How to move on when I have to see him

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Got involved with someone briefly two years ago, he got over it, I did not. Stayed ‘friends’ as we work together. He’s getting married. I feel horrendous. He doesn’t know how I feel, I’ve just pretend to be fine all this time but have spent most of the last year or so crying. It would be better if I never saw him (or his fiancé who also is in the same building) but I can’t completely avoid it. I feel ashamed of myself for not moving on.

You have to get away from him.

Do you have good friends in that area?

I would certainly plan something really fun for the date he's getting married. I would be abroad at that time. I think his girlfriend doesn't like you because you're a reminder of his relationship with you.

Get a perspective on this man, too. He's not the love of your life. He might have been the love of that time you were together, but that's it. He'll be a distant memory one day and you'll be with someone who really deserves you.

And please stop talking yourself down and comparing yourself unfavourably. You need to start telling yourself good things about yourself.

Yes, yes you are right. I am not looking at things in a useful way. I have used it to tell myself all sorts of horrible things, like there is really something wrong with me.

It was a just fling, an intense one for me but for him - a passing curiosity I think. I think it just managed to plug right into all my insecurities and amplify them.

This has been really helpful to clarify my thinking. Thank you.

I react similarly to these things op, plenty of people do. View the marriage as a turning point - a chance for you to flush it all out of your system, face the painful emotions head on and move forwards with your life. Let's face it, you could stagger on for years like this, trying to be friends, never feeling good enough, carrying the hurt with you. But his marriage forces you to get beyond this. Try to turn it around and see it as a positive thing for you.

I've been through something similar, except ours was more than a fling. He ended up getting back with his ex and marrying her. It was awful.

Thankfully she did not work in the same organisation but I had to leave my job as I just couldn't get over him.

Once I was away from him, I was able to get over it relatively quickly. He also ended up divorced which was rather satisfying for me! He then tried to get back in contact a few years later but I told him to sod off.

Op, could you be suffering from depression? It's hard to judge from your responses, but I'm guessing this relationship, was not even a relationship, it was days or even weeks?

For you to be still devastated two years later, crying for a year, feeling lonely and sad, over something that really never was, is worrying.

Maybe it has amplified other issues you have, of low self esteem, but maybe a trip to your gp might help, be it for counselling or even discussing depression? Something to help you through this?

What do you think?

I experience a lot of anxiety and low moods and have been working with someone on this. A psychologist. She’s very good.

I think it’s also been dragged out by some blurred boundaries. There’s an element of physical contact in our work. And we are still often engaged in high levels of emotional intimacy. It’s all very unhealthy.

Oh OP, I feel your pain
As others have said, your story so reminds me of Iris from The Holiday! It gets me every Christmas! Jasper is my 'knobhead measure', to which I compare any man's shitty behaviour. (My ex has probably broken this measure though!)

It really sounds like you need to physically distance yourself, in order to let go.
(This is rich coming from me, it's 5 months since my breakup and I am nowhere near over my ex). I can't imagine how difficult it must be to still be around him after all this time. But I do understand feeling like having him on some terms, is better than none.
I actually think it is a very case for ex's to actually go on and have a healthy friendship. How can you possibly be friends, when you have feelings that run deeper than that? It has only lead to pain - your pain.
My self esteem is in shreds since the end of my relationship. I too, have wondered why oh why am I not good enough? Why have I vested so much of my self worth, in another person and how they see/treat me?
You need to desperately put your own emotional/mental health first.
The only way you can start to do that, is to put some boundaries in place.
Sending hugs

Thank you, you are right. How could we ever be friends when I still feel the way I do. I am sorry about your break up, I think my self esteem was terrible when we met and then briefly better and now much worse again. I’ve let him run the show basically, he decided if we spend time together or not, I always say yes. I have to stop all that.

I just watched a bit of the holiday. Oddly the girl Jasper gets engaged to is quite like the fiancé. It’s all horrible. I just want it to feel better.