Hi! Please, nice comments only. I just want to know if anyone has been in a similar situation or has any advice.
My (24f) boyfriend (25m) and I have been together about 2 years, and up until last winter, his ex-girlfriend was still in love with him. They had a messy break-up and, even while me and my boyfriend were together, she was constantly texting him and posting about him on insta, twitter and facebook (in a platonic way, but it seemed like a lot to me). He admitted to me that they they were co-dependent in their relationship, and she placed a lot of pressure on him, twisting his arm in many situations. During the pandemic, my boyfriend and I moved across the country, far from both our friend groups. Her requests for phone calls and info about his daily life caused him a lot of anxiety, and he opened up about that often to me. I provided too much support for him about this particular issue, since it impacted me personally so much. He kept me secret, from her and from his friend group, for a long time, because he imagined a bad reaction from her. It hurt me. I never felt jealous; it's not that I feel threatened by her, since it's always been clear to me that he isn't interested in her romantically. But, I was made to feel invisible even though my relationship was great.
I discovered an email she sent him last October, which was clearly a love letter. She said she wanted to be there if his circumstances with me changed. She said she didn't expect her feelings for him to go away. I questioned him recently about this email without letting on that I'd read it, and he honestly hadn't interpreted it as a love letter (ugh... men). I'm still upset about how forward she was, and I'm upset by how he stayed friends with her despite her unreciprocated feelings.
Well, here's the thing. She has a girlfriend now, as of early this year. She got over my boyfriend, and now they are able to be friends without any stress or hard feelings. He doesn't hold it against her how much pressure or anxiety she used to cause him. But I'm still upset. I can't get over how hurt I was by her disregard for our relationship, and the way it made me feel invisible. It feels like I'm just supposed to move on, now that they have.
Besides this one issue, I wouldn't change a thing about my relationship with my bf. We are very communicative about this. I've told him exactly how I feel, we discuss it frequently. But nothing changes... he says he doesn't know how to make this better for me. I won't ask them to not be friends for my sake, especially given how their friendship is completely reasonable now and she's with someone new. He tells me he wishes he would have handled the situation better and kept it separate from me so that I didn't feel this way. His ex has no idea I feel this way.
I met her and her girlfriend for the first time in a group setting a month ago, and I expected to feel a sense of resolution, but I didn't feel it. I just don't know how to move on. I don't know what to do, and each day, I get more and more angry that they go on being friends, even while my boyfriend knows how it's not working for me. Can anyone relate? What do I do/ask him to do? Thanks in advance.
Yeah it's not that she's an ex. I like your point that I don't control who he's friends with, and I don't make him confront her. The thing is, she's not part of my life anymore except for the fact that I know they text often, even though it's about totally random and meaningless daily things. We never have to see her and he doesn't talk about her. I'm bothered by the idea of them being friends basically. I wonder if I would feel differently if he did confront her. Like, is that a good compromise? "I would like this to be something you address with her if you're going to be friends with her." Or if I should just tell him how I feel again and say I wish they weren't friends. I think he just has a problem with cutting people out. We're just different in that way.