I Changed While My Ex Remained The Same

[guest2345]

I recently ran into my ex and reconnected with some of our mutual friends.

 

After all this time (been a couple of years) after listening to where he was in his life and what he is doing, compared to where I am and what I am doing... I'm kind of dumb founded.

 

Here it is this man complained about how I was going nowhere and holding him back and yadda yadda yadda and now that he's on his own, well dating the woman he cheated on me with, he's the exact same person he was when I left him doing the exact same things it seems. He even was wearing this military style coat he had lost when we were dating a few years ago! He'd rebought the same coat to replace it in the last couple of months he had said.

 

I on the other hand have done a 180 and went into a completely different direction in my life from when we knew each other.

 

The funny thing is in my life I'm always evolving, always doing and finding things that I enjoy. I guess I'm a transformer. Always have been, always will.

 

It bothered me a whole deal that this man complained about me to me (I never tol dhim what I thought his faults were, maybe in hinesight I SHOULD HAVE! but whatever I dont like playing that game). The main thing being that people don't change.

 

I guess it's just interesting to me that in this case he was right... at least he's the one who hasn't changed.

 

Casually speaking to mutual friends who've let thing slip here and there and he's still the same person he used to be doing the same things.

 

I guess he hasn't realized yet that if you keep doing the same things that got you nowhere, you will continue to get nowhere until you can change.

 

Have any of you ever run into a ex after a couple of years have gone by and seen that they have not changed one bit from when you knew them?

 

Weird. Funnier yet, mutual friends think I've changed so much that they have taken note. But I'm not so sure I have, though my career and activities I enjoy have defn did a 180.

 

Not that I'm supposed to care, so don't come at me with you shouldn't be thinking about what he's thinking - I know this - this thread is basically me pondering things out loud to this community filled with people who've gone through the same and perhaps have had the same thoughts...

 

I wonder... if in seeing me, this new me, is he slightly like wow, she's changed (as our mutual friends). My brother told me that of course he thinks that but being a man he'll keep it to himself but there will porbably be that little thought in his mind like ' i wonder what would have become if i had stuck around.'

 

Thinking out loud again.

 

Anyone else run into their exes and have a good moment of clarity in regards to them being in the same space an dyou moving on to a better one?

[TheSmilingTurnip]

I think anyone would be happy to have confirmation that they did the right thing. It feels good. Mine came when I dumped my cheating ex, started talking to him three months later, and promptly discovered that he STILL couldn't keep it in his pants as he *tried* to seduce me while going steady with another girl for three months. It felt good to know I'd absolutely, without a doubt, done the right thing.

[Siriana]

Oh, let me just add: And it feels good, doesn't it? Enjoy it. This is the best revenge you'll ever get!

[TheSmilingTurnip]

Wasn't it Ivanka Trump who said, after being dumped for tart Marla Maples (who was later dumped for another tart), "The best revenge is living well."?

 

Well, she was right honey.

[Dako]

That quote was originally from George Herbert in the 16th century.

He must've told Ivana that as a child.

[guest2345]

funny.. his mother told me the same thing when we broke up. then again, i guess she was trying to keep me from killing her son! lol. though, oddly enough his father did the same exact thing to her when she was pregnant with him - he wasn't raised with his father but still has the same traits.

 

it's funny. ive not tried to change either, it's just who i am. he always thought he knew who i was... put a label on me. but i realize now... he never did, he just thought he did.

[Pegasus]

That quote was originally from George Herbert in the 16th century.

He must've told Ivana that as a child.

 

Oh come on Dako, she is old but not *that* old

[BeStrongBeHappy]

i think the thing about seeing an old ex is that sometimes you have a real 'wow' moment, when you can perceive them without the 'love goggles' that cause us to frequently gloss over things that were really obvious to everyone but ourselves...

 

some people do change a lot, but maybe you just found a part of you that was always there, and you were able to blossom away from him because he was stifling you etc. but your ex sounds kind of rigid, so he may not really be able to grow that much, and do the same old things. but since you've grown into a butterfly, you can fly away from him, how nice!

 

i remember breaking up with an ex who turned out to be a flagrant philanderer, and i remember at the time (before i really knew this), that i compared myself negatively to whatever new woman was in his life, like if i had only been/done this or that, he would have stayed with me...

 

until i realized that he just had a revolving door of women, and NONE of them lasted longer than a few years, and he did the same things to them, over and over, same bad choices, same lies, etc. so that was really liberating for me, to realize that i was a person who learned and grew, but he never changed, and over time, his life just got more and more messed up, with all these women and children littering his past because he was a compulsive womanizer and no one woman mattered to him.

 

so sometimes it is GREAT to see an ex, if only to give us a little frisson of joy when we realize how lucky we are to have moved on and not care about him anymore!