Friend and ex boyfriend

[Charredtea]

Aibu? I’m in the process of splitting / have split and ending relationship with my partner.
We still have a lot of love between us but incompatibility in lots of other areas so it is a painful split.
i ended it but it’s taken time.

we have a mutual friend who I thought was being a supportive friend to me through the ups and downs but lately she has been really close to him and instead of the efforts we were making to try and repair the relationship or end in a kind way, I lost faith in it all, he seemed to be sharing a lot with her and she was , I don’t know what, comforting him, his confidante, but I didn’t feel able to have frank conversations with him anymore so I just walked away altogether.

I guess as I’ve ended it it’s his business who he hangs with and what they do so I have distanced myself from her and since doing so she seems to be trying to , I don’t know, bait me, wind me up, I can’t work it out.
Keeps messsging me feeling me whatever her and my ex have been doing, planning, talking about.

i purposely took him off my social media so I didn’t dwell on him but stayed following her as to all intents and purposes she’s my friend but she keeps tagging him in stuff and I stopped following her as a consequence.
they both share a very male dominated hobby and she’s very ‘not like the other girls’ so they’ve bonded over this .

now she has started sending me links to stuff she’s doing with him or has tagged him in, like it’s just funny ‘he did so and so, so I said I’d do x and I’ve just posted it online’ as though I’m missing out on something .

she also put up a post about how jealousy is a horrible trait and she’s shocked that people are jealous of her because they’re meant to be her friends.
no idea if this is aimed at me but the timing fits.
Ive deactivated my socials now because I have hundreds of mutuals between the two of them and I can’t stand the reminders.

i have no idea wtf she’s doing , she’s acting like she’s just trying to keep me in the loop or include me but it’s really freaking me out, I don’t want a confrontation with her but I just want to gauge on here whether I am reading too much into it ?

I’ve started ignoring her now although I need to somehow not be weird as we’ll still meet socially in larger groups but I don’t know what to say to her without saying something that will start an argument.
she asked me why I’ve backed off and whether she’s done something to upset me.

ive told her more than once how heartbroken I am about ending the relationship and how I’ve come off socials because of constant reminders of him, surely she can’t be that stupid or insensitive?

she is incredibly selfish and goes after what she wants, has definitely been interested in my ex in the past and she is fiery and I’m not up for dealing with her weirdness on top of the emotional fallout of my relationship.

she has done similar with other peoples boyfriends in the past linked to their hobby and she says it’s just women being petty ans jealous. I don’t want to be one of those women and in a weird way this experience with her has kind of coloured and changed the end of my relationship which is been hoping to end on a nicer note with the hope of still being friends but the way that she’s moved seamlessly into what was my space with him has made it hard for me to have the conversations with him I wanted to and I just walked away completely as felt a bit embarrassed and awkward

Sounds like she’s more interested in your reaction to her being friendly with him than anything else. She will get bored if you ignore it

I agree with the above poster.

Use the grey rock technique on her and be slow to respond.

Yes that’s exactly how it feels, I genuinely feel like she’s trying to get a reaction but I have no idea why, and I don’t want to ask rather.
she is main character energy in all scenarios so I wonder if this is part of that but it’s effing strange, I wouldn’t dream of behaving like this with anyone, especially not a friend going through a break up.

it feels like she’s already got what she wanted in terms of inserting herself there, and having his ear, being his shoulder to cry on and making a public show of how much fun they’re sharing, all while knowing that I’ve been gutted about losing him , (even though it was my choice), so why on earth would she want anything else?

im not petty generally and I understand that when couples split some friends naturally go one way or the other, feels like she wants her cake and eat it and it would have been fine for me to stay friends with her while she’s still his friend had she not started playing this weird game

Yes I’m doing this, thank you. We were pretty close before so it’s definitely going to register with her that I’ve backed off .

She’s probably dating him or trying to and keeping tabs on you to see how over him you are.

