Broken

[Waaahbaby]

this is so stupid and I wish I never felt this way. I left an abusive, narcissistic relationship just over a year ago. Things were bad for a long time and so awful that I to leave in secret with the kids. The inevitable has happened and he’s met someone else. I don’t know how they met, he doesn’t have friends and never went out. He’s been taking her for weekends away, something he never, ever did with me. Takes her to restaurants that I used to ask him to go to with me. We never went out. She uses social media a lot and I’ve looked. I need to block and not look but I can’t. I feel utterly broken. I don’t want him, I don’t miss him. I feel as if I’m finally grieving but for the life I thought I’d have. I’m so so sad.

My ex did something similar. I wasn’t in love anymore but she twisted the knife and took the ball back in her own attempt to move on. I’m doing so she hurt me a lot and it didn’t need to be done. We’d separated 6 months prior.

I bet there was a time he was nice to you too. That's what narcissists do - they start off giving their new partner the world and then they slowly destroy them.

Don't follow her on social media - it may feel like she is getting the best out of him, but so did you at some point. You know how this story will end, she doesn't yet.

I don't think you still love him, I think its probably more about validation. And also maybe still grieving the relationship you dreamed it would be.

Maybe...if he regretted his actions or was sorry or felt he was wrong to have treated you as he did, it would hurt less. You could chalk it up to 'not everything works out'.

Because as much as you know he was the problem, there's always a little part of you deep down saying 'for some reason, another person, someone whom I loved, who i thought loved me...must have thought I deserved this'.

And when you see him flouncing about, happy and unencumbered with a new woman its like...how could he just feel nothing? No shame, no care at all for how he treated me? How could I have meant so little to him? No...more like, how could he have hated me this much?

It's sad.
But there's no one in him.

Maybe she's paying for these weekends away and for the meals OP .

You're upset because you think she's getting the thing that you never got and that in response it means that you're not good enough.

Can I just reframe this and tell you that he's taking her out to those places because he remembers you asking and he's just upped his game for manipulation and love bombing. She'll get the exact same treatment eventually you know that right? She isn't going to get anything different long term.

People like that never actually change, it's hard wired into them. Just wanting to put that out there because yeah it looks like they've had a brain transplant and that the new person is more deserving, but no... you'd have more chance winning the lottery.