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coping when your cheating EX is happy.


minimariah

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hello!

 

for all of you who got cheated on & dumped (for the person they cheated on you with) - how did you cope with seeing your EX happy? especially if the EX's relationship with this person proves to stand the test of time.

 

what did you do and how did you help yourself to get over the bitternes and feeling of being "scre*ed" over? how did you go on from the feeling of injustice? did you find forgiveness useful?

 

thanks.

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hello!

 

for all of you who got cheated on & dumped (for the person they cheated on you with) - how did you cope with seeing your EX happy? especially if the EX's relationship with this person proves to stand the test of time.

 

what did you do and how did you help yourself to get over the bitternes and feeling of being "scre*ed" over? how did you go on from the feeling of injustice? did you find forgiveness useful?

 

thanks.

 

How do you know that the cheater is happy?

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How do you know that the cheater is happy?

 

for the sake of this thread - let's assume that she/he is.

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If they have a conscious they probably feel really guilty inside no matter what they project on the outside.

 

I also feel that the universe has to keep balance. Assuming that a cheater is happy, that won't always be the case. Everyone goes through rough times and rough things but most people that are cheaters are liars and cowards. And that always catches up with you. Imagine how that cheater will feel when they've been lied to? Especially knowing they have done it to someone else? I'm sure the guilt + the lie will be terrible to cope with.

 

The only thing you can control is your happiness. I know that I was 100% loyal and faithful and honest during my entire relationship. He wasn't. I can't imagine what karma is in store for him, but he is no longer mine to care about. As rewarding as it would be to my ego, I'm not going to stick around to watch the effects of his poor life choices.

 

If you didn't cheat you're already light years ahead of him in terms of finding your own happiness.

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If you didn't cheat you're already light years ahead of him in terms of finding your own happiness.

 

i agree.

 

:)

 

there is comfort in knowing that your conscience is clear - most definitely.

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If he cheated then he clearly wasn't happy with himself. Cheating is not a sign of someone who is happy.

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I got happier.

 

My ex did this to me, sort of (long story). I still remember how nauseous I felt when he and his new GF started documenting everything on instagram, mostly her and mostly things we had planned with each other (trips to certain places, etc), and there they were... looking happy in a late night stroll, happy in a sunny morning at the flea market, him kissing her hair looking so proud in another picture, doing laundry together, her on his bed, both of them shopping, together on a trip in another country, in a happy picnic with all of his friends, which I never had the chance to meet but he made sure she met them within 2 weeks of knowing her. Obviously it was some kind of love at first sight, something clearly stronger than what he ever felt for me. It seemed a lot like a rebound too but then I'd remind myself she had even moved in with him in no time and they did look happy. Meanwhile I looked my worst and I wasn't doing anything half as interesting....

 

I went from nauseous, to shocked to depressed to bitter... all back and forth for months. I was obsessed with them in a way, even a missing "like" from him in her latest picture would feel like the start of justice, maybe their relationship was finally heading to a dive! (he would then appear in the next picture and just like that my hopes were gone).

 

What did I do? first it was very very addictive to keep track of them and trying to read into their relationship... but it was also very unhealthy, I aged!.. I grew some gray hair and got a frown line (no kidding)... I also lost too much weight and I was that kind of person you don't want to hang out with (bitter sounding, brings up the every 3 minutes). So among changing lifestyle habits (down to eating and sleeping habits), I went on strict NC... I always struggled with snooping but just resisting for a full week (and eventually a full month) helped me LOADS.. I felt lighter... not necessarily less bitter, I could just function better.

 

Then I started dating. Everyone looked wrong to me and I wasn't interested at first so I took it very very slow... and was lucky enough to find a guy that was into taking things at the same pace too. It was mostly chatting and getting to know each other for many weeks. Eventually we kissed, then we had sex and he turned out to be incredible at it! :lmao:... so in a way lust was a good medicine. We started moving forward and I was leavinng behind that ex thing and all the anger. Months went by, I continued to be strictly disciplined on NC, got new activities (job, sports, routine)... so I just... got past it somehow. A year later I was already living with this guy, we were in love and living some fun times together. I would still think of the ex sometimes, mostly about the impunity of life! but I figured sometimes life doesn't seem fair precisely so you can go and find better (in my case I did!), it's like it weeds out what doesn't work for you or what doesn't make any sense with your values, and it hurts and it was against your will but I really believe it's for a reason.

