It gets complicated

[TurtleDog]

I apologize if this isn't the right thread for this post, I wasn't sure where to put this....

This is also going to be a lengthy post......

 

Almost 1 year ago in October, I broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years because she was emotionally abusive, dishonest, and was not loyal in the slightest bit to me. For instance, she would cheat on me and then tell me that it was my fault, or she would send nudes to someone and then act like she was some poor victim when I got angry and try to make me feel like I was a terrible person for being mad. I grew to love her and her two little girls, she really broke the mold for me because I had said that I would NEVER date anyone who has kids, I didnt just fall in love with one girl, I fell in love with three. Her oldest started calling me dad and I loved the kids, I went out of my way to do things with not just my girlfriend, but with her kids as well.

I worked 90+ hours a pay period to pay for her cellphone plan and still be able to see her and spoil her and the kids, and all she did was sit at home and send nudes to other people or sext with them behind my back, even when I was with her in person she was still doing that.

I was always the bad guy, and she was always the one who was the victim.

I ended up breaking up with her because things got really bad and I found no joy in a relationship where I felt like I had to watch my back all the time, and hack into her accounts online or sneak into her phone to know whether or not she was staying loyal (I always found something that would upset me). Towards the last 2 weeks of the relationship, I cheated on her out of revenge and never told her because the person I cheated on her with was someone that she hated with every fiber of her being.

After the break up, it took me a month to feel like all I wanted was to have her back in my life, so I ended up keeping her around and we pretty much did everything we did in the relationship except we werent together. We clung to and relied on each other and slowly she started talking to other guys and started seeing other people, which started to make me freak out and try to pull her closer. I told her I wanted to try to work things out and that I thought we should see each other again, our first official date in this phase, I caught her on Tinder and on another website setting up a hook up while she was with me, and once again I became angry and she couldnt see why.

I never took the big step and told her I wanted to be with her because all of my friends would have been so angry with me for it because they all knew the things she did to me, and I was scared because I knew what she was capable of doing. She kept telling me that the break up was what she needed to see the error of her ways and I didn't believe her because after 2 years of begging her to be nicer to me and her seeing nothing wrong with how she was acting, I didnt think that 1 month after breaking up was going to be enough to magically fix her.

Every time she would meet a new guy she would pretty much tell me off, and then when things didnt work with him she would come crawling back to me, I became a safety net.

She and I went out on a few dates recently, up until about a week or two ago we were still having sex regularly. I ended up finding out that she is seeing someone, and she told me she didnt want to send pictures to each other, or talk dirty, or even talk about the old relationship because it wasnt fair to the guy she was seeing. Today I found out that they are dating.....I'm crushed.

 

But the one thing that hurts the most is when I sit here and think about her telling me no more sex talk, no more flirting, no more anything and that we would basically just be strangers now, I cant help but wonder why she never told anyone who sent her nudes, who tried to sext with her, who tried to flirt with her to stop when we were together. Why was I not worth having the good side of her? Why wasn't I worthy of her loyalty and devotion and some new guy is?

 

I had recently been hanging out with this girl who I began to have some strong feelings for, this girl is also my ex's best friend. This girl also has a boyfriend who is a total jerk, but one night when we were drinking together there seemed to be some awkward sexual tension between her and I.

 

I know I dont need to get into another relationship right now, and that I should work on myself.

How do I get over a toxic ex so that I can finally move on with my life?

[MissCanuck]

First, stay away from the ex's best friend. No good can come of that when this girl also has a boyfriend. Just don't go there.

 

Second, you can start to move on by working on yourself. The biggest problem here is that you allowed your ex to mistreat and disrespect you repeatedly. No, you didn't deserve it. But you need to get to bottom of why you enabled your own misery for so long. I've been there too. It's not easy, but it's necessary to first love yourself.

 

Stay away from dating for a little while until you are able to reconstruct your self-esteem and implement strong boundaries. Otherwise, you are likely to attract the same type of dysfunctional and unloving women into your life.