It's sad, really

[Fresh_Start]

Most of my breakups have been amicable and nearly all of them were initiated by me.  Of those, I remained friends with many of them for varying periods of time until we gradually drifted apart into our separate lives and new relationships.  I recently ended my friendship with an ex -- and my very first thread here dealt with that in exhaustive detail with a total length to it that was ultimately unfair to the members of this forum.  It was as much about getting it all off my chest in the absence of my typical outlets due to the COVID-19 lockdown.  

While I have no feelings for this person any longer because she has exhausted every emotion I could ever have towards her, there is a smoldering bit of indignation and sadness over the fictitious narrative that she invented in order to absolve herself of the guilt she felt in breaking up with me and some selfish choices that she made.  I poured my heart and soul into that relationship, loving her as much as any person could possibly ever love another.  I wrote her many poems (it is a gift of mine that I am lucky to have) that made her feel so loved it reduced her to tears on more than one occasion and I used to read her to sleep with them every night for most of the relationship.  The things I did for her and her mother were things I did purely out of love, expecting nothing in return, and refusing to accept payment from her mother when it was offered.  After a Thanksgiving gathering of 9 people, I cleaned up all of the dishes, pots, pans, kitchen etc. while refusing any help simply because it felt like the right thing to do.  That's what love is.  

I treated this woman like a queen.  By her own words I treated her so much better than any man ever had that she referred to me as "the hands down best boyfriend and partner she ever had" on more than one occasion and even at the time she broke up with me, in an email 🙄, she reminded me that I "treated her better than any man ever did".  I also got along very well with all of her friends, her family, and her kids and every single one of them liked me.  I even helped her daughter get her very first job.    

It saddens me that after everything I did for her and her family she chose to engage in some extremely creative revisionist history many months after we broke up for the second time, where she reconstructed me into something that I am not and never was, accused me of things I never said or did, and ascribed fictitious ulterior motives to even the most mundane of requests while refusing to ever have mature, adult conversations and resorting entirely to emails.  This is not something I've ever dealt with before in any of my relationships and it makes the entire thing and all of the effort I put into it feel like a complete waste.  

Thanks for your time and any responses you feel like making.   

Edited June 21, 2020 by Fresh_Start

[Ellener]

Be gentle with yourself, grieve through the process and move on. Easy to say I know but I wasted a lot of time after my marriage in trying to make sense of it all. We had a child together and they still lost touch and the last conversation we had he blamed me! I was done then...

I hated how misrepresented I was by my ex, though to be fair some of our mutual friends had to 'take sides' for business reasons. Finally my friends started telling me to stop talking about it! and I took the hint, but I still have no real understanding of why things turned so hateful. All that pining and exercise to get him out of my system really paid off though, I got really fit 😃

And these days I just don't care as much what others think of me based on someone else's telling them. We did lose the whole his side of the family, which was sad, but truthfully they all had a mean streak. 

What have you been doing with your day?

[Fresh_Start]

Oh I'm fine for the most part.  I was just having "a moment" and felt like coming here for a little cathartic release.  Any replies or insights from the community are an added bonus that I wouldn't have gotten had I sent this as an email to myself.  

The misrepresentations of your character, words, and actions as well as having the tables turned on you so that it's suddenly all your fault can be maddening.  Even after I terminated the friendship with her she had the audacity to blame *me* for her selfish choices and why she wasn't a better friend.  It was more of the same paranoid delusional assumptions and false accusations that had no basis in reality.  What made it even more cuckoo for cocoa puffs was that she had just told me after the last time we went out: "I consider you to be one of my real authentic friends.  I'm really grateful we share the same values." 🤪  

50 minutes ago, Ellener said:

What have you been doing with your day?

This has been the hard part.  A big part of my life revolves around going to the gym.  I'm an avid weight lifter and bodybuilder so having that outlet taken away for more than 3 months as a result of the lockdown in addition to all of my other outlets has not been good for my physical or mental health.  I do have some weights to work with, but it's hundreds of pounds less than what I need for any kind of meaningful workout.  Fortunately, I only have to ride this out until June 26th.  That's when my gym and everything else is finally being given the green light to reopen although I will still be working remotely for a bit longer due to the specifics of the industry I work in.

This lockdown has been very, very costly to me and all of the plans that I had that were derailed because of it.  That could be a whole thread in and of itself.  For now, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and I will be the happiest man on Earth when I get to it. 

[Ellener]

1 hour ago, Fresh_Start said:

This lockdown has been very, very costly to me and all of the plans that I had that were derailed because of it.

Me too. Lot of people I think. ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[Fresh_Start]

A couple of people in my original thread really nailed it when they talked about how someone like my ex friend/ex can get you all wrapped up in their mindf*cks as well as one particularly astute and insightful person stating: "But you would have never won, and right when you think you are, they'll throw some more at you.  She's the master of creativeness." 

