breaking up 4 years relationship and third party situation

I need someone to share my story with, and psychiatrists are something I can’t afford right now.

My whole problem begins with a breakup, but please don’t judge me. I know it is an everyday thing and that I have to be stronger, but:

May 2019. I have had a boyfriend for four years. He was my best best friend. We had fun all the time, laughing, loving, everything was so easy. We didn’t have to force anything. Everyone around us was saying that they wanted a relationship like ours.

We had a long-distance relationship. An hour’s plane rides away, but we were seeing each other quite frequently and communicating all the time.

I was doing my med studies. He was studying economics there, so it was good so that we could focus on our education. Our plan was, after I finish med school, to come where he is and do my surgery specialization there. That was supposed to happen in January 2020.

Then, out of nowhere, he said that he wanted a break. I didn’t agree because I don’t believe in breaks and he broke up with me.

We were planning our summer vacation two days before, and just like that, he decided he wanted to break up. The reason he said was that the distance was too much. We had only six months left until I come there.

One week before that, he went out with friends that were visiting the town where he was, and there was this girl he then met for the first time. A month after we broke up, they started seeing each other. They went on weekends together (that fast). They were buying gifts for each other. They even went public.

I had my doubts since the beginning, but he was always denying them and lying. Then he confessed to me and said she was only sex (yes, we were communicating the whole time, mainly because we missed our friendship).

Six months later, she told him she wanted a relationship. He said to her that he couldn’t let me go and that he wants to try again with me, that he never saw her as something more serious. Now we are on a track to get together again and I am in a town 40minutes away from him (as our plan was).

After we broke up, I was devastated. I never ever expected something like that from him. He was always taking care of me. I felt like I lost the person I was closest too, and the person who cared about me the most. I had suicidal thoughts. I stopped hanging out with people. This goes deeper because my father was an alcoholic and physically abusive but died out of lung cancer.

I grow up learning how to take care of myself, and I was quite an individualistic person until I met him. Until he became my best friend and lover and I was like hey, relationships can work. Someone can take care of me. I never expected anything like this from him. Never, ever.

So I had a depression episode. I took antidepressants, but for two months only because they took away my concentration and focus.

He showed me their last conversation, where he says to her that he chooses me, and she says, ‘Oh give it a month with her, and you will see that we are soulmates, ours was love at first sight.’

I know I shouldn’t have, but I have read their conversations. And the times when he would contact me during our breakup, were either the times when they were fighting or the times when she said she wanted to become more serious. But they were fighting all the time, with bad words and everything that we never ever did. We were always communicating.

She even said that she will move for him in another country (because she lives where I live, so it is still long distance)

He said that he never considered her as serious until 10 days ago. He said that he remembered the time with her, and he doesn’t feel good. I don’t know what that meant because he got angry and pulled away. He said that he wants to end up with me, that we will work things out (we are not together, we are trying to work things out), and that he sees future with me, not with her, but that he has some internal issues he has to work on and want to :break up: again. Only to find out he was communicating with her and now still is, after our final break up. When I asked him, he said no I don’t communicate with her. But he was lying.

I don’t get it, their last conversation was brutal, he told her he chooses me and wants to leave her and she was so brutal with words, and now they are together again.

I feel like I am not good enough. Like he saw for the second time what am I VS what she is and decided she is better in so many way. Even when I was 40minutes away from him and she was 1000km away. Me and her don’t have one thing in common, which makes me feel like he has wanted someone like her this whole time. Like he now realised he was with the wrong person this whole time (me). I feel so not worth it, I feel like she is better then me in everything, I became obsessed with her. She is prettier. She is more interesting. She is four years older than both of us. She always has make-up on, her character is flirty and somewhat manipulative and I know she talks bad things about me because she is so upset that he was mentioning me all the time. She is everything I am not. I see her everywhere I go, I dream of them together… I can’t let this go, it hurts so much. And I am so scared that they will work out, I am so scared – I feel like my soulmate has another soulmate. It hurts so much, because I love him. I don’t feel joy in the things I used to, but I feel joy when I am with him. I feel like I am at home. Only sometimes home is haunted by ghosts.

He called me three days ago to ask how I am and to tell me that he has been crying and misses me and sees me as his wife. But that was it. He is still with her, but I haven’t confronted him about that, I didn’t know how to act when he called.

