Why do I have to pick up the pieces?

Having such a tough time the past little while. After finding out my XF and his AP just had a romantic trip to the mountains only two months after we broke up (we broke up 2 weeks after DDay). He used the classic tactics of blaming me for his cheating because he wasn’t attracted to me, along with him gaslighting me while I had been suspecting the affair a long time ago. When he left he framed it as I emotionally exhausted him and he needed to find what makes him happy in life by going to therapy. As no surprise, that all went out the window and he is now with his AP who left her husband for him.

I feel so much. Im so upset that he turned this on me making it sound like I emotionally neglected him when he never brought any concerns up to me ever in the relationship (despite me asking infinite times if he would tell me if he ever had a problem with me). To justifying leaving by saying that he needed to find what makes him happy in life which was a bunch of bs to be with her. I feel intense anger towards both of them for abandoning their long term partners for each other right before the holidays, while they’re out travelling and adventuring together is disgusting. It feels like we’ve been disposed of like human garbage.

I’m also angry that my XF was so complacent in our relationship and never planned anything like their getaway. Any trip we ever took it was me planning, doing all of the driving, mostly paying, and ALWAYS feeling taken for granted because he couldn’t genuinely thank me for putting the trips together. I really feel like the chump since he’s out living his life with her right now while I’m left with the trauma and crying almost every day. I recently put up the engagement ring for sale online after a two jewellers told me it has absolutely no re-sale value. Naturally this ignited several people asking me what happened and having to re-live everything all over again. I gave so much to him to get absolutely nothing but pain and trauma in the end.

4 comments posted: Tuesday, January 16th, 2024

Two weeks from hell and planning my WS/OP wedding

It's been two and a half months since DDay and I am still in the stages of shock that include feeling sick to my stomach, I have lost a significant amount of weight, and now I found out that my ex-fiance (XF) and the OW are planning a wedding together...identical to the one that we were planning.

For context, my ex and I were together for four and a half years. We had a great life together (so I thought) but but had very normal issues that any couple had. I genuinely thought he was my person so I was ecstatic when he proposed in July. We talked frequently about getting married that even before the proposal we were planning our lives together. Things took a dramatic turn in August. He started a new job that was significantly more demanding than the previous, and he started to question his career. On top of that, one night I noticed that he was looking at old conversations with flings he had in university (almost 10 years ago), started wearing his high school football jersey a lot, and he was very withdrawn during the time together that we did have. His phone was a constant problem throughout our relationship as it seemed like his only "hobby". I felt like he was going through a very young mid-life crisis.

My XF had a friend whom I never trusted the entirety of our relationship. She was overly needy, was constantly messaging him on Snapchat and it seemed like she needed his attention all of the time. This friend of his got married two years ago and that was my first time meeting her in person. The first thing she said to me was "Oh, you're actually pretty" and that she knew that she was my XF soulmate. Physically, I knew that she checked his boxes, and I knew that they talked a lot, but I had a deep trust in my XF that I didn't impose any strict boundaries at that point. I let him know how concerning it was to hear that but he laughed it off, constantly reassuring me that he wanted to be with me. In March of 2023 I planned a surprise birthday party for him and invited her and her husband, but only she showed up. She made a point of interrogating me about my mental health that night (while she was heavily intoxicated) and how high maintenance I was which was mind blowing to me because we didn't know each other and this was clearly not the event for such an encounter. That was really the final straw for me. When I approached my XF about this I was gaslit and told that she does respect me and that she would never do anything to compromise our relationship. Her and her husband very suddenly moved to another province in September and my XF and she went out to a "goodbye dinner" where neither I nor her husband were invited. I said that because of these things I did not feel comfortable with inviting her to our wedding.

The day I bought my wedding dress at the end of October I was met with a look of pure fear on my XF face that I actually made the purchase. My XF always had difficulties with big emotions, even to the point that his own mother would chat with me about her concerns with him. He had let me know that he had concerns with our relationship to the point we needed to focus on them over the wedding, which I gladly agreed to do. The next day he came to me saying that he has not been happy for some time and that he felt as though he was my caregiver and that I exhausted him. To be fully transparent, my ex hardly took care of himself since I met him to the point he brushed his teeth once a day and I was always the one who cleaned/took care of the apartment, laundry, quite literally did everything except his job for him. There was an ongoing joke with his friends and family that I was his administrative assistant because he never responded to people in his life and they would go through me when they have needed to contact him.

The next two weeks would be literal hell. There were new and often times contradicting epiphanies, every day. Because of how much I loved him I listened to support him, as he worked through every single issue he ever had with me and told me about it. I was too paralyzed to speak because so many of these issues (if not all) were never brought up to me before but I was committed and willing to do anything for our relationship. A few days later we were invited to a dinner party that was hosted by the OW and her husband which I decided not to go to, but my XF still went; it hit me like a tonne of bricks in that moment. I asked him if he was having an emotional affair with her which he shared that he was and had been since September. The reason why I asked about an emotional over physical is because they would not see each other a lot but were always talking on the phone with one another. He told me that both him and her had decided to tell their partners and work through their current situations before pursuing each other but I feel like they both said that to make themselves feel somewhat better. He became a completely different person and said things to me along the lines of he's not attracted to me anymore because I gained weight, that some of my best qualities are "low-grade" (i.e. kindness and compassion), and that the plans we made to have kids and get married were things he could see in his life, just not with me. On a side note, he "joked" that he now joined all of his male friends who have all cheated on partners before... Needless to say I wasn't laughing.

Our first couples therapy session he said that he needed to decide if he wanted to work through things with me because he felt like he needed to, or because he wanted to. We decided to take some time apart to figure out where we stand, and when he returned home he kept saying how much he appreciated the warm welcome, and how much it meant to him that I sat with him and consoled him while he cried. I had hope because he was looking at me the way he did in the beginning with love in his eyes, and kept telling me how selfless I was being letting him have space to work through his stuff as he initially said that "nothing in life makes him happy". It was actually one of the only times I felt genuine gratitude from him. Similarly, the OW and her husband were in therapy and despite OW being told to cut off communication with my XFfor 4-6 months (at least), she said that she couldn't do that and would do 2 weeks instead. He also shared that he would never cut off communication with her and he didn't want to be in a relationship where his friendship with her wouldn't be celebrated. Exactly one year from our wedding day, and three days before my XF and OW could talk again, my XF said he had no hope for our relationship so we ended it.

Considering this all took place within two weeks and that my XF was with me for almost five years, I have been feeling lost and confused. I can't comprehend this dramatic change in behaviour and the fact that he basically transferred all of his actions and intensity in our relationship to his relationship with the OW (She has coincidentally decided to leave her husband). As of right now, my XF and the OW are planning a wedding together (while she is not even divorced yet) and this event has all identical details to the one that I was planning including colours, venue, etc. This makes me sick. This was four years of my life that I believed to be happy, to find out that I have been completely disregarded almost instantly (along with OW's husband), and they're now planning their future together. His mom has reached out to me to acknowledge the pain and trauma that he has caused, the same with his best friend, and everyone in my life is looking at this thinking "what the hell?" because it was so sudden and drastic. But now I'm left wondering if this was as sudden as it seems.

[EDITED: WS = XF, OP = OW)

9 comments posted: Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024