SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hey GTS,

You seem to have a lot of friends to go do things with so I assume you have a lot of good qualities.

I agree with Flamingo, I would have just nodded. I agree with Poppy in that you need to be better aware of your ex's boundaries although you approached them as a couple and not her individually. They could have left the bar but they didn't. So it seems like manning up may have been more of a pissing contest. May have...

Your best friend may be frustrated with you not letting go of this phantom relationship you have with your ex girlfriend. On this thread you avoid the advice that disagrees with what you want. I don't think it is unnatural and I lived in denial longer than most would consider reasonable. But if he is advising you to let her go and you are still pining after 5 months, he may just be tired of your focus. For argument, let's call it an obsession. Obsessing is a form of control to ease the pain of the uncertainty. If that is a consideration, then turning your focus from your exgf to yourself and instead toward your healing would seem beneficial. You seem to have a lot of abandonment wounds and chains of resentment that you carry about abandonment. You will likely carry chains of resentment into future relationships if you don't examine them, the source of the pain and work to dismantle them. It sounds like you are in IC. There is the "language of letting go" that can be read in daily snippets if you don't feel you can read a full book.

I hope you find some peace.

January 13

Take care of yourself

For once a person begins on this path of knowledge they will only look inward, learning how to fix themselves, instead of trying to fix other people. — Rav Brandwein

Letting go doesn’t mean we don’t care. Letting go doesn’t mean we shut down. Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave. It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means we stop trying to do the impossible—controlling that which we cannot—and instead, focus on what is possible—which usually means taking care of ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love, as much as possible. Have you tricked yourself into believing there’s someone you can control? If you have, tell yourself the truth. Stop trying to have power where you truly have none. Instead, exercise your will in a way that will bring results. The one power you always have is the ability to let go and take care of yourself.

Beattie, Melody. More Language of Letting Go: 366 New Daily Meditations (Hazelden Meditation Series) (p. 16). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[This message edited by BobPar at 1:46 PM, January 13th, 2021 (Wednesday)]

GTS, I'd like to make a practical suggestion. Get off Facebook. In my opinion, you pay way too much attention to who is liking who's posts, who is commenting on your friends' posts, who is not liking or commenting on your posts and what your EX is up too. It seems like everything you pay attention to on Facebook is designed to glean information that supports your theory that you've been cheated on and wronged. It's why you knew what her new boyfriend looked like in that bar, and everything else you know about him.

There is a reason it's called pain shopping. It serves no purpose other than to make you imagine ever greater conspiracies against you, keeping you in cycle of new hurts, real or imagined. You are not unusual in that sense at all. All of us have a tendency to fill in the blanks in the absence of complete information and often we find out later that we were wrong.

I would also like to point out that from your own words, you did have a good idea of why she ended it. Your own admission was that you did have a fight, and it might have been the final straw. You inferred that it had something to do with her sons. And as this thread has continued you have outright admitted you don't like them, and it's why you didn't propose. So she didn't just dump you with no explanation. It seems it was just and explanation you didn't want to hear.

To me, the healthiest comment you have made so far is that you didn't propose because you knew you'd be letting yourself in for several difficult years with her sons. Good for you for recognizing that. You are not a bad person because you felt that way. What would make you a bad person is stringing her along because you liked the comforts of the relationship without making a commitment she wanted, unless she gave up her kids.

Maybe try looking at this as her taking what would have been a difficult decision off of your shoulders. She knew it wasn't going to work too, and made the decision to move on herself. Think about how miserable you would have been had you bought a house, and moved her and her sons in, only to realize you couldn't live with the situation. It would have been so much more damaging than breaking up before making those monumental decisions and financial commitments.

I'm thankful for this community, because most of my other friends in real life can't relate to any of this.

It's been 5-1/2 months since the breakup, and a little over 3 months since I've discovered what really happened (she was cheating). I feel like I should be over the hurt by now, but I'm really not.

2 things: first, I'm thankful for this community as well and for the same reason you stated. My IRL friends have not been through what I have and so being able to come here is a Godsend.