Yeah maybe, that makes sense. I look back now and think I definitely overshared with her about my relationship falling apart. She was really ‘there’ for me and I really trusted her and when me and him were trying again it seems that’s when she got closer to him, at first they were supposedly chatting about me, him asking her to check in with me during the break up and then ’we just got chatting about doing this event together’ and she is gregarious and fun and maybe she was a comfort but when we got briefly back together they carried on with their closeness and then I started to feel excluded from their plans and a bit weird.
i didn’t feel I could ask him to backtrack with her when I wasn’t sure of our footing together and our connection and reunion plans felt very tainted for me

She is after him but may be wary as she may sense he still loves you. But at the same time it seems she may need your involvement in order to give her a feeling of ‘getting’ him off you.

I would stay away from both of them. You don’t want to have anything to do with her.

I am not sure why she was your friend - have I misunderstood something, is she really nice?

I thought she was really nice. But I don’t think so anymore.
this behaviour has been so very strange, it’s been confusing because she’s still acting like she cares about me.

I could not see her putting up with that behaviour from anyone if it was her ex boyfriend.

she can be really nice and is good fun, kind, generous, thoughtful, lots of friends but she is also very self centred, she is successful and very good at self promotion

she is very jealous and had a real bee in her bonnet about her previous partner’s exes, she’s incredibly possessive and territorial .

He does still love me and if I changed my mind he’d have me back straight away.

i don’t play games and I don’t want to string him along just to get under her skin, plus his new closeness to her makes such a difference to me now in terms of my dynamic with him

I am sorry you are going through this. It is messing up your closure and especially how you were trying to temper the ending with a loving feeling and memory being maintained between you.

Fuck them both off OP. When I split up from my first husband it later turned out that the friend who was most there for me was actually shagging him (I genuinely don’t know how she had the time, we were together a lot). Some twisted people just thrive on it.

Thank you for your lovely words, yes exactly this, it is messing up my closure, I didn’t want it to end like this.
I know there’s no perfect ending but we’ve been in each other’s lives for a very long time as have many of our friends and family.
It’s added another layer of hurt and heartbreak because I almost feel I’ve been betrayed by my friend and that he’s been disloyal to me and him by sidestepping into this close friendship with her .
i know he is likely hurting too but he’s segued straight into having fun with another woman, whether or not it’s ’just Friends’ , whereas not only am I licking my wounds but I’m watching them co-create something new together that everyone else can see too.
and I can’t talk to him about it because he’s not mine anymore

Whoah. What a bitch. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
in a way I’m not glad exactly that this happened but it’s helped in some ways to help me see there’s no return.
they have a bond now, she’s in there with him and there’s no way things could go back to how they were and he is not going to give up his friendship for a potentially rocky relationship .
i think she is enjoying thinking she’s ’won’ a competition I didn’t know I was in.
shes extremely competitive and he ticks a lot of her boxes.

Block the b1tch. Block both of them on everything - Facebook, WhatsApp, mobile phone, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, BlueSky - everything.

My guess is she is actually already shagging your ex (or very soon will be) ...... and all the posts keeping you in the loop are deliberate to taunt you.
.
You may also want to stay off socials for 4 months - because you mention lots of mutual connections. Whilst you probably don't want to block all of those people, having a break from social media will give your head breathing space.

Take your friend's power away by blocking completely. Then she can continue whatever games she is playing with your ex based on her own desires - rather than the kick she's getting out of hurting and taunting you.

I should add, this man can be very passive at times which is partly why I ended it in the first place plus is easily flattered, despite being everything on paper he’s actually not very confident but loves being around women especially nurturing ones.
I think she is offering him some nurturing and kindness whilst he’s at sea from our ending.

He’s well off and generous and she has high standards and even though successful she lives way beyond her means .
id often be embarrassed at how much he spent on me and thought he was quite wasteful which didn’t sit well with me, she thought I was mad for not taking everything I could get from him.

