Trappedinyou Posted July 12, 2011 Posted July 12, 2011 She tells me she is now madly in love (after 5 weeks of meeting a childhood sweetheart from 26 years ago) and he with her. They are inseperable at the moment and the guy lives 50 miles away so he's up to stay most nights and weekends. Is this classic text book rebound behaviour? She was moody and bad tempered during our 2 and a half year relationship and also critical and abusive to me regularly as she was in her 2 previous LT relationships. So what can have changed or will she revert to type in time? Maybe I'd feel better if I knew she'd eventually be just the same in this relationship. The new guy has all the physical faults I have that she didn't like only more so. I'm very curious. She lives 30ft away from me at her Moms right opposite and when she saw me with another woman after 5 weeks of dumping me she got on the text messaging and went F***in ballistic with all the 'You never loved me how can you be with her' etc. Yet I have to watch her come and go with this guy every other day. I have checked all the SMS that she's blaming me for starting but time and date show that she starts it off every time not me. What gives?
Nohbody Posted July 12, 2011 Posted July 12, 2011 Yes. She probably will be exactly the same once the novelty wears off. People CAN change, but honestly most WON'T. Don't worry about it - try to create space (be it physical or emotional) any way you can. Good luck!
Author Trappedinyou Posted July 13, 2011 Author Posted July 13, 2011 Thanks Nohbody. As I only live across the road I'll be able to see where this goes. From almost daily visits the guy has not made an apperance in 5 days. Which has told me to pull down the blinds as watching the situation will not be good for my moving on. I agree with some posters that the chances of giving it another go are unrealistic and it makes things easier once we accept this, besides which, I have a date with a gorgeous brunette lined up for next week and I am out with an ex from 10 years ago, this weekend. We've agreed the rules, just a bit of fun and loads of sex. Things may be looking up afterall.
Exit Posted July 13, 2011 Posted July 13, 2011 Hah, I wish I could line up a friend with benefits right now, good for you! Anyways, the "right" thing to say to you in this situation, is that her behavior doesn't matter. It won't do anything good for your healing to try to figure out of this is a rebound or the man she is going to marry, it just shouldn't matter to you, and you should stop wondering. Will she continue the same behaviors, or will she be an awesome, loving partner to him? It doesn't matter. All that matters is that she isn't with you. Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the realistic response. It's normal to wonder if our ex's new love will fail, or even to go so far as to HOPE that it will. Of course we don't want to picture them living an awesome, happy life after us. You say she's "in love with him" after 5 weeks of being around him, but you didn't say how long ago your relationship ended. Assuming she started seeing this guy pretty quickly after the breakup, then of course she is still the same person and her same behaviors will come out eventually. You know what it takes to become a better person? Time. Time alone. Hard work. Reflection on one's own life and behaviors. So when these exes move on in a matter of days or weeks, where exactly did they fit in the time for all of this? The answer is simple, they didn't. People are too scared to look in the mirror and figure themselves out, they'd rather have a new partner to look at. Asking whether or not her same behaviors will appear, and whether or not this new relationship will last, are two entirely different things. Will her same behaviors appear? Most likely. Of course they think they are in love now, and of course she may be acting better towards him, this is the honeymoon period for them. Will the relationship last? Who knows. Even when her bad behaviors come back around, maybe something about the dynamic of these two people together will allow them to work through it, or maybe not. But really, the only thing that matters, is that she isn't with you, and that even if she were to change her mind, you can do better than taking someone like this back. Try to focus on that the most instead of wondering about her. Yes, you should close your windows and try not to pay attention to what happens across the street. Geez, the creepy wounded stalker in me would find that to be absolute paradise, to be able to look out my window and have some idea of what my ex is doing lol. I would not have the willpower to deal with that, so I'm sure it won't be easy. But just tell yourself it isn't healthy for you. If you don't see his car for another 5 days, are you going to feel happy? Yes. The next time you see the car, are you going to feel bad? Yes. Don't let the appearance of this car dictate if you are having a good or a bad day. Just don't look over there, as much as you can avoid it.
Author Trappedinyou Posted July 13, 2011 Author Posted July 13, 2011 (edited) BTW, she arranged a date with this old flame while still with me but immediately after the date, when I guess she decided she'd give it a go, she dumped me there and then. Effectively she has had no space between getting shot of me and taking on a new relationship. She told me they were madly in love with each other only days later. Edited July 13, 2011 by Trappedinyou
Exit Posted July 13, 2011 Posted July 13, 2011 Haha wow. Okay then yeah, she definitely didn't take any time to reflect on any of this. Try to stay out of contact with her.
Author Trappedinyou Posted July 13, 2011 Author Posted July 13, 2011 Plus I've just discovered hes only weeks out of a LTR involving kids and has been back living at his mothers for only a matter of weeks. This could be interesting....
thelovingkind Posted July 13, 2011 Posted July 13, 2011 People can and do change, but it takes self-initiated, concerted, serious, committed effort even to make incremental progress. Anyone who appears to have been blown merely by the winds of fate into a breezy, new, happier personality is in a rebound / honeymoon situation. The chickens will come home to roost.
