Found Out More About Ex and Upset Myself

[Not So Sad II]

In short, my ex was the one I posted about on here who dumped me in a short phone call after 2 years with the words "Sorry, but I'm seeing someone else now".  He then dumped my belongings at my door 2 months later as he refused to meet up.  I was upset, particularly because of the way he ended it, but got a lot of help and advice from female friends and got over him completely.

He texted me a couple of times about 5 months afterwards, saying things like "What we had was really good, but I'm sorry I can't see you right now"  I eventually texted him back saying I was blocking him, and did so.  I've never set eyes on him since the last time I saw him, when things seemed to be perfect.  If I bump into him in the street (and I really hope I don't) I might manage a fake grimace but I'm more likely just to ignore him.

But female friends have told me quite a lot of stories about him, and basically I was really fooled into believing he was a shy, innocent sort of guy when in reality he is a really bad player.  He ended it horribly with the woman he dumped me for after sleeping with her and having her over for dinner a few times (we have a mutual friend), another friend saw him messing around with a completely different woman while he was with me (she didn't even know we were still together and assumed the other woman was his girlfriend) and he also seems to have cheated on me or at least gone out on dates with a much older woman who is nearly 60 (he is 40).  In short, the guy is a total douche bag, and I didn't see it at all.  He created a completely fake persona to make me like him.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'm really embarrassed that I was ever with him (it was a 2 year long distance relationship), I was completely taken in by him right until he ended it.  I mean, there were plenty of red flags, but I sort of pushed my boundaries out again and again to ignore them.

How to get over something like that?  Its put me right off sex - the last time I tried, I started crying, had to bite my finger to stop myself and ended it with the guy because it wasn't fair on him.  I feel like I'm forever labelled as the woman whose ex dumped her stuff at her door, and its not only me, this is the one thing that all my female friends fixate on too.  I even saw a psychologist and she was horrified at his behaviour too (when I described it all, she even said he was faking his expression and somehow making his eyes look softer in photos of us together until the very last ones).  Is this a common thing now?  What if it happens again?  I've done so much work on getting over him but I feel this is far as I can get.

The whole thing is horrific.  Maybe I'm being hopelessly innocent here, but I am what I am.  I don't live in a big city and I've never messed around, and most people I know don't either, well not in their forties.

[Wiseman2]

13 minutes ago, Not So Sad II said:

I feel like I'm forever labelled as the woman whose ex dumped her stuff at her door

Sorry this happened. try not to define yourself by his actions.

It's time to delete and block him from all social media and messaging apps . 

Try to move forward without continual postmortems of the relationship with friends. 

Is this the same man?:

 

[Not So Sad II]

1 hour ago, Wiseman2 said:

Sorry this happened. try not to define yourself by his actions.

It's time to delete and block him from all social media and messaging apps . 

Try to move forward without continual postmortems of the relationship with friends. 

Is this the same man?:

 

Yes, I posted about him last year when it was so raw and I never had him on social media in the first place!  I have blocked him and have no contact. The psychologist gave me some useful tips to stop thinking about him but I can't stop friends telling me his latest exploits and theres only so much you can do to completely forget about someone, unless you have no emotions at all or are very skilled at blocking them out.  She's also expensive and I had to stop after 3 sessions.

I'm also concerned that other men will think I'm easy if they know I was involved with him.

[Pumpernickel]

5 minutes ago, Not So Sad II said:

I'm also concerned that other men will think I'm easy if they know I was involved with him.

I don’t think this is a potential risk. You said it was a long-distance relationship, so if you date other men, they won’t know him. And if they do - who cares? 
 

sorry this happened to you though....and I think you did everything right. Cut all contact, tried to move on proactively - well done! Funny that he reached out 5 months later. Probably after the rebound relationship didn’t go the way he wanted to? 

[Not So Sad II]

37 minutes ago, Pumpernickel said:

I don’t think this is a potential risk. You said it was a long-distance relationship, so if you date other men, they won’t know him. And if they do - who cares? 
 

sorry this happened to you though....and I think you did everything right. Cut all contact, tried to move on proactively - well done! Funny that he reached out 5 months later. Probably after the rebound relationship didn’t go the way he wanted to? 