 

Around this time my ex came back... we had long conversations several times, I realized I wasn't upset anymore and even wishing him well in his relationship made me feel much better (I meant it to a good 90%!). He talked about his gf, how she had been asking him for money from the start, how she had hid from him a medical condition he eventually got, how they were constantly fighting and she had even threatened to kill herself and was always calling in tears. This last part reminded me of myself the year before... and boy was I glad that wasn't me anymore!

 

and fyi, their documented 'happiness' was just what they chose to share about their relationship and what I concluded as an outsider, it wasn't even their reality but I did waste a ridiculous amount of time calculating just how happy these two truly were AND neglecting the work I owed to myself to experience happy times.

 

They're not together anymore, and I'm single too at the moment, I did for a moment celebrated the fact that he wasn't doing well but trust me, this 'JUSTICE AT LAST!' feeling cannot be compared at all to working hard to getting yourself back on track, looking your best and being happy and having a pretty good life, and all as a result of your own strength, not cheap actions based on questionable morals and ways of treating others. It's when you get there when you may have the chance to rub it in but mostly when you realize you're kind of too cool to care whether justice gets some cheater or not...

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I agree with lop98, too many it seems want karma, they want the WS to rot in hell.

They spend years in hate and misery and they are hoping against hope that the WS has a horrible life.

By always choosing to steep themselves in jealousy, loathing and seeking vengeance, they forget that there is a life of their own to be lived.

 

Personally I do not believe in karma, and many WSs do actually go on to have happy lives.

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Personally I do not believe in karma, and many WSs do actually go on to have happy lives.

 

i agree!

 

i don't believe in karma either - and i do know some WSs who got their happily ever after (with their APs or someone new). so hoping and wishing for the worst to happen to the WS - it often fails and people feel even worse than they did & the pain just continues.

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They're not together anymore, and I'm single too at the moment, I did for a moment celebrated the fact that he wasn't doing well but trust me, this 'JUSTICE AT LAST!' feeling cannot be compared at all to working hard to getting yourself back on track, looking your best and being happy and having a pretty good life, and all as a result of your own strength, not cheap actions based on questionable morals and ways of treating others. It's when you get there when you may have the chance to rub it in but mostly when you realize you're kind of too cool to care whether justice gets some cheater or not...

 

i love this.

 

thank you!

 

<3

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I got happier.

 

My ex did this to me, sort of (long story). I still remember how nauseous I felt when he and his new GF started documenting everything on instagram, mostly her and mostly things we had planned with each other (trips to certain places, etc), and there they were... looking happy in a late night stroll, happy in a sunny morning at the flea market, him kissing her hair looking so proud in another picture, doing laundry together, her on his bed, both of them shopping, together on a trip in another country, in a happy picnic with all of his friends, which I never had the chance to meet but he made sure she met them within 2 weeks of knowing her. Obviously it was some kind of love at first sight, something clearly stronger than what he ever felt for me. It seemed a lot like a rebound too but then I'd remind myself she had even moved in with him in no time and they did look happy. Meanwhile I looked my worst and I wasn't doing anything half as interesting....

 

I went from nauseous, to shocked to depressed to bitter... all back and forth for months. I was obsessed with them in a way, even a missing "like" from him in her latest picture would feel like the start of justice, maybe their relationship was finally heading to a dive! (he would then appear in the next picture and just like that my hopes were gone).

