Annie12345 Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Hey guys. This is probably going to be a long post, apologies in advance. I completely forgot this website even existed until I started clearing my old laptop and it was bookmarked in my web browser from when I was heartbroken 3 years ago. I realised that people hardly come back and post on these forums after a long time. Well, I guess here I am, in my tired, insomniac bored state, to ramble about my little story and whirlwind of a few years. So my first encounter with this website was 3 years ago, January of 2020 when I had just been dumped by my ex-girlfriend of 6 years completely out of the blue. Like major 180 situation - she went from telling me she wanted me to propose to stone cold telling me she hadn't loved me in a year in the space of a week. I was devastated. Even more devastated when I found out later that day that she'd been cheating on me with a guy she met a few days prior at work. What made it worse though, was the messages I found to her best friend and new guy she'd cheated with that was full of her sending my personal business to them, picking apart how I looked, laughing about how I was depressed and grieving for my recently passed Mother, and most of all, making jokes to them both about how my Mum was dead and haunting her. This was kind of the nail in the coffin for my anger and I should have erased her from my life right at that point. I know, I know. What followed was a literal tornado of mixed messages and confusion. She would be stringing me along telling me that she didn't know what she wanted, that she wanted me, then she wanted him, then she wanted no relationship at all. I never begged or pleaded with her to take me back, I expressed that I would consider working on things, but that I would never be friends with her. So it really was her reeling me in and keeping me as a back up incase things went south with her new guy, rather than me chasing and chasing. She even insisted that I come over to her house to spend Christmas day with her and her family, then ignored me the entire time I was there - looking back on it now, I have no idea why I even pacified half of that crazy ***, but I was grieving the relationship I guess. I ended up getting annoyed with being used as backup and told her to give me a straight up answer as to what she wanted. This conversation ended up in us cutting contact through my decision, and we went full no contact from then on. She then completely changed - her entire personality, she stopped going to Uni, to work, she started binge drinking super heavy and taking recreational drugs. I didn't recognise her almost overnight. I remember joining forums like these to get reassurance, answers and even hope of reconciliation, and I would see almost every post telling the OP to move on, it won't happen, there will be someone else, you'll find someone better etc. but all with the common theme that reconciliation is either bad or incredibly unlikely. I pretty much ignored all of those posters and trawled for the few posts where people told of successful reconciliation and held onto that for a while. I honestly was a mess, an embarrassing mess. I was adamant I'd never be with anyone else again and I struggled quite a bit. Then, I came off of social media completely and went into self-care and self-improvement mode. I got my head in the books to study, I ate well, worked out, went to counselling and did all the things people on these forums and IRL told me to do (at the time I scoffed at them saying it would help, but it really did). I still cried a lot, I still felt heartbroken and honestly still felt lost at times - she was my first relationship and we had been together since we were 17/18 years old, she was all I'd known. But this was an important healing process, and honestly it allowed me to fully grieve for both the relationship and losing a parent. By March, 2.5 months after the breakup, I was probably 85-90% over it all. The remaining 10% was probably some sort of twisted halo effect or post-breakup glorification of the good times or probably just familiarity and loneliness. Things were largely good, though, and she barely crossed my mind anymore. I think my best friend talked me into joining a couple of online dating apps at this point mostly for the fun of it and I did. But they always pop their head up when you least expect it. On Mother's Day (of ALL days) I got a text message from her, with some message about how she was thinking of me and was there if I wanted to chat etc. as if nothing had happened. Major mistake here was me getting sucked in and replying to her - albeit very hesitantly. She then proceeded to use this as an open door to chat more, and what followed was about a month long period of her texting me every day, sending videos, selfies, songs, literally anything to try and reel me back in, even at times flirting. I kept reinforcing to her that I didn't want to be friends, and I never reciprocated any flirting, I simply kept things quite distant despite her persistent messaging, but I guess by replying to her I kind of didn't stick to that in practice...again, major mistake was engaging in conversation with her and her toxic game of push and pull with me. Conversation was all very surface level until one night she started to apologise for how she'd behaved. She didn't really give much of an explanation as to why - although by