I don’t recognize myself. I feel like this face is not mine; this hair is not mine, so why take care of it. These toxic thoughts were never something that I had. I was a strong person. I went through a lot in my childhood, and now I am ashamed of myself. I can’t stand myself. He was my best friend, we did everything , literally everything together..

I feel like I only bother people and that I am boring. I have friends that have happy relationships, and I envy them. I feel so guilty about that. I love them, I want them to be happy, but I envy anyone who has a happy relationship now.

I feel like I am not worth it because, after a night of meeting her, he decided she is worth throwing our relationship away. And they also became real close fast. They went on weekends together. They bought each other presents. He even came secretly for a weekend at her town to visit her. Something he has never done for me, and I was always asking for.

Please guys, I really need advice and help. I would appreciate it …

This isn't about her, what she is, who she is and so on. Relationships overall are NOT a competition.

He broke up with you and went off with someone not because she is all that, but purely because he was already out the door, because he was already checked out of your relationship, because he already had an eye out for someone new and he opened that door and invited that new woman in. The who the woman is, is irrelevant.

The problem is that behind the great facade, this guy is a selfish, self centered coward who never spoke up that he is not happy or would like to end things. In fact, he would have been perfectly happy to string you along with his "break" thing had you not called him out on it and refused. He wanted to test drive a new thing and still keep you on the back burner. That is an ahole of extraordinary proportions.

Please open your eyes and understand that this guy is a loser, a low life, a self centered coward who only has his own interests and benefits in mind and nothing else. He treated you like dirt and you'd be a complete fool to ever speak to him again. Please block and delete and never ever speak to him again. This guy is toxic and if you make the mistake of continuing with him, you better be good with being cheated on, because he is the kind who will do just that.

He may have seemed great....but now you've seen behind the curtain and it's not pretty and shouldn't be acceptable to you. So many men out there, why choose this garbage for yourself? Have the self respect to evict him from your life with extreme prejudice. This stopped being a relationship and has become a toxic habit for you. Quit it cold turkey.

I presume since you are a surgical resident that you have access to counseling. Please consider attending counseling as I fear you could sink into a deep depression.

And as DancingFool wrote, the other woman is not the issue. Your ex is the issue, with his egotistical waffling and insisting on keeping both of you women on his hook. He is the cause of your pain, not the cure for it.

I'm really sorry to hear about this. The world's strongest person, in the shoes you're in, would be feeling much the way you do right now.

What's hard to accept, what it sounds like you're not ready to accept quite yet? The man you've been with, and love, is not the man you think he is. Whatever his good qualities, he has shown you qualities that make him a pretty awful person for an emotional investment. Imagine planning for a road trip and then discovering the car had no wheels: it's a bit like that.

This new woman, as DancingFool articulated, is not the threat, or the problem. The threat and problem is him: a guy who is showing you, over and over, that he has no respect for you, that he is incapable of thinking of anyone save for himself. He's showing those same qualities to her, of course, so really the "winner" in this whole circus is whoever opts to detach, for good, from a guy who has shown himself to be a loser. Because "winning" a loser? That's a straight-up loss.

Blunt, I know, but it's bluntness delivered with your best interests in mind. You've been burned, and that sucks. You can, and will, recover. But you will not treat the burn by keeping a hand on the burner, which is what you're trying to do right now. That's just a recipe for more pain, more dysfunction.

Your ex is not a good person, OP. He has been playing both you and her for a while here, and he knows it. He easily lies to you both, and certainly emotionally manipulates you. He probably does the same to her.

But as the others have rightly pointed out, she isn't really the issue. He is. Even if this specific woman hadn't popped up in his life, it speaks to his lack of true investment in your relationship that he was even considering another option. That is not the behaviour or choice of a man who is genuinely committed anymore. If it hadn't been her, it likely would have been someone else. I don't say that to make you feel bad, to be very clear, but to highlight the point that this man had been checking out of your relationship before he ever clued you into it.

I'm very sorry you're going through this. The way he's treated you is abysmal, but please do reach out to supportive friends and family. Speak to a professional counselor if you feel yourself slipping further into depression. This is not about who you are or are not. It's about finding the strength to remember to love everything about you, and know that the right person for you will appreciate what this guy doesn't.

Welcome to ENA,

So to cut to the brutal facts of all this: The love or your life dumped you so he could have sex with some girl he just met and when the newness wore off he wanted to get back with you all the while still seeing this other woman for sex.