Second, 5.5 months is a very short time to expect to be "over it." You felt a deep betrayal by both your xGF and your xBFF. You need give yourself time to grieve the loss of those relationships. Look into the 5 stages of grieving; you'll find that you bounce between anger and bargaining ("if she only did this," etc...). Allow yourself time to feel each of the grief stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). You may be in the depression stage and some individual counseling could help with that. One day you will find that you feel indifferent to her and you will accept what has happened. Only then can you truly move on with your life.

I agree that you should probably avoid FB for now, and maybe start a new thread here in Separation if you need to vent more about the separation, or even in Off Topic if you talk about your BFF and don't mention infidelity at all.

As for harsh comments from others, they are all meant with care and come from experience. Take them in, learn from them and go forward .

[This message edited by newlife03 at 1:02 PM, January 13th (Wednesday)]

Respectfully @FlipFlopFlamingo, if you or anyone else was triggered by this thread, that is your problem. GTS--or you or anyone else--has every right to come on here and work on their issues. Just as you have every right to stay away from a thread if you find it hard to read.

Meanwhile GTS's interaction with his ex at the bar, which happened a couple of weeks ago, has already been dissected ad nauseam. GTS has already acknowledged that next time he would handle things differently. All participating parties have surely moved on in the meanwhile.

GTS, I agree with the others that checking your ex's SM is merely pain shopping. But meanwhile I'd forget your former "best friend" for the time being. These waves of grief and other emotions are normal, they will pass.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 8:49 PM, January 13th (Wednesday)]

BobPar, Charity411, newlife03, and WontBeFooledAgain,

Thank you all for your comments. All are very reasonably formulated and proposed, and they are probably spot on. And I welcome them.

Charity, we did have 2 arguments (one in May, and one in August just before the breakup), but the arguments seemed petty (maybe they weren't), and it's hard to determine if the arguments caused the breakup, or if she was in fact cheating and therefore created arguments where they didn't need to exist? I guess I'll never know the answer to that. As to your comment about her saving me the trouble of a difficult conversation, that's probably true - however, if we had that conversation, perhaps we could have ended things on far better terms, and done it in a way that we could have had conversations with her kids and mine, and possibly even remained friends? Maybe that's wishful thinking? I've remained friends with all other women I've dated except my exWW, and even recently my exWW has finally started playing nicer in her emails and texts with me.

I think Charity and WBFA are both correct that I'm expecting to be healed and move on too quickly. 5.5 months is not that long. I have a "fix it" mentality, so I think I'm approaching this as if I would approach losing a job, and that's not going to work in this situation.

I don't want to get back together with my exGF, but I think it's OK to be sad about the lost relationship. Until she showed up at the sports bar a week ago, I hadn't tried to reach out to her since two weeks after the breakup - after her brother-in-law encouraged me not to give up.

I agree with everyone who has said that I need to leave my "best friend" alone for now, and I have - we haven't had any communication since the strange phone call on the Monday of Thanksgiving week. For now, I've left him alone - and that's been hard. Am I not allowed to mourn that loss too? This guy was my best friend since we were 10 years old.

The hurt/sadness comes and goes in waves, and I just want to feel normal again. That becomes a catch22, because as many of you have said, I'm not ready to be out dating, but on the other hand I've lost the ability to hang out with my best friend too. Yes, I have other friends, and I've been spending time with them. And, I've been doing all of the other things I'm supposed to be doing - working out, trying new hobbies (bike trails), reading, spending time with my kids, etc.

Yes, I have other friends, and I've been spending time with them. And, I've been doing all of the other things I'm supposed to be doing - working out, trying new hobbies (bike trails), reading, spending time with my kids, etc.

Good for you!!

And yes, you can mourn the loss of a long-term friendship as well as the loss of your relationship with xGF. It took me a long time (and much reassurance from everyone here) to realize that I didn't miss xWH as much as I missed the future I had planned and the relationship I had envisioned but didn't really have. Once I did that I was able to properly grieve the end of a marriage. It took time but it happened. You'll get there, promise~!