@CharredteaOnwards and upwards. It was awful at the time but I wouldn’t p on either of them if they were burning now, and am very happily married to my forever person, with an amazing son. Sack them both and concentrate on yourself. Things happen for a reason x

Thank you, it feels deliberate to taunt me, but that seems absolutely mental.

Ive done nothing to her and been very generous to her and about her spending time with my boyfriend when we were a couple. He has lots of women friends so I didn’t think much of it until she started doing weird name dropping things about him to me and then things ramped up and up.
i can only think she wants a showdown so that if / when they do get together she looks like a poor victim of his jealous ex rather than someone who’s had her sights set on him since the beginning and has used our flailing relationship as a piggyback ride straight to him .
i sound flippant but im not. Im devastated, hurt, raging, shocked, sad and feel embarrassed and upset that I couldn’t make it work and that he has someone ready and waiting to help him get over me

It must be dreadfully difficult.

Try not to feel betrayed by him as he must be trying to fill the void, but only because you mattered a lot to him and he misses you, and she has made sure she is the first person at hand right in front of him.

As you did end it with him, and as this is now going on with your old friend interposing herself on him while giving you a running commentary, probably the more distance you can get from them both the better. The more you have to deal with her the more it will obscure all that had been lovely with him, in spite of the break-up, which you were trying to hold in your heart.

Oh that’s a lovely ending, congratulations!
id love to think I could meet someone new one day, who is just for me!

You write so beautifully and thoughtfully. Thank you
mom taking a complete backseat from everyone for now, everyone linked to them both.

Seems to me she's thoroughly enjoying rubbing your nose in it.

I know. I have been nothing but kind to her. She didn’t know many people when she moved here, just mainly the men through her hobby with my ex.

I introduced her to so many people as did he.
I have helped her out in numerous ways and it felt like the relationship was reciprocal until this .
i supported her during her heartbreak and defended her in spaces where she had been ’tricky’ (explosively jealous) during and following her relationship and when she was falling out with people, sometimes due to her friendships with their partners and husbands.
she seemed to support me through my heartbreak

part of me thinks maybe I shouldn’t begrudge that with her and my ex but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t baiting my ex with posts and messages about me and her….

For whatever reason, I took her at face value and now I feel like I got it so wrong. I can’t make her out at all anymore and because my relationship was already rocky I couldn’t really discuss any of my discomfort with my ex as prior to this we both had nothing but good things to say about her

It sounds as though she was possibly a parasitic incubus all along.

Oh god, many moons ago, I had a friend once who I'd confided all the gory details of the break up with my partner, including my angst over my decision to end the relationship. He was a really lovely bloke, but sadly not for me. We ended on good terms, no bitterness or anything.
A couple of months later, she was seeing him. She took me on this special lunch thing, saying she had something to tell me, and made a big thing about 'breaking the news.' There was something triumphant about her as she said it. It just felt v wrong & sneaky - like she'd been patiently waiting in the wings for him, and all along she knew all the very private stuff I'd told her about our relationship.
Slightly different to your situation - but I imagine you feel pretty similar to how I felt then, and it's not a nice feeling. I know they were both free agents etc, but it felt like a betrayal by her. Maybe because my oldest group of girlfriends had always had this unwritten/unspoken rule that none of us would date each other's exes.
I just let them both drift tbh - grey rock is definitely your best response.

You sound as though you still love him.

You also sound quite young, many a relationships when young have stops and starts, usually because the female want to implement some boundaries within the relationship.

It happens.

Your ex is probabably doing this to make you jealous, make you see what you are missing, unfortunately he's committed the crime of the century by getting close to your friend. We all have those good time friends when young who are not really friends, more sort of wingman friends to go out with and have a good time.

She sounds like one of those, her values are different to yours, always on the uptake and greedy, she wants your ex.

The thought of what they are talking about must make you feel uneasy, she's no friend, keep her at arms length, I wouldn't have a showdown with her, don't give her that satifaction.
As for him he's blown it if he ever wanted to return.

There are plenty of fish in the sea, get yourself back out there.