I moved to the small city where he lived to start a new job just as the pandemic started!  Never got a chance to tell him before he ended it.  Once I've done a year, I'm going to start looking for a new job away from here.  Not because I can't cope or anything but hey, you know, life progresses.

I blocked him because I'm pretty sure he's the type to have a harem of available women on call, all waiting for him.

I actually have nightmares about this man.  Quite regularly, at least once per week.  They wake me up and then I think about him for part of the day.  Apart from that, I'm good LOL!

[Pumpernickel]

So you now live in the same town? Maybe he was already messing around behind your back for a while (I know my ex was).....

Anyway - I got broken up pretty badly a few months ago as well, so I can relate. Long-term relationship, partially LD - I didn’t even get a phone call after 5+ years.

You're probably still traumatized, hence the dreams. It’ll get better. Glad you got counseling. It’ll take a while to get over it, I’m sure. I’m not interested in men right now either. But you have friends you can talk to, and it seems like they’re pretty good sounding boards. 

[Not So Sad II]

2 hours ago, Pumpernickel said:

So you now live in the same town? Maybe he was already messing around behind your back for a while (I know my ex was).....

Anyway - I got broken up pretty badly a few months ago as well, so I can relate. Long-term relationship, partially LD - I didn’t even get a phone call after 5+ years.

You're probably still traumatized, hence the dreams. It’ll get better. Glad you got counseling. It’ll take a while to get over it, I’m sure. I’m not interested in men right now either. But you have friends you can talk to, and it seems like they’re pretty good sounding boards. 

Yes, we do and for sure he told me about one of those women (there do seem to have been 3) because he thought I would find out anyway.  It doesn't matter now. 

I think I am traumatised, its also because I'd known this guy for 15 years.  My friends have been great though.

That really sucks, what happened to you.  Its completely brutal.  I think when you get to the stage of feeling grateful for a short phone call or text to you they're ending it, thats the time you realise they aren't worth a bean. 

Its just the damn nightmares...

Edited May 31, 2021 by Not So Sad II
grammatical error didn't make sense

[stillafool]

4 hours ago, Not So Sad II said:

Yes, I posted about him last year when it was so raw and I never had him on social media in the first place!  I have blocked him and have no contact. The psychologist gave me some useful tips to stop thinking about him but I can't stop friends telling me his latest exploits and theres only so much you can do to completely forget about someone, unless you have no emotions at all or are very skilled at blocking them out.  She's also expensive and I had to stop after 3 sessions.

I'm also concerned that other men will think I'm easy if they know I was involved with him.

You most certainly can tell your friends that under no circumstances do you want to hear anything about him.  If they care for you they will completely understand.  I've told friends of mine to never bring up exes to me again and they've done the same.  Every word you hear about him is poison for you so make them stop.  Other men do not have to know you were involved with him unless you tell them.  It isn't your fault that you were cheated on and it's no reflection on you.  Most people have been cheated on by an ex, it hurt like hell, but we got over it and so will you.

[Not So Sad II]

14 hours ago, stillafool said:

You most certainly can tell your friends that under no circumstances do you want to hear anything about him.  If they care for you they will completely understand.  I've told friends of mine to never bring up exes to me again and they've done the same.  Every word you hear about him is poison for you so make them stop.  Other men do not have to know you were involved with him unless you tell them.  It isn't your fault that you were cheated on and it's no reflection on you.  Most people have been cheated on by an ex, it hurt like hell, but we got over it and so will you.

Oh I don't blame them, and I wouldn't be so strict.  His behaviour can be quite shocking.  His former family friend/mentor passed away and the funeral is next week, but he almost certainly won't attend and he has already upset a lot of people by not contributing to any of the memorials on social media.  I can virtually guarantee he won't send a card.  Thats the sort of person he is.  I think I've got PTSD to a small extent and I don't think theres any quick way of getting over that, so I'll just have to endure and get better at dealing with him being discussed in front of me and not getting drawn in.

[stillafool]

39 minutes ago, Not So Sad II said:

Oh I don't blame them, and I wouldn't be so strict.  His behaviour can be quite shocking.  His former family friend/mentor passed away and the funeral is next week, but he almost certainly won't attend and he has already upset a lot of people by not contributing to any of the memorials on social media.  I can virtually guarantee he won't send a card.  Thats the sort of person he is.  I think I've got PTSD to a small extent and I don't think theres any quick way of getting over that, so I'll just have to endure and get better at dealing with him being discussed in front of me and not getting drawn in.

