They moved in together after we broke up?!

[Sunshine89]

Hi all,

 

My ex bf of 6 years broke up with me about a month ago. Up until 3 weeks ago, he maintained that he loved me and didn't want to cut me out of his life. 3 weeks ago, he went silent, and I found out from mutual friends that he not only had a new girlfriend but she had moved into his apartment with her 5 CATS. My head is reeling. This girl is the opposite of me in every way, unemployed, bulimic, no friends except those of his that she's met, and now he's living out all of our relationship plans in our place with our cat and our stuff with HER. He's lost his mind! I've cut off ALL contact, but I could really use some insight to help me cope with this

[TunaCat]

Hugs!

 

I know it feels like he has lost his mind, but he's newly single and honestly I doubt this relationship will go the distance. Maybe he needed to date someone who is the complete opposite of you?

 

Tell your friends that you don't want to hear anything about your ex and his new girlfriend.

 

If you still have stuff at his place, make arrangements for your friends to pick it up for you.

[TashaTudor]

He rebounded quickly.

 

It sucks when that new gf/bf gets to fulfill your relationship plans and dreams.

 

Why can't people be original and create their own life instead of capturing someone else's?

 

Definitely get your stuff like Tunacat said. Continue no contact and good riddance to him.

 

Good luck.

[ToOldForThis]

I am sorry to hear about you situation. I understand it completely and the pain can be unbearable at times. There seems to be two types of people out there when it comes to relationships ending; those that take the time to grieve a loss, reflect on their part in it, learn from that than then slowly begin to move forward. Then there are those who can’t be alone, can’t deal with the reality of their new life or feel the loss of what they had. Those people need to find someone as fast as possible to plug in and stop their feelings.

 

Generally the more different that person is then you, the more it screams rebound. I think we all have a “type” of person we are attracted to with qualities we look for, so if this new woman is nothing like you, then it sure does seem like he attached himself to the first person that would have him. Will it last? You never know. I have seen these things fizzle in weeks or a few months, but I have had ex’s marry the other person and last for 20 years.

 

Either way, the outcome for you doesn’t matter, unless you want him back. If that is the case then there is nothing you can do right now. I say right now, because you have to stay away from him. He is oblivious to not only the pain he has caused you, but does not care about that right now. He is too immersed in his honeymoon phase where all is good.

He has to try and tune-out any memories of you and special things you did in order to survive the break up, so all his energy goes toward her. There is a chance he will reach out to you in the near future. That is a dangerous time for you if it happens, because you will be faced with your own decision as to if you want to open your heart up again to someone who has a different agenda.

 

For now you need to try and not torture yourself with what they are doing and how all your plans together are now with someone else. The reality is you have no idea what is going on, how great it is may or may not be or if there is any future for them. Not an easy thing to do.

 

No matter what he is doing, it is all about you right not. When I am hurting, really hurting, I try to image that as an actual physical injury. If I broke my leg, I would put a cast on it, and let it heal. Then in time when the case came off, I would begin to walk slowing until it felt better. Eventually, I would be running again and although I will always remember how painful that break was, (leg or heart) It will never hurt again once it is properly taken care of and healed. If I pulled the cast off to soon, or started running as soon as it came off, I could cause life long damage to myself. Hearts seem to be the same way. If you skip the critical caring/healing steps, they can stay broken a very long time.

 

Nurture you wounds and they will heal. Care for yourself and you will fell better. Try not to be inpatient; you can only go at the pace you were meant to.

[Sunshine89]

I am sorry to hear about you situation. I understand it completely and the pain can be unbearable at times. There seems to be two types of people out there when it comes to relationships ending; those that take the time to grieve a loss, reflect on their part in it, learn from that than then slowly begin to move forward. Then there are those who can’t be alone, can’t deal with the reality of their new life or feel the loss of what they had. Those people need to find someone as fast as possible to plug in and stop their feelings.

 

Generally the more different that person is then you, the more it screams rebound. I think we all have a “type” of person we are attracted to with qualities we look for, so if this new woman is nothing like you, then it sure does seem like he attached himself to the first person that would have him. Will it last? You never know. I have seen these things fizzle in weeks or a few months, but I have had ex’s marry the other person and last for 20 years.

 

Either way, the outcome for you doesn’t matter, unless you want him back. If that is the case then there is nothing you can do right now. I say right now, because you have to stay away from him. He is oblivious to not only the pain he has caused you, but does not care about that right now. He is too immersed in his honeymoon phase where all is good.

He has to try and tune-out any memories of you and special things you did in order to survive the break up, so all his energy goes toward her. There is a chance he will reach out to you in the near future. That is a dangerous time for you if it happens, because you will be faced with your own decision as to if you want to open your heart up again to someone who has a different agenda.

 

For now you need to try and not torture yourself with what they are doing and how all your plans together are now with someone else. The reality is you have no idea what is going on, how great it is may or may not be or if there is any future for them. Not an easy thing to do.

 

No matter what he is doing, it is all about you right not. When I am hurting, really hurting, I try to image that as an actual physical injury. If I broke my leg, I would put a cast on it, and let it heal. Then in time when the case came off, I would begin to walk slowing until it felt better. Eventually, I would be running again and although I will always remember how painful that break was, (leg or heart) It will never hurt again once it is properly taken care of and healed. If I pulled the cast off to soon, or started running as soon as it came off, I could cause life long damage to myself. Hearts seem to be the same way. If you skip the critical caring/healing steps, they can stay broken a very long time.

 

Nurture you wounds and they will heal. Care for yourself and you will fell better. Try not to be inpatient; you can only go at the pace you were meant to.

