a saga I just wanted to get off my chest

[oddestball]

I'm not sure this is the right thread (please let me know if you think a different one is more appropriate) but this whole ordeal has been pretty stressful and I just wanted to talk about it somewhat anonymously someplace that people might listen.

 

This post is motivated by the fact that my exgf (we were on and off for about 10 years, started in high school, were each other's first relationship) contacted me out of the blue after 5 years of mutual no contact.

 

However, I am in a healthy relationship with someone I love and I do not want her back. That said, I've always felt vaguely responsible for her because she was with me for so long and because she said things to imply she never really fell in love with anyone else.

 

I also feel like she ended up with her current boyfriend (who has some serious issues) while on the rebound from me. What she's told me over the years (starting from the beginning of their relationship) is that she's never been attracted to him, and has to get blind drunk to stomach him having sex with her, and felt he pressured her into a relationship at a time when she felt she didn't have any friends except him (this was around the time I stopped dating her and started dating someone else; I was her closest friend at that time too so she was feeling the effect of me not being around as much and I guess the only other person she talked to was him).

 

For a while we stayed friends while I was dating my person and she was dating him, but I stopped talking to her 5 years ago because I couldn't deal with what a controlling creep her boyfriend is, and how after a while she wasn't allowed to talk to me on her own cell phone and had to only speak to me on their landline and always put me on speakerphone so her boyfriend could hear and comment in real time on what we were saying. She's still not willing to acknowledge that what he does is a form of abuse (he's also taken her computer to read her emails against her will, and I have the impression he controls their money, which isn't that hard since she's chronically unemployed and doesn't have a lucrative degree).

 

Since she's not willing to accept that what he does is wrong, I haven't really been able to explain to her why I couldn't deal with talking to her anymore (since talking to her without having her boyfriend involved became totally impossible, she wasn't allowed to meet me outside of their apartment, and I had a feeling she had to let him read her emails because they were becoming very weird and out of character for her.).

 

Anyway, she sent me a message some weeks ago out of the blue after 5 years. A very emo and cryptically worded message about how she wants me to talk to her again and that I should remember who she used to be.

 

I wrote back to ask why she's writing me out of the blue now, and she replied she'd been drunk and depressed but still wanted to talk to me, and when I probed a bit further, a sad story involving her boyfriend came out, essentially the same sad story she's told me since they started dating ~10 years ago: that she has to get drunk to tolerate his touch, and he's cruel sometimes (but not all the time? so therefore she loves him?).

 

This kind of thing has come to exhaust me, since the story is always the same and it seems like she never actually does anything about it. I eventually killed off the email thread by gently suggesting she should talk about some of these things with her therapist (she's been seeing one for years), and that although I'm glad she reached out to someone, I don't really know how I feel about becoming penpals after 5 years. [Also, I don't relish being harassed again by her psycho boyfriend when he finds out next time he looks through her emails.]

 

But it's still stressful to stay strong and not get sucked into her drama again, because she is SO good at making me feel guilty, like she needs me to save her, and like no one else could except me. It occurs to me she's been pushing this idea on me for years, and even when she was 5 years into her relationship with this guy, she was sending me unexpected texts about how she still sees her future as one where she's raising my children. (I don't have children, it's hypothetical.) Maybe it's all sincere, and she just carries a major torch for me, or maybe she just wants to manipulate me. I don't know. I know there were times early into dating him that she told me she planned to break up with him once he had 'served his purpose' (he was helping her with some career and money stuff). At the time, I was feeling bad for her because of the "I had to get blackout drunk" stories she told me, but after some years when we had drifted apart, I've thought over that interaction and it also comes off as pretty freaking cold of her to say about someone she was dating, and very weird for her to say it to me, an ex.

 

So yeah, my plan is to avoid giving in to the feeling of guilt and sympathy she's so good at getting out of me, and avoid getting sucked into this drama.

[VeveCakes]

Sorry but this woman is not your responsibility. She is her own person and can make her own choices and life decisions, her life is not your fault in the least. You are with someone else so I don't see why you would even entertain talking at this point. Sounds like a whole lotta trouble.

[deadparrot]

While I totally understand that it's hard to see someone you once cared for struggle, try to let go of the feeling that you're responsible for her. She's an adult, albeit a troubled one, with whom you've had no meaningful relationship for half a decade. At some point she has to either sink or swim on her own, and if she's in a bad place, it's the place of her friends and family, not some long-ago, long-estranged ex, to provide support.

 

For your own mental/emotional health, and the well-being of your current relationship, I'd return to NC.

[privategal]

Its probably best now to block her and if its appropriate for you (though its above and beyond and not your responsibility) maybe give a breif contact to her family and express concern about her well being. Maybe youd have more peace in at least alerting someone. But 5 years nc she need not interfere with you any longer, we all have to be responsible for ourselves even though its sad the scanario shes living in, she has choices.

[oddestball]

thank you both for the replies. I needed to hear that from someone. I have way too much good stuff going on in my life and her issues are not my problem. She needs to reach out to her parents or something, not me.