Friendship with a cheating ex?

[Bella26]

I am sure this is an age-old question, but I am struggling with it.

 

I will try to keep this as brief as possible. My ex & I broke up in December after eight years and this was my choice. I know he loved me and when it was good, it was great. But we clashed a lot and in hindsight I should have ended it years ago.I should have ended it the first time he cheated. He started kissing other women behind my back early on into our relationship. We did a lot of things together so when he did do it it would be when he was out with his friends. He convinced me it was just his naughty personality and he was always honest and it would never go any further, a cheeky kiss meant nothing. Stupidly, I chose to ignore it, so yes I accept my responsibility in allowing this behaviour to happen. I have always been a feisty person who could stand up for herself but something happened with him, I became a doormat, a different person. He always got his way and was a control freak; he did not want to meet my friends but I had to meet his. We travelled a lot and it was always to places that he wanted to go to but he never was interested in the places I liked. He never compromised. Maybe he compromised on a couple of movies, but nothing more than that. I am embarrassed and ashamed but I let him emotionally abuse me and call me names and put me down until I believed I needed him and could not find anyone else. I am not making excuses, I am angry at myself for having let this happen to me.

 

His mother died in August last year, she had a long illness which I had supported him with, it's a long story but I did a lot for them. I spent my holidays helping him with the funeral, with all the other things because he has no other family. During that time things were hard and he asked for space. When we reconnected after a month I found out he had been seeing a girl in that time, he calls her a "friend", but had admitted to kissing her a couple of times a couple of months earlier. I looked at his text messages and found out she had been staying at his house the night before, he wanted to take her on holiday and he "missed holding" her . He says she was being supportive and that i had neglected him during this difficult time (I think he forgot that he told me to give him space!) and she understood his grief more than I did, that I was selfish thinking about my needs when he was going through a bereavement. He said she was into him, she showed him affection more than I did (lies), that I wasn't sexual enough anymore, but she was (& even saying that he was still denying that anything sexual happened with her). I accept that our sex life waned a little, but I don't think cheating is a justification for this. If you are unhappy, then leave. If anything, after years of this emotional abuse the last thing I wanted to do was sleep with him, especially when he handled it so insensitively and taunted me about finding other women if I did not do anything about it. So, yes, I can accept his point about that, and maybe I should have ended it. But he could have also. I guess we were both to blame.

 

After some long thinking I broke it off and broke all contact, he persisted in calling, he did not believe I meant it because this was against my character, I had always gone running back previously. One minute he would say I was his soulmate, then he would say he just wanted to be friends as we had been through so much, then he would be nasty and say he was dumping me because I had looked through his phone and I could do other things like steal from his bank account. he persisted calling for a while then he gave up until two days ago, after 2 and a half months.

He was persistent and so I mistakenly answered. He said he wanted to know if I am okay and he still had not forgotten about me . We had a conversation and he got upset about his mother and how he was not coping very well. I felt bad for him and suggested coffee. I know , silly mistake on my part. He asked if I wanted to go away in August; we used to go to a certain part of Spain every year and he said I could go if I wanted to. He admitted he was going away with the 'friend' in June and that they were just friends and he is not with anyone. But then he admitted that he has slept with her, and I am sure it is not only the one time. I think he is seeing her, I don't know the extent of his feelings but for some reason, and I am not sure why, he wants to have me around also. I don't understand.

 

By then I just told him he wants to have his cake and eat it, he wants to sleep with her and use me for holidays, because I was the only one who would go where he wanted and had the money to do so. I told him I am not prepared to be used for friendships or holidays and I told him to take a hike and leave me alone for good.

 

Part of me feels very bad as he has no family left and he is grieving, but do I sacrifice my own happiness to be trod on again and again? Am I a bad person?

[Fitz]

It's hard to cut someone out of your life, but you just need to move on.

 

Cut him off. No contact. Move on with your life. Stop reliving the past.