You don't blame your friends for discussing him because you allow it.   Part of it is because you still want to know what is going on in his life.  If you really do have PTSD why would you want to be triggered when it is easy to put a stop to it?  You know way too much about what is going on in his life to be an ex. 

[salparadise]

1 hour ago, Not So Sad II said:

Thats the sort of person he is.  I think I've got PTSD to a small extent and I don't think theres any quick way of getting over that, so I'll just have to endure and get better at dealing with him being discussed in front of me and not getting drawn in.

It happens sometimes (more often than you might think) that we don’t figure out what kind of person we were with until we get blindsided in a way that doesn’t respect our vulnerability and sincerity. It happened to me too, and it took a couple of years to get past it, some residual scarring notwithstanding. Mine was via text, refused to even speak on the phone. 

I think there is a kind of PTSD that goes with it. It really throws us when the person we cared about so much and trusted our heart to treats us with cruelty and callousness. I’ve concluded that mine was faking it because she isn’t really capable of caring about another person beyond the way one thinks of an object. I was just occupying a vacancy for a time. She was very good at pretending, and I was willingly blind to it. 
 

It takes time, more than we might expect. Allow yourself to grieve fully, and take some comfort that you were capable of of actually caring, and what they did was to reveal their own ugliness and smallness. Forgive yourself for being conned; it wasn’t weakness or unworthiness, it was the ability as willingness to take a chance on love. Try not to let it be about pride or ego. When you’ve grieved and healed enough, one day you’ll be ready to just let it go. Life is hard sometimes, but you don’t want to become risk averse. Your goal should be to prepare yourself to open your heart and love again when the time is right. Hope that is soon for you. 

Edited May 31, 2021 by salparadise

[Not So Sad II]

2 hours ago, stillafool said:

You don't blame your friends for discussing him because you allow it.   Part of it is because you still want to know what is going on in his life.  If you really do have PTSD why would you want to be triggered when it is easy to put a stop to it?  You know way too much about what is going on in his life to be an ex. 

Hi Stillafool.  No, I do not censor what my friends are allowed to talk about.  How utterly ridiculous.  

This guy isn't so important that his name cannot be mentioned, like some great deity or something.  Its an ex boyfriend, I'm not going to die, equally I'm not a psychopath without emotions and the twat went out of his way to be as unpleasant as possible when dumping me (whatever excuses he might have tried to make - I'm not taken in by that sort of nonsense now).

I think its best to keep a sense of perspective - don't you?  I really think we are talking about very mild PTSD here, and I don't find someone trying to blow it up on the internet as something much wore than it is particularly helpful.  I will admit he is now behaving in such a sleazy way which considering how stuck up and he was, is kind of amusing.  Its like a little soap opera - I think thats why my friends also like to talk about him.  I don't know what make some people turn really sleazy midway through their lives, its really very sad.

My counsellor actually told me that every time I think about him, its useful to then think how good it is not to be with him any more.  ie you have a thought and you control your emotional response to it so that its positive to you.  Obviously there are different stages in moving on.  Advocating that someone never talks about something or pretends its much worse than it is would be incredibly unhealthy.

[Acacia98]

22 hours ago, Not So Sad II said:

I can't stop friends telling me his latest exploits.

You can. You should.

In my experience, stories like these by friends are like a punch in the gut, making it so much harder for one to move on. Personally, I'd lose the friends if it turned out they were doing it deliberately after I'd asked them to stop.

[Not So Sad II]

1 hour ago, salparadise said:

It happens sometimes (more often than you might think) that we don’t figure out what kind of person we were with until we get blindsided in a way that doesn’t respect our vulnerability and sincerity. It happened to me too, and it took a couple of years to get past it, some residual scarring notwithstanding. Mine was via text, refused to even speak on the phone. 

I think there is a kind of PTSD that goes with it. It really throws us when the person we cared about so much and trusted our heart to treats us with cruelty and callousness. I’ve concluded that mine was faking it because she isn’t really capable of caring about another person beyond the way one thinks of an object. I was just occupying a vacancy for a time. She was very good at pretending, and I was willingly blind to it. 
 

