Professor Liar - suggestions needed

[enchant_me]

I need help. This is a complicated situation, so here's a background summary (sorry it's so long!)

 

I graduated from uni last year, and started dating a man who was my prof a few months after. I had always really liked him, despite having heard some unbecoming stories about him (that he had dated several students simultaneously, that he would sleep with anyone, etc). Generally, I try not to believe rumors and feel that everyone deserves a fair shot, so I disregarded these stories and entered into a relationship with him.

 

For the first little while, everything was great and we really seemed to hit it off. We were only together for a few months, but the relationship was very serious, and we had the talk in which we agreed to be exclusive. I was sleeping at his house one night, and seemingly out of no where, he broke up with me. I was devasted. The night was full of emotional blow ups (from me and him), and we agreed to talk the next day. So, the next day we discussed what went wrong (which I'm still unclear on), and he told me that he "really liked me" but he just needed a week or so to think about whether or not we could be together. I agreed to this, though it seem suspect to me. I won't go into details here, but it turned out that in that week he was "thinking" he was actually going on dates with another girl. I discovered this, confronted him, he tried to lie, and we didn't speak for awhile.

 

Following this, we had an unfinished project from an earlier time that I wanted to complete. We came into contact for this reason, and we started spending time together again. The relationship slowly progressed to become more intimate, but I knew he was bad for me so I decided to cut him out of my life. I didn't talk to him for 3 months after that. I applied to graduate school and got accepted, and decided it would be wise to try to get over him before I had to see him in a professional context again.

 

A few months ago, I (for whatever foolish reason) started to talk to him again. We started to spend more and more time together, and everytime we hung out something would happen between us. This went on for about a month and a half. I finally decided to tell him I still had feelings for him. In quite the dramatic and intense episode, he proclaimed that he had deep feelings for me, that "we have a special bond" and that "we would be great life partners". He told me that he wanted nothing more than for us to be together, but that we couldn't, as I am in school and he "can't have a secret girlfriend". This talk went on for hours, and he looked so geniune and almost cried. He repeatedly said he wished I was in a different discipline so we could be together, and that this was "so hard" for him and was hurting him so much.

 

Anyways, a couple of weeks after that "honest" discussion, I found out that he's dating another graduate student in our same department, but they are keeping it secret. I also found out that he was engaged to someone a few years ago, and during this he was dating 4 other girls at the same time. I am just so upset that someone would lie to me like he did, and even more angry at myself for believing any of it.

 

Now, I know he's not the one for me, and I don't wish we were together anymore, but I am still really hurt and really angry. I understand that he is a bad guy who does terrible things to people, and it's really hard for me to accept the fact that this man I thought I knew, simply doesn't exist. I have to see both him and his girlfriend on a daily basis and feel so uncomfortable around both of them. I know that I set myself up for an awkward situation by dating a professor, but I truely believed I was in love with him.

 

I just need some ideas on how to get over this feeling of betrayal, and some suggestions on how to act around either of them. I sort of confronted him about her, in the sense that I told him I knew what he was doing, but I didn't come right out and say I knew he was with her, so I'm not sure if he knows I know. I wish more than anything I didn't care about this anymore, and am so sick of wasting my energy feeling angry and upset, but I just don't know how to deal with this and properly let it go. I would love to just pass him (or her) in the hall and not feel anything. What can I do to let go?

[chick-lee]

Best way to get over it is to move on. It sounds totally hard and impossible, I have been there, I get it. But he has cheated on you from the get go. Would seem to me you and your feelings never really mattered to him. Giving him more time, be it through grieving or anything else, will only give him power. Take your life back and find a man who deserves you!