I have posted on here previously about ending a dead end relationship just before lockdown. It was the right thing to do but now I feel so alone, partly due to lockdown but also due to having toxic parenting and flimsy family connections, poor health and thus quite weak friendships too as my illness means I would often flake. I do have friends but it’s becoming clear that if I want the second half of my life to be different then I need to rethink my friends too
Due to very chaotic upbringing I have always gravitated to people who are either chaotic, addicted or narcissistic types, based on my immediate family growing up.
I blocked my ex quite a few weeks ago, maybe over a month, days run into one another. After a series of horrible arguments I blocked him on every platform as he kept coming back on new ones and most recently wrote me a letter!
I veer between feeling glad I’m out of it and then terribly sad that I’m now pretty much alone apart from my kids and he had been dropping lots of hints re marriage etc.
I can’t be bothered to write too much now but there were multiple issues, I wasn’t his priority and he wasn’t always honest and I ended up very hurt for many reasons.
One of the issues was his very close friendships with recent exes and lies around time spent with them.
One was a constant fixture in our relationship although we never met, him and her met regularly for meals, coffees, spoke on the phone , lied about trips away etc, but al supposedly platonic ‘we get on much better as friends’, I never felt easy about it but I had to accept she was there to stay, and I might have been ok if he hadn’t turned out to be such a liar everywhere else.
Anyway...long story short...
I didn’t know how to block his business social media page so didn’t bother, it’s quite industry specific so nothing really of note , so not really a cause for concern but I had completely forgottten not to ‘follow’ the page.
So today, up pops a post from his page and the post is all about a collaboration with this particular ex. They are not anywhere near in the same field but I guess everyone is trying new things now to stay afloat and relevant. Throughout our relationship, a common theme was him supporting and helping her, they don’t have kids together, it used to piss me off as I struggled to get him to help me with anything, but again, I tried to be cool as she was there before me etc I didn’t want to be one of ‘those’ girlfriends (Emily from friends) their social group is shared and we were in an ldr so all the odds were against ‘us’ really.
So it looks like (to me) that this collaboration is to give her a leg up, I stupidly then Against my better judgement I looked at her personal page as my stupid curiosity was piqued and I was really sad to see lots of posts between them, various things, namechecking each other and all their mutual friends ’ Liking’ and laughing together with them and just generally fun and much more cohesive than our relationship ever was.
I know it was my choice to end things so I have no right now to complain about this but it wasn’t an easy decision to end it, I tried everything I could to make it work but it was very one sided, he didn’t want to change anything about his life.
Seeing all those posts and knowing they’ve been working together just left me feeling really down, Jealous and dark and so unloved and unlovable, they’ve been working together on various issues since I met him but this is something new, it felt like he always needed a valid reason to meet her or talk on the phone and a lot of the time just wasn’t assertive enough to say he was meeting her without having a back up story.
I felt like an absolute weirdo for stalking her page, and i feel like I have missed the boat, made a huge mistake, played right into her hands etc, they’ve split more than once before me and I convinced myself there’s unfinished business and now I feel like I’m proved right. He previously justified a lot of it by saying she’s got a bf so nothing would happen but it’s very clear she no longer has a boyfriend.
I have to remember what an absolute shit he was to me and try not to feel so hurt.
I think the truth of it is I’m lonely, middle aged, poor health, lost my figure, losing my looks, had some delves into online dating and the options were beyond dire and I feel like I’m going to be alone for a very long time.
I guess lockdown compounds the loneliness.
Sorry I’m just waffling now.