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

Great turn of phrase.

I think this is correct.

She's been putting on a friendly face, but bitching behind your back and now she's taunting you, hoping to provoke more confidences about your relationship which she will run to ex to tell all. She also sounds like a bit of a liar and you've already noted yourself that she kept telling you to get the ex to spend on you and take what you could get... that was a massive red flag indication of her real character.

Block on everything. She craves attention and the best thing to annoy her is to ignore... if you see her in person and she smarms up to ask by .. just say because I find you irritating and annoying.

Yeah. starting to think so. She’s very fixated on finding her alpha man who looks good alongside her in all situations.
still not sure why the mean girl stuff is happening though, maybe parasitic in terms of my emotional energy too.
she will know that this is taking up brain space for me

Thank you. She’s one ofcthose women who expect the best and always get the best. She likes holding court to a room full of men and hates it when someone more attractive or outgoing than her comes along , I only noticed that recently, she’s actually very nasty and spiteful about them and to them. That caused me to take a big step back because she actually said I enjoy making people feel uncomfortable, which gave me chills but also gave me pause in terms of how I respond to her.
im glad nobody here seems to think is being unreasonable, insecurity and confusion make me sound by own instincts

Just to clarify: nobody thinks what’s she’s doing is ok?
i feel mean burning my bridges with her but equally I can’t believe she thinks this is ok behaviour

No. Nobody thinks what she is doing is OK.

Block and burn the pair of them. Get on with your own life.

Try to get some new hobbies or interests to help take your mind off their behaviour. A new yoga class, a new dance class, swimming, parkrun, craft or art groups- get out and do something.

Get off social media / block them / get active with new activities - this will help your headspace.

I had a friend a few years ago who sounds similar.

We were part of a larger friendship group but she and I got on particularly well and occasionally met up outside of the group. She is married but I started to notice she would court the attentions of men whenever we went out and used to send me screenshot of text exchanges between herself and her friend's husband which she perceived as him flirting with her when it was clear he wasn't at all. Or she'd send me photos of her and her friend's husband telling me to look at the way he was looking at her, when it was a photo of 3 or 4 people and he wasn't even facing her let alone looking at her. She saw what she wanted to see.

The final straw came when I began a relationship with one of the men in the friendship group and she turned her attentions from her friend's husband to my boyfriend. The flirting was embarrassing and off the scale. She told me I didn't need to worry though because, although they had something special I didn't understand, she'd never act on it because she was my friend. He wasn't even engaging and he and the other husband laughed about her attentions having switched.

I backed off from our personal friendship, he avoided being alone with her and it escalated to her dramatically running out of the room crying whenever I was there because I was upsetting her.

In the end, we both just walked away from the group.

I'm telling you my story because there are women who will behave like this. Attention from a man, perceived attention from a man, believing that others find them attractive and other women knowing this is very important to them. They don't give up when you ignore them, they escalate it - the woman in your scenario knows you can't see her SM so she messages you instead to tell you about it!

We ended up blocking this woman and losing the whole friendship group but it was worth it for our sanity.

You need to block her. From experience, she won't stop.

Thank you. I’ve never dealt with anything weird as this before.
I’ve known women interested in people I’ve been seeing, I’ve known plenty of women who cheat and try it on with other people’s partners etc but I’ve never known anyone to do this before.
its odd, and that she has the audacity to message ’have I done something to upset you?’ after I’ve seen her raging with jealousy about other women, and acting hard done by when she’s been accused of being over friendly with other people’s men.
it’s absolutely bonkers.

Thank you. I’m very physically ill at the moment and have been for a few months which has left my defences low .
this combined with my relationship swan song and break up being hijacked by her inane place claiming attention seeking drama loving bullshit has blindsided me and probably not helped my physical or emotional recovery .
so it’s been hard to throw myself into any distraction.

i really hope to get back on top at some point so i can crack on with my life and moving forward and away from this disaster

Oh, yeah, I had the "have I don't anything to upset you?" "Are things OK between us?" from her too.

I posted about it on here at the time. I got the usual you all sound as bad as each other and are you 12? silly responses but a few people warned me that they'd seen it before and that it would escalate. They were right. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that there's any way back from it once it's started and it can only escalate because an actual friend wouldn't do it. Any perceived or previous friendship has gone by this point.