 

What did I do? first it was very very addictive to keep track of them and trying to read into their relationship... but it was also very unhealthy, I aged!.. I grew some gray hair and got a frown line (no kidding)... I also lost too much weight and I was that kind of person you don't want to hang out with (bitter sounding, brings up the every 3 minutes). So among changing lifestyle habits (down to eating and sleeping habits), I went on strict NC... I always struggled with snooping but just resisting for a full week (and eventually a full month) helped me LOADS.. I felt lighter... not necessarily less bitter, I could just function better.

 

Then I started dating. Everyone looked wrong to me and I wasn't interested at first so I took it very very slow... and was lucky enough to find a guy that was into taking things at the same pace too. It was mostly chatting and getting to know each other for many weeks. Eventually we kissed, then we had sex and he turned out to be incredible at it! :lmao:... so in a way lust was a good medicine. We started moving forward and I was leavinng behind that ex thing and all the anger. Months went by, I continued to be strictly disciplined on NC, got new activities (job, sports, routine)... so I just... got past it somehow. A year later I was already living with this guy, we were in love and living some fun times together. I would still think of the ex sometimes, mostly about the impunity of life! but I figured sometimes life doesn't seem fair precisely so you can go and find better (in my case I did!), it's like it weeds out what doesn't work for you or what doesn't make any sense with your values, and it hurts and it was against your will but I really believe it's for a reason.

 

Around this time my ex came back... we had long conversations several times, I realized I wasn't upset anymore and even wishing him well in his relationship made me feel much better (I meant it to a good 90%!). He talked about his gf, how she had been asking him for money from the start, how she had hid from him a medical condition he eventually got, how they were constantly fighting and she had even threatened to kill herself and was always calling in tears. This last part reminded me of myself the year before... and boy was I glad that wasn't me anymore!

 

and fyi, their documented 'happiness' was just what they chose to share about their relationship and what I concluded as an outsider, it wasn't even their reality but I did waste a ridiculous amount of time calculating just how happy these two truly were AND neglecting the work I owed to myself to experience happy times.

 

They're not together anymore, and I'm single too at the moment, I did for a moment celebrated the fact that he wasn't doing well but trust me, this 'JUSTICE AT LAST!' feeling cannot be compared at all to working hard to getting yourself back on track, looking your best and being happy and having a pretty good life, and all as a result of your own strength, not cheap actions based on questionable morals and ways of treating others. It's when you get there when you may have the chance to rub it in but mostly when you realize you're kind of too cool to care whether justice gets some cheater or not...

This story isnt relevant to the topic. How would you feel if your ex-boyfriend would still be happy with his new girl and had no problems at all? And if you didnt date anyone during this time like you did?

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Comparing yourself to someone else is rarely a good idea. And a relationship is only one possible measure of happiness - good ethics may not keep you warm at night, but ultimately you can take pride and satisfaction from being a good person.

 

The truth is, often there is no justice, no karma. Bad people sometimes prosper, and good people sometimes suffer. Life isn't fair, so you simply have to make the best of what it brings.

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Shrug it off knowing it won't last. As an outsider, you can't know what happens inside their relationship anyway.

 

There was a poster on LS who found her BF with another girl in her own bed, in her own apartment. Needless to say she kicked his bum out, and then 5 years later he suddenly wants to "catch up" - they meet and he tells her how 2 years after their breakup he met a girl and was so in love with her that he wanted to marry her. At some point she became pregnant, he was so looking forward to his child - until he found out it wasn't his because of low sperm count he could never have children. And then he continued to excuse about his cheating and now occasionally drunk calls her in the night, whining blah blah...

 

Happy cheating? A trainwreck stays a trainwreck no matter where they go. And it does have one positive - you're not stuck with them anymore.

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minimariah,

What makes you think that your cheating ex is happy?

 

i wasn't talking about my own experience.

i was asking... in general, how do people cope seeing their X "winning" in life? let's imagine this next scenario - you're dumped for someone else and your X spents the next decade building a relationship & starting a family with that person. how do people cope with that?

 

you know, in my opinion - something like that might be a little harder than seeing your X starting fresh with someone new, someone he didn't cheat on you with (maybe i'm wrong).