It takes time, more than we might expect. Allow yourself to grieve fully, and take some comfort that you were capable of of actually caring, and what they did was to reveal their own ugliness and smallness. Forgive yourself for being conned; it wasn’t weakness or unworthiness, it was the ability as willingness to take a chance on love. Try not to let it be about pride or ego. When you’ve grieved and healed enough, one day you’ll be ready to just let it go. Life is hard sometimes, but you don’t want to become risk averse. Your goal should be to prepare yourself to open your heart and love again when the time is right. Hope that is soon for you. 

I am so sorry that happened to you salparadise.  Although to be honest, I think I would rather have had a text than the nasty little phone call that I received telling me he was having sex with someone else now - the only purpose of him doing that was to make him feel good, not me.  It wasn't a meaningful conversation, and as my councillor said, it gave him all the control and allowed him to say everything he wanted.  Thats why I then sent him a text telling him his behaviour was awful and I was blocking him.  That might come across as petty but I actually found it really helpful in terms of moving on.

I really think this guy is very, very odd, as in I do think there is some kind of personality disorder there.  I also got the feeling I was occupying a vacancy and he was faking a persona, because no-one would really get involved with someone who isn't capable of forming proper emotional bonds with other human beings.  His lies really were very subtle and cleverly played.  I actually have the feeling that I'll read the newspapers one day and he will be in court for something or have done something awful. 

Thanks for your kind words - you really have a very healthy, balanced response to this.  I ignored a lot of red flags because I'd known this guy's family.  I won't ignore so many red flags again.

[Not So Sad II]

3 minutes ago, Acacia98 said:

You can. You should.

In my experience, stories like these by friends are like a punch in the gut, making it so much harder for one to move on. Personally, I'd lose the friends if it turned out they were doing it deliberately after I'd asked them to stop.

I'm going to repeat again that I will not, and should not, give this guy such importance that I will be censoring my friend's conversations.  I really don't feel like its a punch in the stomach, its honestly quite funny in a sort of black humour kind of way.

The other two women he had sex with at the same time are known to many people in my friends' group, and the married 59 year old woman was particularly upset and made a point of posting about it on social media (I don't want to give too much detail but he met us all through a certain activity).  I guess if your city is US based and people do multiple dating its probably rather different, but its quite traditional where I live.  Friendships tend to be deep here and last for many years, and some of these friends I've known for 10 - 20 years.  They are certainly not worth losing over some stupid guy.

[stillafool]

23 minutes ago, Not So Sad II said:

Hi Stillafool.  No, I do not censor what my friends are allowed to talk about.  How utterly ridiculous.  

Quote

This guy isn't so important that his name cannot be mentioned, like some great deity or something.  Its an ex boyfriend,

Well according to the title of this thread he sounds very important to you and your well being.  You've been broken up a year and still upset about what he does in his life.  If he weren't important you would be indifferent to him and his life.

Quote

I think its best to keep a sense of perspective - don't you?  I really think we are talking about very mild PTSD here, and I don't find someone trying to blow it up on the internet as something much wore than it is particularly helpful.

I'm not trying to blow up your condition but trying to help.  When you say:

21 hours ago, Not So Sad II said:

I actually have nightmares about this man.  Quite regularly, at least once per week.  They wake me up and then I think about him for part of the day. 

 

Quote

19 hours ago, Not So Sad II said:

I think I am traumatised, its also because I'd known this guy for 15 years.  My friends have been great though.

Its just the damn nightmares...

 

  Advocating that someone never talks about something or pretends its much worse than it is would be incredibly unhealthy.

People use whatever coping mechanisms that work.  This one has worked for me and other people plenty of times.  It's the same tool as NC.  I certainly never pretended anything about you, don't know you, and only responded to what you wrote on this forum.

Edited May 31, 2021 by stillafool

[Acacia98]

1 minute ago, Not So Sad II said:

I'm going to repeat again that I will not, and should not, give this guy such importance that I will be censoring my friend's conversations.  I really don't feel like its a punch in the stomach, its honestly quite funny in a sort of black humour kind of way.

At the end of the day, you will do what you want to do. After all, it is your life and we're just weighing in with our thoughts on the matter. But my opinion remains the same. And with good reason: I've observed that people who either remain connected with exes through social media or have friends who repeatedly bring the exes up in conversation while they're still in pain struggle to truly move on. 

