Has anyone else suffered like this?

[chowpinpoodle]

I'm so fed up and seem unable to get over an ex. An ex who was absolutely no.good for me at all. It was a lockdown relationship and we bubbled up. The relationship was on and off and full of anxiety. As always, it started off really well. He really destroyed my self esteem, digs and put downs but he chased me initially. After me ending it, he made sure I knew he had slept with someone else, by emailing me! We are mid 40s! I firmly believe he was cheating on me.
The new girlfriend posted on facebook things that were condescending and I believe about me. He is very clever in thar I believe she hasn't had the full story and she has been manipulated. Anyway, it seems he has found the live of his life. Yes, I looked. He made me out to be crazy and said I'd lost touch with reality amongst other things. It's making me feel that it was me, after all he is yet again in another relationship with a successful woman. I wonder if he has changed and they have all the good parts we had. I just want to move on but I feel haunted and traumatised by it. I've has counselling, I've joined a club, I've progressed at work. All the things you are 'supposed' to do after a breakup. I just can't seem to properly move firward. It has been a year and I doubt he gives me a second thought.

A year is nothing in time because getting involved with these people is hugely damaging. The best thing to do is not expect to have recovered by a certain time, don't put yourself under any pressure to do so and just don't react - you know he is doing these things deliberately to cause you harm, so take that power away for him. See him for the idiot he is. Seriously, cheating and sleeping around in his mid forties - what a loser.

Yes, having broken down your healthy boundaries he made you basically dependent or even unhealthily addicted to him. You know he's toxic but you still feel this obsessive craving to rectify what you think went wrong. This guy gets off on emotionally destroying women and has some kind of serious issues.
If you look at your feelings as addiction to a person = which is what codependentcy is, you may be able to understand that the compulsive nature of your feelings can never be fulfilled in a relationship with this person.
Think about what you would do to become sober and healthy from any other addiction and do those things.

He’s basically going to be repeating those toxic behaviours to his new girlfriend; you should feel sorry for her and anyone associated with him

This poem might help

www.elyricsworld.com/poor_girl_lyrics_maya_angelou.html

Be very kind to yourself and delete him/her from all your social media- you don’t need to see any of this. Block his email/his number as well

So by mid-40s, this excuse of a man was still cheating, putting a woman down to pump up his pathetic ego and manipulating a new woman into believing lies about his ex.

This is far from gallant, kind, caring, even just decent.

And this is who you are wasting your life bothering over?

Your ex has no redeeming qualities. None. You need to believe this. This contributes to why substandard men can continue to get sex and have no reason to take a look at themselves.

Find inspiration from somewhere else music, literature, travel, fashion, community gardening, local politics.

Yes others have suffered like you, some more, some less, but you are feeding your monster. You need to spend the rest of the summer starving it.

You need to stop stalking them on SM.

He’s a narcissist.

you need to read how to kill a narcissist

Maybe a little extreme @Scoopingthemochi
Are you also offering an alibi? 😃

"Stalking" - how else are you meant to know how bad these secretive, manipulative cheating guys are? Looking at information they make available on social media is not "stalking" - far from it. The OP needs this information to realise what a creep he is.

People come into your life for a reason........they also leave your life for a reason