[This message edited by newlife03 at 5:01 PM, January 13th (Wednesday)]

One of the ideals that my parents instilled in me about life is you should always leave things better than you found them. That came from being scout leaders. I believe I've done so with my exs even when they haven't returned the favor. Ghosting someone that you were in a LTR is so far out of that value system that I wouldn't want them in my life.

You need no further confirmation of their unworthiness. Follow the good advice you been given and block them both on SM. You won't be able to move on if you keep allowing them space in your head. You do deserve better, but they failed you.

I get you had ties with the family. I ended up having to step away from my ex's brother's family in order to heal properly. That included three nephews that I'd been around since the beginning.

The evil thoughts in my head on this. Like and comment on Bffs GF's SM posts. That's going to be concerning to him, because he will project his actions over your intentions. I'd like to think I'd be able to resist though because that's just mean. His anger after that night is likely due to some pointed questions from his GF.

The BFF at minimum was white knighting her. I'd also be wondering if the exBF was the OW in the new BFs marriage. Like predating your relationship and she was dumped on his DDay. After he was freed by the divorce she jumped back in. That and her shown poor communication skills leads me to believe LT success there is unlikely. None of that really matters to you though. You can not focus on them. They made their choice. Focus on yourself. The best revenge is finding a better life.

[This message edited by grubs at 1:29 PM, January 28th (Thursday)]

grubs, all good points. I did think about the possibility that perhaps my exGF and her new BF might have cheated with each other when they knew each other years ago when they were both married. At minimum, they must have wanted to.

I like where you are thinking about my "friend's" GF social media pages, but I'm better than that too. But it might make him uncomfortable if I were to do that.

Either way, I'm getting better every day. I'm not 100%, but I'm really close. I've cooled it on the dating for the past few weeks. Still texting with girls I know, but that's about it.

I'm bothered more about losing the best friend than I am the GF. Girls come and go, but the friend had been in my life for 36 years. Perhaps I misjudged his true intentions as well?

How goes it GTS? You haven’t updated this thread in a month.

Absolution,

Nothing new to report. Haven't run into exGF or her new guy since that first Sunday in January. Haven't heard from my former "best friend" since the bullshit conversation we had in late November, other than a public Facebook post of "HBD!" on my birthday - he couldn't even be bothered to write out the words "Happy Birthday".

It's been just over 6 months since the breakup and the loss of my best friend. I'm sad about the loss of both of them, as they were both people I truly cared about.

I'm doing a lot better. I've being working out hard, keeping up with going on new bike trails every weekend, reading a lot, and working my tail off at work. I'm in a much better place mentally, even though it's tough to go through infidelity again, as well as the ghosting from someone I truly thought I would marry. And it's even tougher to couple that with the loss of a "best friend" of 36 years. But I tell myself that I had no control over their actions and decisions. I didn't do anything that should have elicited their behaviors, so all I can do is continue to move forward without them.

After taking a couple months off from dating (at the suggestion of many on this site), I started dating a new woman who I met many years ago and reconnected with recently. It's only been a couple weeks, but I'm cautiously optimistic about her. She appears to be a very good match for me, but after everything I've been through, I'm trying to be more careful.

I was telling a friend yesterday that the recent exGF cheating on me and ghosting me was in many ways more devastating than my exWW cheating on me, because with my exWW I could say that she was just one bad egg; but now, my last 2 significant relationships have ended in infidelity and betrayal, and this one also involves losing my "best friend".

I'm going to bookmark this thread and read through it. This woman I've been dating for the past few months and I just broke up. I felt a strange mixture of emotions. On some level, I'm disappointed. On another, I'm glad to have shared this experience with her. This was the longest relationship I've been in since the divorce. We were really into each other. We were so much alike that we found a deep connection that some might call "spiritual". I took precautions to keep my emotions even-keeled. I was more measured with my expectations than in the past. We listened to each other intently, we shared similar worldviews, we sought similar things.