As mentioned, the lockdown was very costly to me.  When I "vented" about it to some of my friends (and my sister) every single one of them was supportive, understanding, and sympathetic -- except my ex.  With the exaggerations and distortions her mind puts on things, I was venting about my "life's story" "over and over and over again".  My life's story is extremely long and full of adversity.  I have only ever told it to her in its entirety once and that was way back at the beginning of our relationship more than two years ago.  It's simply too long to tell more than once.  She threw me in the same category as one of her female friends who has been griping about her boyfriend at least once or twice a month for years.  

And that's just the tamest part, but also the newest in her litany of distortions, exaggerations, and delusions.

What was worse was being told that I "lied" about trivial things that no person would ever lie about.  At the start of the lockdown, I went to the laundromat to do my laundry and they were closed.  My ex said this was a lie.  Why would I or anybody else lie about that?  What purpose does it serve?  And what kind of person would even question that, especially in light of the circumstances?  Then I allegedly lied to her about the stores being out of gloves.  Again, who lies about that?  Why?  What purpose would it serve?  I ended up going to the stores to record the empty shelves where the gloves usually are as well as my interaction with a Walmart associate who showed me on the little handheld inventory device they carry that even their suppliers were out of gloves.  I sent these to my ex and she said it didn't prove anything. lmao

I asked her for a couple of favors during the lockdown and that got twisted into me trying to manipulate her with sales tactics.  Who uses "sales tactics" on their friends and loved ones?  She doesn't even understand what sales tactics are.  Not once in our entire relationship or friendship did I ever use "sales tactics" on her nor did I ever manipulate her into doing anything.  And then the final bit was ascribing ulterior motives to virtually everything I do and say when, once again, I have not ever had ulterior motives behind anything I ever did or said to her.  All of this is such an absurd distortion of reality that in no way, shape, or form is representative of any of my words or actions and the way I treated her that it truly does create a complete "mindf*ck".  

 "But you would have never won, and right when you think you are, they'll throw some more at you.  She's the master of creativeness."  Amen to that.    

Edited June 25, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Member request.

[scooby-philly]

OP,

Sorry for the pain of this split and her lies and machinations, but also sorry for the pain the virus has caused you. Hopefully you're not in the USA cause we're not anywhere close to reducing the spread and shutdowns will come back.

I've been through some terrible breakups, dated a psychopath, and dated someone way too young/immature for me - so I don't have the best track record. But...I have learned and grown and I can relate a little bit to your feelings. The quote you shared hit the nail on the head. Another one I saw in the past 10 months snce my last relationship ended (though it wasn't "ugly" it wasn't nice either)... "you don't get to choose what role you will play in another person's story. You have to accept that sometimes you'll be the villain". From what little you shared it sounds like she's either a psychopath/sociopath or she's emotionally disturbed in a way where nothing is her fault and every setback, every "no, the laundromat was closed" is taken as a personal attack. Count your blessings to be rid of this and realize that this saying is true "the people that matter do mind and the people that mind don't matter". If people really value you they'll even see it clearly or they'll keep their eyes/ears open and will eventually see things for what they are. If they don't, they you didn't matter that much to them, and guess what, that's another piece of garbage to throw out along with your ex.

[Fresh_Start]

Well said @scooby-philly.  I found the quote you shared very relatable as well.  Accepting that I have been cast as the villain in a story where I was once the hero has been a tough pill to swallow, but it's not my story.  It's hers.  This will all pass in time.  It's only been a few weeks since I terminated the friendship and slightly less than that since I cut her out of my life for good.

As for where I am geographically: right in your own backyard if the location listed under your name is current.  I live in Montgomery county.  Cheers to practically being neighbors. 🍻

[scooby-philly]

Hey my friend,

Yes, I live in Philly! Nice to meet someone on here that isn't from far and away, though meeting people from across the country and across the world has been nice too! Going back to your story briefly, yeah - obviously I would need a ton more information about her, her life growing up, her behavior and actions throughout the course of the relationship, etc. to offer a really spot on piece of advice. But there are a variety of reasons - shame, psychological issues, narcissism, etc. that would trigger someone to treat someone who was great to them as the "cause" of all their problems or cast them as a villain in order to either avoid shame in front of others and/or to avoid coming to terms with their own toxicity. But hang in there and work on you. Here if you need someone to talk to that can listen w/o judgment, offer advice, and also push back when you're off base. Feel free to DM me if you want.

[Fresh_Start]

I'll hit you up when I gain access to the private message feature on this site, but it'll be because we're two Philly guys who somehow ended up in the same thread on a random message board on the internet.  I think that feature unlocks after 30 days of membership, which is just a couple weeks away.  Stay safe and I'll catch you around.