 

when you have dreams and plans with someone and he or she leave you and do everything you wanted to do with them - only with someone else, you don't just grieve the loss of love. you grieve the loss of dream, future plans, future kids, future home with flowers... people feel like they got "robbed" of time and they often feel like their X stole their dream and fulfilled it with someone else.

 

it's harder to forgive when you're not at peace - and peace comes from justice. so how do you move on when there is no justice? i know it's hard to talk about justice in relationships and love but yeah.

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i wasn't talking about my own experience.

i was asking... in general, how do people cope seeing their X "winning" in life?

I think its exactly my case, its really hard to cope with those circumstances. I always knew that life isnt fair, especially in relationship department, but after my ex used me to upgrade her financial and social status it really hit me hard. She dumped me right after she reached her goal, i still feel like such a tool. I dont know how to describe my coping process, but it feels like its much harder for me than for other people who go through ordinary breakups.

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toolforgrowth

I think that a lot of WS's who divorce want to rub it in the BS's face that they have someone new. It's like a version of shaming. When my xWW got together with her now husband (who is not her AP), she made it known to me very easily. She thought she was going to make me upset about it. My response?

 

"If you and J ever want a weekend alone, I'd be happy to take D5 (now D7) for you!"

 

It was like the wind totally went out of her sails. All the power she thought she was going to have over me evaporated with that one sentence. A few months later she took me up on that offer; her and her now H were going away for the weekend and she asked me if I'd like to have D7. I said I'd love to, and graciously thanked her for the offer. I was polite and all smiles when she dropped off our daughter at my house, and she looked at me like she had no idea what was going on. It was really hard to not laugh in her face.

 

Now that I have a serious GF, she has become the wicked witch of the west. I literally do nothing to stand in the way of her doing whatever it is she wants to do, and I even encourage the relationships D7 has with her step dad and step siblings. I've even played with her step siblings at her day care (they like me!).

 

They can't rub something in your face that doesn't bother you. Better J than me...seriously!

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This story isnt relevant to the topic. How would you feel if your ex-boyfriend would still be happy with his new girl and had no problems at all? And if you didnt date anyone during this time like you did?

 

I answered the questions of the OP according my experience and actions I took to overcome it, and if you had actually reached the last part or gotten what I tried to say, you would've understood that what you are asking ("what if you hadn't dated! what if he was happy huh..') is actually what's not relevant, certainly the least important detail of my post and also the most superficial.

 

If I owe him any sort of credit, I will say that what I went through put a lot of things into perspective at the time, I had been too cautious with my life until that point and I wasn't being remotely aggressive about the situation I was in (employment, studies, social life), I hadn't liked what I had been up to for a long time but that experience just made it intolerable and the strike on my pride, although I thought I would never recover from it, ended up giving me a 'nothing to lose' attitude towards many things... especially towards pursuing dreams (I did use it for self-destruction for a moment but that seemed too predictable). In other words, I dated in ways that were unfamiliar to me (e.g. without games or the paranoia to share that I had for most of my 20s), I applied nonstop to a job I wanted but hadn't even bothered with because I assumed my lack of experience made it all pointless, I started making money and then traveled and moved abroad (something I had wanted to do again for a long time and I can assure you who I lived with wouldn't have affected how happy that always made me).

 

I could always wonder ooh what if I had stuck to my bitterness and never given anyone a chance, what if his relationship had lasted 3 weeks and not over a year like it did, what if I hadn't done NC, what if I hadn't gone to the gym, what if my relationship had become abusive, you could say it was all luck and coincidence (in some ways it was) but what truly got me out of the whole? I orchestrated that, thank you very much. I don't know if you are going through this (bu, cheating) but give your survival skills some credit too....

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when you have dreams and plans with someone and he or she leave you and do everything you wanted to do with them - only with someone else, you don't just grieve the loss of love. you grieve the loss of dream, future plans, future kids, future home with flowers... people feel like they got "robbed" of time and they often feel like their X stole their dream and fulfilled it with someone else.

