Blocked by yer ex

[Shaky]

This has just happened to me on Facebook and Instagram. Not a huge surprise because I struggle with setting boundaries sometimes, but it stings like a royal motherfucker. Never happened before and I feel like some sort of psycho now. My mental health nonsense and anxious attachment shit pretty much spelled the end of the relationship and I didn't take the split well at all but had tried and struggled to remain friends, which she was genuinely keen on. For three months after the breakup we still spoke quite a bit but I could get snippy and childish about our situation, which she had the good grace to largely overlook. She's a good sort and literally one of the only people I've hung out with over the last year so I've lost an important ally and confidante by being an anxious, reactive, hurt loose cannon.

Communication totally shattered last week. I found out from someone else that she's dating again and I didn't react well, to say the least. Terse phone call from me last Thursday were I ominously said "I know" and that I didn't want to continue having anything to do with her because she wants to sleep with other people and I'm genuinely too up and down emotionally to deal with that news like an adult (I am an adult, surprisingly). But of course I didn't really mean it, it felt like I did. Just being a man twat. Part of me feels she should've warned me but I can also admit it should be none of my business. Confusing in a way that definitely isn't pleasant.

Sort of making light of it but honestly I feel like a total mentalist and the sort of unbalanced guy who is a shit to women because of his stupid, spurned ego. Not a trait I like. In a round about way, I'm asking if this has happened to anymore else and how did you, like, heal or at least stop beating yourself up about it?

[Sonny_Jim]

Seems to be almost rational, but it ain't.  At some point you'll have to admit it's over and move on.  So try and figure out how you are going to do that.  If you don't know how, ask around for advice.  $END_GENERIC_REPLY

A long time friend of mine is pretty much a pacifist and absolutely lovely bloke who stayed friends with his ex for a while.  He even got an invite to their engagement party.  He can't actually remember what happened, but apparently he got pissed and tried starting a fight with her fiancee.  When I heard this I was amazed, as I'd never heard of him getting into a fight since he was 12yrs old.

Point is, envy is an absolute fucker so you'll have to decide whether it's worth torturing yourself like this, or whether you should just block and move on.  Sounds like your ex has hit this point.

[mr. logic]

Well, she's most likely blocked you as a (sort of) kindness in order that you don't see pictures of her with the new person, no? Which is fair enough- it's obviously something that will be beneficial to you ultimately and helps her avoid unpleasant phone calls.

[Buelligan]

Maybe it's time to ask yourself some questions, like why didn't she tell you she was seeing someone else?  Ending and losing and things going horribly wrong are dreadfully hard, something positive that can maybe be gained to to use the pain to find ways of avoiding it in future.  I'm very sorry for your pain and I sincerely hope next time goes far better.  Hug.

[Shaky]

Thanks, all. This is definitely the culmination of some very unhealthy attachment cycles and patterns I've been through before. I've spent too long wandering around pretending to be 100% OK or acting like my problems were an unfixable part of silly old me. Sooner or later, the same cracks have always appeared and I bottom out. With this girl it's been a biggie and I've hurt us both. Can't forgive myself right now but the only way has to be up. She is putting up a boundary I'm not capable of and I'll come to appreciate that.

I feel fucking lost but have started saying to family, friends and health professionals that I simply can't function properly like this anymore so steps are being taken. Writing is helping too.

Maybe it's time to ask yourself some questions, like why didn't she tell you she was seeing someone else?  Ending and losing and things going horribly wrong are dreadfully hard, something positive that can maybe be gained to to use the pain to find ways of avoiding it in future.  I'm very sorry for your pain and I sincerely hope next time goes far better.  Hug.

Thank you. She was at least in part protecting me. I just had to steamroller in and get all offended. That's the thing, I react badly then quite often see sense quickly. My moods are very changeable.

Thanks, guys. Sorry for the navel gazing. I've jotted some stuff down I couldn't articulate in person and she consented to reading them. After that, I think there will be no more.

[Buelligan]

For what it's worth, it sounds like you're doing your absolute best to find the best way forward for both of you.  I wish you every chance in the world with that, it's a brave thing to do and, IMO, the right thing to do but not easy.  Very best to you, Shaky.  Really.

