still so i didnt even know she ever had a boyfriend before him, not to mind wasting 10 years crying over him!

That really helped me at the time and i hope it helps you too, even a small bit.
Heartbreak is awful but i hope you can put this man behind you, he is not the man you thought he was.

He is not worth another minute of your precious life.

Can I just jump in and say to carrot - please tell your friend about Women's aid. They will help her.

Local office here.

Hi springydaff - I'm in another country so Women's Aid is no good but I will try to find out if we have something equivalent.

Well.. apparently my ex is drinking and going to the local brothel!
(I am reliably informed).
I said he can do what he likes, it has nothing to do with me.
Apparently it's because he's so upset about what happened with us .... er... he waltzed off, attempting to do a flit so that I'd come home and find him gone.
He has an alcohol problem - that's why he's drinking like crazy (no one to help him keep it in check) and as for the brothel thing, shows what his attitude to women really is.

Victoria whether to announce or not announce the no contact thing really depends on the situation. I did not announce it at first, and went NC right after he told me of 3 months pregnant girl friend (one week after he had tried to persuade me to spend the night together during his transatlantic visit). But after a constant stream of emails, sms, messages (some of which were impossible to block) I wrote him I needed space and he needs to respect that.
After which there came a couple of texts, but then it stopped.
For a couple of months. It changed again, shortly before another transatlantic visit, when he decided he wanted to see me again, and announced dropping by at my workplace. At which point I broke NC to tell him I didn’t want to see him. He turned quite nasty, and in the end I told him that if he did not leave me alone, I would have a nice phone chat with his girlfriend where I‘d ask her to make him stop contacting me. She was 7 months pregnant at the time. That did the trick. (He contacted me again over a year later. I had moved on, he had come to a point where he respected my boundaries, from then on normal occasional online contact was possible. But not before. I would not have thought of contacting him, frankly, but I didn’t mind either. It just didn’t matter any more.)

@brainache
Sorry for the late reply. Still riding the rollercoaster. Some days I think “I’m going to be ok” and others I think “Is this really happening?” Stay strong.

You are all so lovely. 3lucky stars, that's a good story to remind us that things happen for a reason and there's life beyond this. Thanks for sharing

I'm ok today. No contact. He has sent a few prodding messages, but I'm practicing radio silence. He'll get the message eventually.

I spent the afternoon with friends who were never his greatest fan - and that helps too - when people remind me that he's not completely the lovely man I have him pinned down as.

This week is busy - and I'm meeting up with lots of people. I have also made plans to visit friends in another part of the country for February half term. I'm giving myself things to look forward to and catching up with people who love me.

All positive.

Today has been a good day.

Sausage, what a disgusting, creepy toad. You have dodged a bullet, my love. There's not a lot there to pine for. Alcoholic and a sleazeball too. He's scum. You are so much better off - whether you feel it right now or not.

@brainache78
It was my ex that has been going to the brothel. I feel sick.

Sorry Carrot. I'm an idiot.

I'm not surprised that you feel sick. I would too. He is definitely not the man you thought he was.

I knew about the alcohol problem of course - and he'd be ok for a while and then go off on binges where he'd be drinking every night, though over the last year he really seemed to have it much better under control.
The brothel thing - when we first go together he told me that he had been to a brothel twice when he was 18. It took me a long time to get my head around that and in the end I thought ok, he says he hasn't been since and this is a different culture here where it is seen as a right of passage.
Now I wonder if he has been while we have been together. I suppose I should just try not to wonder. Maybe he has started going again because he has no sex on tap and his whatsapp woman didn't work out?
Either way he is a complete sleazebag.
I am now glad I am free of him.

How horrible carrot, glad you are rid of him.

Not only had my sleazebag being seeing prostitutes he was also signed up to a dating site while living with ow
Part of the week with her and a couple of nights a week in a flat while running the hull office.
I hope no hull woman here got caught in his net because you can bet your bottom dollar
He will have been ‘ out there’

What a bunch of charmers we saddled ourselves with!

Ladies, we are awesome, strong women.

We really don't need these specimens in our lives.

Well this has put me off for life [fsanta]

Agreed @brainache