Stalking ex's new gf on social media - why?

[tinseltits21]

Background: I was in a toxic relationship with an avoidant and emotionally unavailable man for 18 months and was trauma bonded to him. He ended things and I did a lot of healing work on myself. I am now in a healthy relationship and generally feel like I had a lucky escape.

However, I recently discovered that he has a new gf and I can't help but try to find info out about her on social media. I cannot understand why I am doing this! If he came back to me and asked me to get back with him, I never would. I don't want to be with him, I'm in a new healthy relationship, so why am I interested in his new gf?

I have noted that she is 5 years younger than him and seems similar to me (works in a caring profession, is clearly keen to make an effort as she is always liking his friends' social media posts etc) so I find myself drawing conclusions like 'oh she's younger so he's chosen her so she'll be easier to manipulate', 'she's in a caring role like I am, she is probably emotionally aware and will find his emotional avoidance difficult'. I am now going to draw a line under my stalking because it is no good for me.

My reaction to his new relationship and my interest in his current gf seems completely crazy to me. The only possible explanation I have for my intrigue is that I want to find some evidence that the relationship will fail because I am bitter - I didn't realise I was, but I have found myself feeling angry that he gets to move on and be happy after all the pain and distress he caused me.

Any thoughts?

I think because you can! I do the same m, even with really random connections. It’s good you
Recognise how ridiculous and unhealthy it is. I do, too.

@Haggisfish3 I keep thinking how much easier it must have been in my parents' era - no social media so when you broke up with someone, you didn't see/hear from them again so had no idea what was going on with them. Ignorance is bliss!

It's just human nature op. Curiosity mixed with a slight tendency towards 'it'll hurt but maybe it'll hurt less if I know as much as possible, that way I can't be surprised' mixed with a little bit of 'is she cuter than me?' And a smidge of martyrdom to the steely blade that is loving and losing.

Daft, but perfectly normal.
You'll be fine.
Her...not so much.

I too think it’s normal

It’s hard to put into words but I think it centres somewhere on the need to understand what type of person falls for such people as your ex….people like you….people like her. It’s reliving your experience from afar to hopefully understand yourself a bit better but also reassure yourself that it’s “not you it’s him”. To do that, this relationship needs to fail too for that to happen and at this stage there’s a certain level of ‘anxiety’ that the relationship will work out, which throws into doubt your current reading of him / you. If they can work out, was it really all him? Etc

The reality is, the information you glean from social media won’t really tell you any of that, and you have to develop confidence in your own convictions anyway, despite what he’s up to.

I have found myself feeling angry that he gets to move on and be happy after all the pain and distress he caused me.

It might help gain a different perspective if think about the reality that he is likely to have had significant trauma in his own life that has led to him being the way he is. So yes, you've suffered, I'm not taking that away from you, but he has also likely suffered.

When you don't (or can't) let go of the suffering from someone mistreating you, it affects how you see the world and how you treat other people. You act in ways that you know aren't all that healthy but they make you feel a bit better. If the original suffering was bad enough, you can become trapped in these coping mechanisms, sometimes for the rest of your life.

If you can catch yourself and change your actions (like you are doing by deciding to stop stalking a stranger online) then you can move on and become healthy again. But sometimes if the trauma happened when you were young, you can have a really hard time knowing how to behave differently or tolerating the discomfort of change long-term.

Maybe that's your ex. Maybe this girlfriend will see his avoidant patterns early and dump him, and the hurt of being dumped will be the thing that finally prompts him to change so he can get her back. That could be hard, because you might feel like, well, why wasn't I enough? But the reality is that his avoidance wasn't about you, it was about him not being ready to recognise and deal with his own issues.

At the end of the day, it means nothing for your life whether he's happy or not. The only person whose happiness should matter to you is you. If you still feel traumatised by your relationship, perhaps you need some counselling or to do some more reflection and self-help so that you can let this experience go and not take it into your new relationship.

I have searched old boyfriends o social media from 30 odd years ago. Found at least 3. Never contacted them or still have feelings for them......I'm just a nosey sod !!

A lot of it is simply because you can. Perhaps it's about making a comparison between between yourself and the new partner and a kind of morbid curiosity.
Problem is these things can quite easily become addictive and habitual.

I think if you were a man in a relationship looking up his ex girlfriend's new man online, the answers you got here would be entirely different.

Just block him and his new girlfriend. What are you going to do after all, nose into her business ad infinitum hoping she ends up going through the same thing that you did?

Respect yourself, your partner and relationship and leave this alone. If you cant, perhaps there's unresolved stuff you need to get out/explore and you need to talk to someone about it

It sounds like you haven’t worked through your feelings about him. What you are doing isn’t idle curiosity, you’re looking for answers, answers that won’t be found stalking a stranger.

People put the information there, eg Facebook , and this day and age , it's easier than in the past to build a psychological and behavioural profile of a specific person or person's.

As to why we build the profiles, could be a number of different perspectives depending on the original person's personality and psychology, which may give an insight into their motives and reasoning.

I’ve done this. I recognised it for what it was: trying to figure out the whys and what ifs. I used to send myself a text every day saying ‘don’t check xxx! You can do this! Day 1/2/37’ until I broke the habit. It’s like that saying about drinking poison - it only harms you.