Life circumstances mixed with differences in schedules and expectations led to the break up. It was amicable. I don't think we'll be friends after this because to me that's inviting disappointment. I'll miss her very much.

AbandonedGuy,

Sorry to hear about your breakup. The emotions are tough, especially the first real dating experience post divorce. In my case, I was blindsided and received no explanation for the breakup, and then I was ghosted. That was absolutely brutal. A week after that, my "best friend" of 36 years decided to alienate me and remain friends with my exGF, and that was also a crushing blow. I've been able to put together the pieces of what appears to have transpired, why she broke up with me, why she couldn't have a discussion about it, and why she ghosted me. I've also been able to piece together what happened with the "best friend", although not as thoroughly.

This breakup hurt me as much if not more than my divorce because of the way she handled the ending, and because my friend added to the hurt by also abandoning me. It's been 6 months, and I still really don't understand why it had to go down the way it did, but I'm realizing that it has a lot more to do with the exGF and the ex-best friend than it had to do with me.

I don't think what you did was wrong. You were friendly about it.

If someone was staring at me I would walk over and ask him what the f... his problem was. But that's me, cause I'm a territorial asshole that way and I grew up in a different environment than the rest of you. I grew up in a place where, if any guy impedes on your privacy or gets in your space, and that includes staring you down, you don't let that kind of thing lie. But I would do that to any guy, even if he wasn't with an ex-girlfriend.

[This message edited by Westway at 10:57 AM, March 22nd (Monday)]

Last night I broke up with the most recent gal I was dating. Lasted about a month and a half and then sputtered. I didn't feel like the relationship was progressing, and I began to lose interest. I guess that's pretty normal in today's dating world? I'm feeling a little bummed today, and of course thinking about the exGF.

Just a shame that I had thought that I found a good one with the exGF that this thread was originally about. Still no further contact with her since the encounter just after new years day, and still no communication with my former "best friend".

Hard to believe that this Saturday will be 7 months since the breakup and subsequent loss of my friend. In many ways it seems like it's been much less time, yet in many ways it seems like it's been far longer.

The dating world is weird like that, at least the OLD world is. I know there is all kinds of advice and judgement on when one is in a "rebound" phase as opposed to a healthy phase. IMO there is no timeline you can set for everyone. Some people get better at healing after consecutive failed relationships, and some people develop a depression/cynicism and get worse after each one.

I had 20 years between marriage #1 and #2. During that time I had a lot of bad dates, a couple "relationships" that were doomed from the start, and lots of stretches where I didn't care to date, I just enjoyed the single life. Suddenly during year 19 I end up with someone that had insane chemistry. It was like a relationship on turbo. Just a few months into it she was always "busy" and things cooled down like an arctic storm. I was almost to the point of buying a ring (like a week away) and things felt off. The more I pushed, the more icy she got. Finally just called quits on it 5 months after it started. Mom died a month later, and I was thrown into some serious depression.

I don't know if I can say I was healed 6 months after all that, but I definitely had a different attitude towards OLD. Instead of being a "need" it became a "game". I got a lot pickier with who I'd spend time on. Had weeks where I didn't message a single profile because no one impressed me. Suddenly found one profile I liked, messaged (ended up being a lot), 1st date, 2nd date with kiss, ended up being ExW #2 (6 1/2 years). So that was 20 years, serious relationship that failed, then 6 months before meeting someone that turned into marriage. How do you diagnose that?

So I say go with your gut. Getting back into dating after an ended relationship shouldn't have a cool down timer, it should completely be your own judgement. But it should be something you WANT to do not feel you should be doing.

Gottheshaft - You can tell based on your writing you're still hung up on that one girlfriend. You do you, but I think you just need a break from dating. No one is going to replace that one girlfriend, no matter how hard you try. You just got to give it some time dude. Be alone for a bit and just chill. Let the feelings for that one dissipate and then, maybe you'll be much more open and ready when you resume dating.

