When people are taking advantage of NC to poison the well

[wildest-dreams]

Just when I thought I was already feeling better, someone messaged me earlier, asking, "Hey, please tell me this isn't true - word has been going around that you've been going around telling people not to have photo shoots with your ex."

 

Just a bit of background here: my ex's hobby is portrait photography. It should probably be unsurprising that most who want to be shot are women. Most were women he was personal friends with, or friends of friends. He doesn't do this for a living or to build a portfolio; he just really enjoys it. I got together with him knowing of his hobby, but since I was uncomfortable with how some of the women turned out to be a bit too playful with him (i.e. immature personalities and offensive banter), he had to set boundaries. But over time, the girls thought, "Toning down our banter is like not having a friendship at all," so they decided to just stay away (which also meant not having shoots with them), and my ex was resentful about that. He still got to shoot with other people, but he specifically wanted to shoot them as well (not sure if it's a coincidence or what, but he finds those women attractive). To cut a very long story short, he broke up with me because he didn't like that I couldn't stop harboring what he saw as an irrational dislike of them (found out a bit too late that the repetitive train of irrational thoughts was due to an anxiety disorder, but by that time, he didn't care anymore).

 

Now that we've gone NC (not my choice - he cut me off) and I can't defend myself to his face (and I'm not sure he'd believe me, since emotions are running high), someone has apparently been spreading rumors about me. I suppose it's so easy to make up stories about how psycho and crazy a person can be if she has a reputation of being jealous and irrational. I don't know who's doing it, but I highly suspect it's at least one of the women in his circle. Two of them complained about me to my BF while we were still together (one thought that some of my posts on social media - which weren't even vague posts - were about her; another falsely accused me of something), so I wouldn't be surprised that they're trying to poison the well if it means they can "keep" my ex and ruin any chances of reconciliation. To my ex, they're very nice women who can do no wrong. Even when some of these women admitted to having a nasty streak, he never really minded, and sometimes even laughed when they boasted of doing something nasty. Besides, when one of them made fun of me at some point, he took her side because, from his POV, she was just fighting back, and I started things by disliking her.

 

What do I do? It's times like this when I wish we weren't NC. I don't know if he believes the rumors, but my friend implied that he did. If so, that's disappointing - but then considering he'd throw me under the bus when his friends would complain about me to him, maybe that's also not surprising. I miss my ex, but the fallout has been so messy, and he seems to believe and side with his friends than "psycho" and "hysterical" me. There are days when I think, "If only he didn't have such terrible friends, our relationship would have been so smooth-sailing," but then who am I kidding? His friends are very much part of the equation, and unless he miraculously decides to quit enabling them (and vice-versa, as they're more than happy to enable him without me around), there's just no way I can go back.

Edited January 10, 2016 by wildest-dreams

[basil67]

I'm so sorry you're in this situation. It's awful when people are spreading rumours and being nasty.

 

Thing is though, the whole point of being No Contact is to get over a person. It's the first step towards not giving damn about them. If you're still hearing rumours, then you haven't distanced yourself far enough. Unfriend the lot of them on social media. If your immediate friends are telling you what's going on, tell them to stop.

 

And don't harbour any hopes of getting back with him. He's still going to want to photograph his girls and it's not going to sit well with you. Time to move on and find a better guy