this point I'd kinda given up on the idea of getting one. But she proceeded to tell me how sorry she was, and how she was miserable with her new boyfriend...I tried to just give her surface level advice to work on her MH and that was that. I didn't read too much into her behaviour, and at this point I was chatting to new people. Nothing serious just harmless fun and flirting, but I still didn't really want anything serious. If I'm totally honest, I was convinced I was completely closed off to a relationship again because of how much the last one had hurt - I sort of thought I'd grow old with 10 cats or something and I was 100000% set on that. Her contact with me died off shortly after this deep chat, as she moved in with her boyfriend a few days later and disappeared again. I was fine with that, confused at her hot and cold behaviour, but I was actually fine emotionally. I think at this point I came back onto social media, and I noticed that by now she'd blocked me from some of her socials but kept me on snapchat and facebook. I didn't really make an effort to block her (again, major mistake...advice from me...just block the ex!), so I just carried on with my own life. Then of course, she resurfaced again...this time on the anniversary of my Mum's death, a few months later. The pattern of messaging me to reach out for an emotional crutch or free counselling became apparent because it seemed to happen only on days when I was most vulnerable. I should really have noticed her toxicity and manipulativeness here but...hindsight is a great thing. Anyway we spoke for a few weeks, the same idea as previously and it died off again, this time because I just told her (for the hundredth time) I didn't want to be her friend. A few months after this, the most unexpected thing happened. I met someone that would soon become my entire World. On Tinder of course (go on, judge me!). She was (is) everything that I had always looked and hoped for, and we ended up falling for eachother. I hate to admit that all those posters on here telling OPs to move on, work on themselves and when they least expect it, a person will come along that just fits and makes them much happier than the toxic manipulative ex. But they were. Anyway I could talk all day about how amazing my current fiance makes me, but that would just be really soppy. But take it from me, she taught me what mature, genuine true love actually is. I think by some weird witchcraft, my ex seemed to know exactly when I got into this relationship, and in her true toxic fashion, she popped back up again. This time she didn't try to make small talk or polite friendly conversation though. This time she started by telling me how she was depressed, miserable, had bad thoughts about herself and wanted to talk to someone. I tried to be as polite yet distant as possible and encouraged her to talk to a counsellor about this, and reminded her that she should talk to her partner about that, not me. She insisted that we met up because she 'had important information to tell me' but could only tell me in person. I wanted to say no, but I felt terrible. She really did know how to manipulate me, and I felt like if I didn't hear her out she would do something bad to herself. I know that sounds like an excuse, but honestly - it wasn't the first time she'd blamed me for her actions in that respect if you know what I mean, and I felt guilty. I spoke to my (at the time new) girlfriend about it as I only ever wanted to be transparent and open with her. She encouraged me to see what the hell she wanted. I think I'd already given myself closure months before this, but that didn't mean I wasn't confused about how and why she had acted the way she had. I agreed to meet with her in a public place at a fast food restaurant, and honestly I had no idea what she was going to say. In that hour that we spoke, she told me that she cheated because she wanted to self-sabotage and was scared that we were getting serious. That she wanted to find someone to just 'do drugs with and drink and have reckless behaviour with' and her new boyfriend happened to come along just at the right moment. She apologised profusely, then told me that she was miserable and that this lifestyle she wanted wasn't all it cracked up to be. That she didn't want to be with him but didn't know how to get out because now he was apparently depressed and reliant on her emotionally, financially etc., and that her boyfriend didn't even know she was speaking to me. I just spend most of the time listening, then tried to give my best impartial advice. To seek MH help, to take a break from her relationship to figure out what she even wanted and work on herself. I told her that we would never meet up again, because I had a new partner and was happy. I don't think this was quite the response she expected. We left the discussion on a polite note, but she would still try to reach out. I should have blocked her, I know. But I guess I felt bad that if I did block her, she would do something seriously bad to herself and that it would be my fault. Because, well, she'd told me that in the past many times, I guess my mind just had that as a default guilt setting after 6 years. I never replied to her messages, but they would continue to come. Even late at night, I'd get messages telling me that she still 'was certain she was going to marry me in the future'. I ended up changing my number, because I guess