Oh that’s interesting.
It does feel really childish in some ways, it’s certainly not how I’d behave but ultimately it’s my heart, my life and my relationship, so no matter how childish she might be being, it’s having a huge impact on me.
even though it’s not me doing the behaviour and I’m not stooping to her level by ‘having it out’ either, the only grown up thing to do is to walk away but it does really hurt.

im shocked that people carry on like this so blatantly. We’re not that young either but this has really knocked me

If she keeps asking you if you are 'OK?' Perhaps send her a message just saying you are absolutely fine but feel that as you broke up with (BF) it is better to give him space and time to come to terms with it and therefore you will not be engaging for a while, for his benefit.
Don't give her the satisfaction of thinking you are upset or care about what she is doing or she might just ramp it up.
Then block on everything.

I was late 40s and she was early 50s so we weren't young either!

it’s my heart, my life and my relationship, so no matter how childish she might be being, it’s having a huge impact on me.

Agree. You're not in control of someone's behaviour, all you can do is control how you respond to it.

Good luck.

Wow, I hate women like this. Poor you OP. They like to get in the middle of things and harvest all available attention for themselves. No doubt some weird issue from childhood.

It may not be that uncommon as the ready made intimacy from the previous friendship, coupled with the man’s vulnerability, makes it very easy for someone like this woman to move in to tye man’s life.

feels like you need some sort of "unbothered" response to her that pre-emptively shuts down any potential confrontation.

"i'm fine, i'm just not trying to hear about what ex is up to now, given it's not any of my business anymore. i appreciate your concern though xx"

Yes I think I need something along these lines if she pops up again, she seems to have gone quiet now so hopefully she will eff off with the minimum of fuss

To me she sounds like a 'pick me' girl.

I've known one or two in my life. They are never happy unless they are getting attention from a man (perceived or otherwise).

They are also good at pretending that they are a friend to any women in the group but they can't keep that up for long.

'Pick me' girls should be pitied. Don't worry about losing the friendship as it was very superficial on her side anyway. She was never your (or any woman's) friend.

When you think of her, just think about her sad, sad life and feel sorry in a detached way.

I'm sorry you're going through this.

Thank you, yes I think she is, she’s really good at getting picked too, she is steely as heck but able to play vulnerable really well too, disarming and open, wears her heart on her sleeve and says she loves looking after people because she never had children.

She recently made a really public thing of all the women from the men’s hobby group all getting together to connect away from the hobby, it felt performative and queen bee vibes.

maybe I’m being bitchy but I’m seeing her through different eyes now, it feels like every action has a desired outcome that’s not necessarily what it seems on the surface.
anyway lots of people are involved and excited about it so who am I to rain on her multiple parades all over other peoples feelings!

The meeting up with all the other women is just for show. Take no notice.

Every one of them will eventually see through her, just like you do.

Good luck!

I wonder what makes her interested in one woman’s partner more than another’s? Maybe she looks out for chinks in the relationship and where she sees them works on getting more involved.
I know it’s not my business what single consenting adults do with each other, hopefully ill stop caring soon enough

I reckon they are shagging.

Sometimes I think it's the strong relationships they go after. Like it's a challenge.

She was shocked to hear we were rocky and she seemed really sad, so this behaviour has been baffling.
its so childlike, especially to keep making a thing of their time together and plans and in jokes and then ask me what’s up as though I’m completely oblivious to constant reminders that my lover and once best friend is building all this anew with another woman.l, our mutual friend.
i don’t think they’re shagging yet, but it’s definitely her aim. I don’t know about him, I’d be surprised if he does just because he has a type and she’s not it, but who knows. This is a man we’re talking about.
knowing her, I’d also be very surprised if she hasn’t already made a move.

I think it's pure envy - whether that be of you, of your relationship, or the way your ex feels/felt about you, or because he treated you well. Could be any mixture of those.
I'd guess something in her psyche feels inadequate - so she wants & needs to get the attention of the man - to prove her own worth (probably to herself).

Absolutely not. She’s probably a narcissist getting her “supply” from you, ex and countless other people.

There are lots of people like this in the world. You get better at spotting them a mile off eventually!