 

it's harder to forgive when you're not at peace - and peace comes from justice. so how do you move on when there is no justice? i know it's hard to talk about justice in relationships and love but yeah.

 

I think the trick there is to be flexible, take YOUR dreams and plans and fulfil them with someone else and forget the cheater.

The dreams are still YOUR dreams, nothing is actually stolen, they are only stolen if you choose to let him ruin your life.

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minimariah,

i was asking... in general, how do people cope seeing their X "winning" in life? let's imagine this next scenario - you're dumped for someone else and your X spents the next decade building a relationship & starting a family with that person. how do people cope with that?

 

What have they "won" exactly? You have two cheaters together who have to live with their consciences and their crappy selves.

 

Remember the old adage "if they cheat with you, they'll cheat on you". They'll both be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their time together. :rolleyes:

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it's harder to forgive when you're not at peace - and peace comes from justice. so how do you move on when there is no justice? i know it's hard to talk about justice in relationships and love but yeah.

 

I think that any "justice" we see is really just luck. We like to define something as justice, "what goes around comes around," or "they got what they deserve" because we want them to feel as bad as we do. I think that's a normal reaction, but I don't think it's particularly healthy to stay with those thoughts. I don't think it's karma, the universe, or God who is handing out justice based on what we deserve. If that's the case, then I maybe what I went through with my breakup is what I deserve for some wrongs I've committed in my life.

 

I also don't think that peace comes from justice. At least, not in my case. I think that if I care that my ex gets his "justice," then it only proves I'm emotionally invested in him. If something awful happened to my ex, I honestly don't think it would give me any peace or make me happy. I don't know that it would necessarily make me sad either. I truly just don't care anymore, and that is my peace. I guess all of that is how I've coped with my ex moving on. I don't know that he technically cheated, but he found someone else mighty fast. So I think the best way to cope with an ex that appears happy is to adopt and practice a healthy life philosophy.

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I think that any "justice" we see is really just luck. We like to define something as justice, "what goes around comes around," or "they got what they deserve" because we want them to feel as bad as we do. I think that's a normal reaction, but I don't think it's particularly healthy to stay with those thoughts. I don't think it's karma, the universe, or God who is handing out justice based on what we deserve. If that's the case, then I maybe what I went through with my breakup is what I deserve for some wrongs I've committed in my life.

 

I also don't think that peace comes from justice. At least, not in my case. I think that if I care that my ex gets his "justice," then it only proves I'm emotionally invested in him. If something awful happened to my ex, I honestly don't think it would give me any peace or make me happy. I don't know that it would necessarily make me sad either. I truly just don't care anymore, and that is my peace. I guess all of that is how I've coped with my ex moving on. I don't know that he technically cheated, but he found someone else mighty fast. So I think the best way to cope with an ex that appears happy is to adopt and practice a healthy life philosophy.

How did you achieve lack of emotional investment?

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How did you achieve lack of emotional investment?

 

NC is the only way I have ever been able to become emotionally detach. Out of sight, out of mind.

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lana-banana

I don't believe in karma but it's f-cking unfair, that's what! It's beyond unfair that after everything you went through he can just waltz off with some floozy who gets the best version of him and you're left with the sum total of your years together: nothing!

 

Okay, are we done venting? Think about it this way. Haven't we all dumped someone who we realized was really great, but just not the one for us? Weren't we really relieved when the relationship was over? Think about how you felt when that happened, and think about how unhappy you were being in a relationship with that person. I know how that feels, and I don't want to date someone who feels that way about me, so ultimately it's for the best...no matter how much it hurts.

 

I deliberately haven't spoken to the cheating aspect because it's not something I know about. I've never cheated on someone. But how much does that matter? What hurts more: to have a breakup with no one else involved, be left for someone else but not cheated on, or be cheated on? I think all of these are in the eye of the beholder. I would honestly rather be left for someone else or cheated on, because I at least understand wanting to be with someone else. But just the thought of being told "I'd rather risk dying alone than be with you" guts my self-esteem.

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