I agree you should stop dating for a while. Going through a traumatic breakup is like running a double marathon. Dating right after is like getting to the end of that double marathon, changing shoes, and running another ten miles.

Your heart needs a rest. Your psyche needs space and time to heal. Take a Brazilian Jujitsu class, try yoga or Tai Chi, buy a roadbike... anything but taking on a new girlfriend.

I took on a FWB for a while after I moved out and filed for D. It was helpful in getting back my sense of masculinity and self worth, but after a few months it just felt like a burden on top of too many other burdens I was carrying. She and I amicably parted and have remained friends, and even she told me I needed to take a long break from dating. When your own FWB tells you that you need to listen.

[This message edited by Westway at 4:00 PM, April 6th (Tuesday)]

Thanks Westway. You're probably right. Funny thing is that the fish are jumping into the boat, so to speak. Lately I've had multiple women reaching out to me through Facebook Messenger, some are people I've known and others are random strangers. And, I've had a client hit on me. It's super weird. I did have dates last night and Monday night, but I'm trying to take a break. These women are aggressive and unrelenting. Seriously.

I'm really divided on what to do. I enjoy women and miss the consistency of the relationship that ended 7-1/2 months ago (wow, I can't believe it's been that long now). I have a "fix-it" mentality, and this is really the only aspect of my life that is off-kilter at the moment. So, my tendency is to want to solve the issue and find the next girlfriend that I can enjoy a consistent relationship with.

On the other hand, I'm sure that's probably the opposite of what I should be doing. As many have said, I probably need to take a break. I'd love a FWB situation, because I do enjoy sex. Like you, I had that shortly after my divorce, and it lasted about 4 or 5 months. Definitely built back my confidence and helped my healing. But I don't want to be lonely, and I don't want to be missing out on my prime - I'm 47 years old, have a great job that affords me the ability to take vacations and travel, am in the best shape of my life since I was a college athlete, have a full head of hair, and am over 6ft tall.

It's also very hard when I know my ex-wife transitioned seamlessly into her new marriage with POSOM, and they live happily ever after like the Brady Bunch. And, it's hard to know my recent ex-GF is still dating the dude she cheated on me with, now 7-1/2 months after she and I broke up. And, it's hard that my former "best friend" still doesn't speak with me.

My personality is that I crave close relationships with my friends and the woman I'm dating. I don't necessarily have to find the next woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, but I'd like to be excited about a woman again - something I really haven't had since the exGF broke up with me.

GTS. I think you may be overthinking this. I was recently dumped and have adopted a strategy that seems to be working for me. I got really honest with myself and wrote down everything that he ever did that didn’t sit right with me. Through this I realized that he was nowhere near being the person I thought he was. I think doing this might help you move on. If she came back to you, would you even want her back?

Finally an update. It’s been an interesting few days. On Thursday, a friend of mine asked me if I saw the crazy political post on Facebook that former “best friend” had posted. I went on Facebook and noticed that he has now defriended me. It was hurtful to have a best friend of 36 years “defriend” me on social media, but the truth is that he had already defriended me in real life 8 months ago, so I guess this should be no surprise. But it puts to rest the nonsense that many of you were saying that I was overthinking what he was doing/saying. I wasn’t. He has obviously decided he no longer wants to be my friend.

Then yesterday, I was riding my bike on a popular bike/walk/jog area, and I passed xGF and the guy she’s dating as they were on a walk. I wasn’t expecting to see them because she was never one to exercise. This time I did NOT stop or say hello, but I saw them, and I know they saw me. Maybe this means I’m progressing? Then an hour later, I was running an errand at Home Depot and ran into her brother and his daughter. I did say a very brief hello to them but didn’t linger long enough to have a conversation. I thought it was appropriate to acknowledge them, say hello, and move along.

AngelBetrayed, yes I commented on your post. I’m very sorry you’re going through the same thing. Hugs. Thanks for the suggestion. It sounds like a good idea.