Your ex was important to you. That's why what went down hurt you deeply. That's why it's important to be as kind as possible to yourself to enable you to move on. There's no shame in that. You actually mentioned PTSD, which is not a little thing. If you're responding with mild PTSD to, say, mentions of his escapades, then you are probably still processing the pain and are not quite ready to deal with it in casual conversations with friends. So, personally, I would avoid those kinds of conversations for the time being. Some day in the future, when I was feeling more resilient, I would probably be okay with the conversations. Similarly, if I injured my leg and it hadn't quite healed, I would be extra careful about the activities I engaged in. Later, when I was back to normal, I could resume my regular activities.

What you consider to be censorship, I call basic empathy/kindness.

I dont live in the US at all although I once did. But I find matters of the heart to be remarkably similar wherever in the world you live. 

[Not So Sad II]

50 minutes ago, Acacia98 said:

At the end of the day, you will do what you want to do. After all, it is your life and we're just weighing in with our thoughts on the matter. But my opinion remains the same. And with good reason: I've observed that people who either remain connected with exes through social media or have friends who repeatedly bring the exes up in conversation while they're still in pain struggle to truly move on. 

Your ex was important to you. That's why what went down hurt you deeply. That's why it's important to be as kind as possible to yourself to enable you to move on. There's no shame in that. You actually mentioned PTSD, which is not a little thing. If you're responding with mild PTSD to, say, mentions of his escapades, then you are probably still processing the pain and are not quite ready to deal with it in casual conversations with friends. So, personally, I would avoid those kinds of conversations for the time being. Some day in the future, when I was feeling more resilient, I would probably be okay with the conversations. Similarly, if I injured my leg and it hadn't quite healed, I would be extra careful about the activities I engaged in. Later, when I was back to normal, I could resume my regular activities.

What you consider to be censorship, I call basic empathy/kindness.

I dont live in the US at all although I once did. But I find matters of the heart to be remarkably similar wherever in the world you live. 

Being intimate with someone is important to me.  This man is no longer important to me.

I think the danger is in attributing causes to something that you do not fully understand.  I don't really want to go into too much detail here, but in counselling it became apparent that this is much more to do with the relationship that I had with my father, and resorting to feelings of rejection, which feel familiar to me.  Its very different from feeling attracted to someone, and my counsellor told me that discussing his behaviour (note his behaviour, not him) with friends is actually quite a healthy way of processing it (as opposed to, for instance, being tempted to get back in touch with him or sleeping with him).

I also think that men (are you a man?) invariably over-estimate how attracted women are to them.  I really could not be attracted to a man who had sex with another woman (likely two) while I was with him, or who behaved so badly. Some men do think that women are weak minded creatures whose emotions are such that they cannot help themselves, although fortunately I think those attitudes are dying out.

Its also the culture here to discuss bad behaviour and to tell people that they have behaved badly, not to ignore it.  Because its better for people to be told by society that their behaviour is unacceptable I think.

All these "conversations" that I'm supposed to be having about this man - its really friends discussing snippets of what is basically gossip.  Normal talk amongst women.  Not deep and meaningful conversations.

[Miss Peach]

I can relate. I was with someone local for way too long and he's turned very inappropriate on me post-breakup. I feel ashamed at times I was with him so long as I usually an not the type to put up with that sort of thing. But if you want to find someone you really need to get back into it, learn your lessons, and not treat new people like him. I know it can be tough but you have to learn that other men are not like him and hold out for one who proves he's a good guy.

[ShyViolet]

On 5/30/2021 at 5:11 PM, Not So Sad II said:

The psychologist gave me some useful tips to stop thinking about him but I can't stop friends telling me his latest exploits and theres only so much you can do to completely forget about someone,

What kind of back-stabbing friends are these?  Do they enjoy watching you suffer?  Your friends need to stop constantly bringing this up and telling you about your ex's "latest exploits".  It's obviously not healthy for you.  I'm not suggesting your "censor" what your friends talk about.  But it should be common sense that when a person is going through a really rough time with a breakup, you don't keep bringing up that person's ex and telling sordid stories about them.  It's time to stop fixating on everything this guy is doing.  Stop letting him occupy so much real estate in your mind.  You are not defined by this one bad relationship.