the guilt became less and less and I figured that I hadn't replied in a long time and she was still alive, so it would no longer be 'my fault'. I then blocked her on all social media. Everything went radio silent for about 5 months. Then out of nowhere her, her friends and her new boyfriend posted all over social media and online that I had stolen 'her cat' and that he was missing. Just to clarify, this wasn't her cat. This was my cat that was only ever mine and still lived happily with me (is cuddling and purring on me as I type). This was simply a twisted, toxic and malicious act for who know what reason. She even plastered my home address everywhere all over these missing cat ads, claiming that I was mistreating and neglecting him, and to say I was infuriated was an understatement. But she obviously wanted attention, a reaction. So I didn't give her one. I ignore it. I never reached out, and I pretended it never happened. Needless to say, nothing came of it, but I still am curious as to why the hell she tried to pull that stunt. Then, about 6 months after this, I got engaged to my fiance. About a week later I started to get messages to my new number from her. She'd got my number from a distant mutual friend, and she proceeded to bombard me with accusations that I owed her money. I never owed her money, but she was claiming that I needed to pay her untold amounts for gifts she had got me for birthdays and christmases whilst we were together...even saying I needed to pay off her credit cards and phone bill because 'I had used them one time' years ago. She reached out to my close family members, my friends, and even my fiance, I guess thinking she was 'exposing' me (for something I hadn't done and didn't owe). I told her as firmly and politely as possible to stop messaging others, especially my fiance, and that I did not owe her anything. I blocked her number. That was the last time I ever heard from her. So far. Hopefully her crazy behaviour is finished, but with her I guess you never know. I've been fortunate enough to not bump into her so far since we met up that day, even though her best friend lives one street away from me and she is always at her house, and her family live 10 minutes away. Hopefully my luck does continue there. Although over the last year naturally snippets of information about her have seeped through to me even though I've never sought out information on how she was doing. I guess that's the curse of having such an intertwined friend circle and having grown up together in the same school and local community. As it stands today, I'm pretty sure she is with the same guy and living with him, but aside from that, all the other bits of information are just speculation - that I don't really care to get involved with. What's more important, is that I found someone who I truly fit with even though I didn't think I'd ever be with anyone else. All these wise gurus on this forum are probably right when they tell you that life will go on, and you will end up in a better place if you go no contact, work on yourself and move forward. So I guess, do yourselves a huge favor and delete, block their number and socials, go no contact, seek some counselling, find a hobby, keep a positive mindset, and when you feel ready put yourself out there - even just for friendships with no intent of anything more. Healing takes time, and it may seem impossible in the moment, but keep getting up every day, keep working on YOU. Don't get sucked in by their breadcrumbs or reaching out. I will never stop being confused and curious as to why she behaved the way she did, and I guess I'll always wonder why. But that's just me, and I always am curious about why people behave the way they do if I don't understand it - ex, friend, family member. But I'm content with not finding out, and honestly, I'm even glad that this whole escapade happened, because without that I wouldn't have been forced to work on myself, and I certainly wouldn't have found my fiance. I'm happier now than I ever was before. From the bottom of my heart, I hope you guys all find the same peace, love and happiness. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batya33 Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 I'm glad you were able to block your ex and wish you a long and happy marriage! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwothe28 Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 43 minutes ago, Annie12345 said: I will never stop being confused and curious as to why she behaved the way she did, and I guess I'll always wonder why. Does it really matter? People who are a mess, have a way to entagle you in their mess if you let them do it. You, luckily, got away from that. And even after you got away, you got: threats, doxing, extortion etc. Enough to literally call police on her crazy bottocks and lawyer up. She needs money for booze and drugs. Desperate people like that would do anything for it. Including lying, slandering you and extorting you. You did good by not paying attention to her at all. Just dont give her anything. And call police if she tries anything else. But I really do like the story. You showed in practice that its possible to get away from the mess. And that when you handle your life differently you even attract the right people. So, good for you. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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