 

Thank you...just thank you. I honestly cried reading what you wrote. I never thought about heartbreak like that, but I think I will from now on. I've had breakups before, even serious ones, but this is the first one that's taken my breath away and made my life seem like a waking nightmare. I'm lucky to be surrounded by family and friends who love me, but they can only be there so much. I'm definitely better than I was a month ago, but I still have so far to go in the healing process.

 

If you don't mind me asking, what do you man by "someone who has their own agenda"? I can't say I want him back for sure, but I also can't say I wouldn't at least consider it if he made significant effort to prove to me he was sincere and making the changes necessary for us to have a healthy relationship going forward.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Sunshine89
Wanted to add a question

[ToOldForThis]

Hi,

 

I am glad my words helped you a bit. I too am going thought this right now. We were together for 3.5 years. It has been 3 months now. She is off on vacation in Europe with her new BF. The BF that she started seeing the day after we broke up. OUCH!

 

So what did I mean by “he has his own agenda? “ A couple of things. First, if his new relationship is not going as well as he might have expected, and he begins to compare you to the other girl, he will begin to miss you. This is usually when an ex will reach out to you. They are testing the waters, trying to see if you moved on or if perhaps you are still open to something. But…..they may not actually want to get back together, they just miss the closeness and comfort that the two of you had from all your years. No rebound can provide that, especially after the newness starts to fade and they begin to actually get to know each other. He may find that this new person is not even close to you in terms of all you great qualities and memories you have. So you being so hurt and missing him, want your pain to go away and move towards him and all the love you miss so much. If truly he does want to reconcile he will have a lot of work to do to regain your trust etc. You have been emotionally dragged through the mud and he is offering a warm shower to clean you off so to speak. Dangerous for you, not so much for him.

 

But you risk the same thing happening all over again. So you have to ask yourself, would you really take him back? Has he changed at all? What were his real reasons for ending it and what happened to those reasons? He will be on probation for a while as he regains your trust and helps you feel secure with him again, you can’t just jump back into these things and have them be wonderful. Unfortunately too much of the entire process is based on him and his “agenda” I have been in relationship that had a break up for a month or more and we got back together only to finally end 2-3 months later. It was like starting over with all the pain and reliving new fresh memories.

 

Since I don’t know what your relationship was like or why he actually ended it, it is hard to help you with this. Speaking for myself, I was (and sometimes still am) living in a fantasy of how great our relationship was. The rose colored glasses syndrome. But when I started to write my Cons list, wow….not so good. When I am hurting and really missing her, of course I only remember the wonderful times we had and that there will never be another woman like her etc. The truth is, my brain knows better but most of the time my heart screams louder. I am 55 years old she is 37, (I have never been married) and have been thought this far to many times. But each time I endure a break-up eventually I find a wonderful new person, who may not have some of the great qualities of my ex, but brings all new amazing qualities and experiences that are better in their own way. I always believed that the next person you fall in love with will actually be better then the last, if not then you will know in a short time that it’s not a fit and detach much faster. After all why be with someone who is not better than your ex? The hard part about being broken up is the hopelessness that comes along with it. The unknown that it may take months or years to fall in love again tortures your mind and forces you to relive life with you ex in your head because that was real and still feels good. But it will stop you in your tracks from letting go. Hope will destroy you. Some say if it is meant to be nothing will stop that, the trick is to let go and heal so that you have emotional clarity if the ex does want to try again. You will not be weak and actually have your own strength to make the correct decision for yourself. Trust me, after 3 months of not being with my ex, her cheating on me and my life being total hell from the pain, I sill fantasize about her coming back to me. Then I snap out of it and remember that no matter how wonderful she was, (and she was amazing ) in the end she was a cheating, nasty liar of a coward who hurt me a great deal. I also lost total respect for her and rebound exit strategy she chose.

 

I will check in on you tomorrow, for now, I hope you get a good night sleep.

[Sunshine89]

Thank you for explaining further. I can see what you mean by agenda now. Our relationship was good for the first 2 years and varied wildly for the next 4. When we met, his father was dying of cancer and mine was a bipolar alcoholic. We leaned on eachother, and as each new crisis happened we helped eachother to get through it. His father passed away a year and a half into our dating. I was still reeling from my parents divorce and the stress of my father possibly being homeless and stalking my mother and I. Neither of us handled it well. I became a nagging nightmare and he developed a wandering eye. He flirted online with women consistently at least 3 times that I know of, offered to give one of my friends a foot massage, and started 50 million projects but never finished them (going to college, massage therapy school, Air Force etc. Meanwhile, I went to college, got my degree and started my career. He broke up with me during an argument last spring, but later that day got back together. Fast forward to March, we've been arguing about nothing. I can tell something is wrong but we can't figure it out. The night before he has a big business trip, we argue and I give up and start crying, saying I don't want to fight with my best friend anymore. He holds me and it turns into more, followed by consensual sex that became rape. I'll be honest and say that even though my therapist and everyone else tells me it's rape, I'm not mad or torn up about it. The only thing that upsets me is how much it felt like he hated me. In the six years we were together, no matter how we slept together, I never felt such a strong negative emotion. It was like he was hitting me. I'll never forget it. He broke up with me two days later when he came back into town. Three weeks later he had a new girlfriend that had moved in with him. He cut off contact with me, and I haven't talked to him in a week or so. I miss him every day, and don't know how we got here. I just want a chance to start over, I feel like we started dating too young and had too much stuff out of our control happen to us to have a healthy relationship. It makes me so sad.