The love of your life is not the person you thought he was as he is selfish and a liar. I would ask you this? How long before he pulls the same thing if you take him back?

I know this hurts and your head is spinning but you need to see this as it really is. Are you losing a soul mate or dodging a bullet? He has shown his true character, now all you need to do is take off your love goggles and see him for who he truly is.

Go no contact right away and focus on your studies and upcoming career.

Lost

I think everyone summed up the situation fairly well... just wanted to let you know, you will get through this.

You are not chopped liver! You have a lot to offer and he is the loser in all this. i feel sorry for the other woman because she is also being sold a crap bill of goods.

Move on with your own life. That's how you get your self esteem back. Know that while, yes, you may have been through a lot and this is hard, too, but you've come this far!

You will overcome this. Unfortunately, life is a series of challenges and every single time, you gotta pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again. Its the only way to be successful.

Success is not lack of failure or disappointment. Success is never quitting on yourself. Rest but never quit.

You deserve to be with someone who treats you with respect. Therefore, as others have stated, you dodged a bullet. Now you can find someone who genuinely values you.

As for someone else being prettier and more interesting... honestly, it's subjective. What someone finds exciting in a person another one doesn't. What matters is that we tend to attract like minded people. In other words, confident people attract confident people. What are your hobbies? Hobbies add colour to your personality.

I understand, it's not easy under current circumstances, but try to maintain a positive mindset. Honestly, you are a beautiful, joyful and an interesting conqueror and nothing shall stop you from moving forward!

last night he called me. Confessed that he is communicating with her, and that she is talking about me (but he didnt say what he is talking about me).. he says he is not confirming those words because he knows they are not true but still listens to them. Someone who knows me for 5 years gets on the side of the person he knows for 5 months.. Its like my best friend betrayed me. He says that she is not that interesting to him anymore, that they argue every other day, but they keep communicating because he doesnt want to be alone. He says he imagines his future only with me but that's it. The conversation ended that way. He says all this but still chooses her at the end of the day...

Time to tell him you don't want to hear from him anymore and then block him. These conversations are not doing you any good.

but what does this even mean?? does he love her? why isnt he all inclusive with her if he chosed her already? I dont get it, I dont understand why and what is he doing

I keep imagining them both happy and laughing and in love . and laughing at me... Whenever I watch a movie or read a book about new love starting or love at first sign and everything that follows, I imagine the two of them. Don't get me wrong, I am a girl with hobbies. I paint, I play the piano, I cycle, I hike, I love reading books, I learn new language right now... but they are in my mind. And all I want is to go to sleep because then my mind is silent. If , of course, I dont dream about them being happy..

but what does this even mean??

What this means—the only part you can really hold onto—is that this man is far, far, far from the man you once believed him to be. Whether some of these qualities weren't noticeable because you two were long distance for so long, or whether he's just skidding out, the bottom line here is that he has become a person who is toxic for you—mentally, emotionally.

Keep giving him access to you, and keep using him as a thermometer to take the temperature of your own worth, and you will keep getting sick. Just as we are all social distancing right now to avoid coming into contact with something toxic, this is a moment, in your personal world, to create very real distance from the emotional virus that this man has become.

With that distance you will be able to move through some feelings of grief and mourning—and, with that, you'll find some clarity. Asking him to provide clarity right now is like asking a tornado to provide shelter.

Sadly he is playing both of you. Don't stand for it. Watch the actions, not the words. He is telling her the same rubbish he is telling you.

He says that she is not that interesting to him anymore.He says he imagines his future only with me but that's it. He says all this but still chooses her at the end of the day...

I cant take it anymore. I cant take another day with the thought of them two happy and laughing over me, being intimate and sharing deep personal informations. I dont want to live. Sorry if I failed you all and thank you for all your advice, but maybe life isnt for everyone

OP, you need to reach out to a friend or family member immediately.

Alternatively, contact a suicide hotline in your area. Your emotional distress is gravely concerning.

Take care of your emotional and physical health. Get to a doctor asap. Use a telemedicine service or call a suicide line. Never go off medication then get suicidal. Move back home .

We had a long-distance relationship. An hour’s plane rides away

he decided he wanted to break up. The reason he said was that the distance was too much.

I had a depression episode. I took antidepressants, but for two months only