FinOuch Posted July 13, 2011 Posted July 13, 2011 Plus I've just discovered hes only weeks out of a LTR involving kids and has been back living at his mothers for only a matter of weeks. This could be interesting.... From your posts in this thread, it seems as though you're still digging for answers and (most importantly) a sense of cosmic justice. Trust me when I say that this does not lead to recovery. I know fully well how strong the urge is to dig for the bad and gossip on it (and it did make for some hilarious Girl's Night conversations)...but in doing so you're allowing her to continue to sponge your mental and emotional energy. I obsessed over my ex-husband's rebound chick for way too long. He was with her within weeks of our split, and moving in with her shortly thereafter. He was a train wreck. Everything about her (from what I gathered) seemed to be a train wreck. And I wished so much pain and devastation on him in that relationship, and found immense glee at the idea that it would blow up in his face. But that glee was ultimately holding me back. And I found myself waiting for justice that has never happened...may take YEARS to happen...or may never happen at all. Finally there came a point where I realized that my fixation on his relationship wasn't doing any good and I cut all ties. I stopped trying to stay friends/acquaintances with him. I stopped trolling his Facebook page (I had already blocked it from my newsfeed, but this required finding the willpower to not visit his page). I stopped talking about it with anyone...especially my good friends. I stopped wondering and dreaming of all the ways that he would get what I felt he deserved. I made a conscious effort to accept that it doesn't matter...and to remind myself that whenever he popped into my head. In doing so I found peace and freedom. In time, I felt little to nothing for him. And the funny thing is, it really does hold true that you find what you're looking for when you stop looking for it. Maybe 9 months or so after I had let all the fixation on his situation go and had allowed myself to basically get over it...I bumped into him. And an amazing thing happened. While he was still in that relationship and seemingly happy with it...he had a LOT to say. He owned up for his failures as a husband and apologized for all that he had put me through. And I was able to fully accept the apology and bury the hatchet because of the fact that I had let him go completely long before that. So even while things had (at that point, at least) seemingly worked out for him in the new relationship, obvsiously at some point he still had to face his demons and failures from his relationship with me. And they were apparently weighing on him enough to feel the need to apologize. And that is all the justice there ever need be.
Author Trappedinyou Posted July 13, 2011 Author Posted July 13, 2011 Nicely put and you are right! with the wounds still open I'm still looking for answers but then it may take some time yet.
wilsonx Posted July 13, 2011 Posted July 13, 2011 People can and do change, but it takes self-initiated, concerted, serious, committed effort even to make incremental progress. Anyone who appears to have been blown merely by the winds of fate into a breezy, new, happier personality is in a rebound / honeymoon situation. The chickens will come home to roost. This is 100% true about people changing. I am the one changing from my relationship. I have to because I became broken because of it. For those of you that have watched the The Count of Monte Cristo. You should think of your breakup like Edmond in this movie. At the very beginning of the movie, think about how naive you were just like he was. He took a letter from napoleon and delivered it to the magistrate who could throw him in jail. He had absolutely no intuition. The magistrate asked him who he was suppose to deliver it to, without hesitating he answered and he was thrown in prison. You can equate this to the breakup and not seeing it coming or not doing anything to stop it. Now he is in prison. Every year there he gets beaten by a whip many times. He's there pining and trying to figure out what went wrong. He doesn't understand, he was very smart educationally but he did not have intuition. One day he meets the priest, the priest starts teaching him the ways of reading, sword fighting, etc etc. He's learning new things he's never known before. He's building his intuition. He's planning revenge. He's trying to get out of the prison. What does it take for him to get out of the prison? A leap of faith. He has to be thrown off a cliff to be free. You can relate this to the phase in a breakup we are all in right now. We feel trapped, we do not know where to go from here, but by being productive and learning experiencing new things we are actually growing and becoming better people. Soon enough, we all will take that leap of faith off a cliff and let our ex's go. Now the third transformation happens after the cliff. He not only has education, but he has intuition. He spares that pirates life, who becomes his friend for the rest of the movie, he finds a treasure which he would have never found if he was still the young naive man. He comes out of the prison a man and is transformed into nobility. He made himself this. No one else, he did not ask for permission. It was his choice and he did it. This is where we all want to be. We have to put forth work to get there though
melenkurion Posted July 13, 2011 Posted July 13, 2011 A couple of great posts, the ones from FinOuch and Exit were just what I needed to hear today. It's 9 months on now since I found out he was cheating. Whenever my ex pops into my head (which is not that often any more), I still can't mentally shrug and wish him well in the new relationship. I dunno, I seem to do best when he isn't in my thoughts at all. I'm hoping, maybe unrealistically, that as he fades from my thoughts, the desire for that relationship to fail will also fade. No point desiring something that I have no power to make happen. As for the original question. Oh yes, nothing will change. Change is very, very difficult, and takes time, effort and introspection. It doesn't sound like that has happened. It doesn't matter, however. It sounds like you are well off out of it.
Author Trappedinyou Posted July 13, 2011 Author Posted July 13, 2011 (edited) Thank you Mele. I'm begining to realise that she has problems and will need help with her moods. I'm certain she is depressed. She up and left her 3 children with her first partner when they were young, for a man she met on the net (3 years of abuse both ways in that relationship) when her partner cheated. This,I believe, is her anger. She can't forgive herself and mentions it constantly although the kids adore her. They all still live with their dad and what a trio of lovely young people they are. I love em. but mum beats herself up over this all the time. Won't be long before she confesses this to the new man if she hasn't already. Edited July 13, 2011 by Trappedinyou
Author Trappedinyou Posted July 14, 2011 Author Posted July 14, 2011 Even at this early stage I think the penny has dropped. I can either wait and wait and wait or I can begin the grieving process immediately and get on with it.......... I'm going to get on with it. I've read some great stuff on this site and I will continue to do so but I'm not hanging around for Norman Bates' sister to get her act together.
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