[BlodwynPig]

Sorry to hear this Shaky - see that other thread for more emotional guy stuff - WE ARE NOT INCELS MENTALISTS!

[BlodwynPig]

I see also you are trying to downplay your feeling like many do. "Sorry for moaning on, sorry for being a baby about this". I read up on how to handle this and IT said "Grieve and get angry". That cabin in British Columbia is calling our names.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

# only your memories for company#
( I'm thinking of that Reeves and Mortimer song from the first series of " The Smell Of...", y'see.)

Copyright, Lisa's Uber- Helpful Posts PLC 2021.

[Bence Fekete]

Treat yourself to some covid secure escorts and a rock of crack the size of Angus Deayton's fist at your nearest Premier Inn. Photograph the whole thing and make that your avatar on facebook.

She'll probably never speak to you again, but your avatar will sneak through the 'friend suggestion' filter as persistenly and annoyingly as my ex's does. Just you, going wild and having a fun sex party. She'll kick herself.

[Shaky]

Sorry to hear this Shaky - see that other thread for more emotional guy stuff - WE ARE NOT INCELS MENTALISTS!

Thanks, mate. My judgement is so shot I can't help but think of myself as a total piece of shit, and I've increasingly felt that way for weeks leading up to the recent blowout. Obviously something I'd like the boys in the psych ward to have a crack at down the line. Say what you like about Incels, but at least they have literally no self awareness and plod along quite happily being cunts.

I follow my ex's store on Facebook and she hasn't nixed that connection (yet), so earlier I saw a story/video of her wishing customers a Happy New Year and saying she's feeling sad and confused for various reasons, but looking forward to new avenues in her personal life and work (it's a folksy, very friendly little store). Looked like she'd been crying just before. Broke me, that did. Christ. I had to look. Not even sneakily - it's right there at the top of the home page. I should unlike the page... Somehow I'd avoided this level of social media horror previously despite other bad relationships.

This is the worst one yet. Think I'm gonna phone my sis back in London and have another blub. 41 years of age, I was etc....

She'll probably never speak to you again, but your avatar will sneak through the 'friend suggestion' filter as persistenly and annoyingly as my ex's does. Just you, going wild and having a fun sex party. She'll kick herself.

Unfortunately.. or fortunately... no, unfortunately, I used to do some admin work for her and she needs some invoices and receipts back from me. There has been a terse text about that today and I said she could name time and place. Unclear whether this is to happen at the end of a long silence, or to happen quickly and be done with. Talk of "when things cool down" on her end. I don't anticipate coolness for quite a wee bit yet.

[Jockice]

One thing I have learned in my time on this planet is to NEVER agree to try and stay friends with an ex. Especially if they're the one who's dumped you and they're the one who wants to stay friends. Because they are on the lookout for someone else and you will be dropped like a hot brick as soon as they find that someone. It might hurt to say 'no, we're not staying friends' (and admittedly I've never done it myself) but it's the best move. If my current relationship broke up (heaven forbid!) I would cut off all contact. It would be very painful at the time but I've learnt my lesson. It would certainly be difficult, what with social media and all that nowadays. but I would try.

Although, bizarrely, I am now friends to a certain extent with all of my (four) significant exes from my 20s and early 30s. I somehow don't think I was as significant to them as they were to me but it's fine. It was a long time ago and my hatred has gone - and in some cases there was years and years of sheer hatred. That goes for three of them, with the only exception being one case where we didn't even officially split up, just drifted apart and lost contact, which was easy enough as we lived in different cities. No hard feelings on either side and no contact between us for 25 years. She got in touch with me. Out of the others, I got in touch with one - ten years since we last spoke. Our 'being friends' had ended in a massive row which still bugged me so I wanted some proper closure - with another we remet at a funeral (someone we both knew's in case you're wondering, not a random funeral) and the other was a chance meeting last summer. She was the one who really hurt so if it hadn't been for that I'd probably still dislike her. Now I'm just not bothered. All except one are in long-term relationships and have children, which I certainly wouldn't have provided them with. So it's probably better they dumped me when they did.

Incidentally, I woke up with this song in my head this morning. Sheer coincidence.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU9fZkXHqns&fbclid=IwAR3d-5m3x1wBaIWiRDGmzJDzwW114r6eS2Tauc8ZsKuRLjMDwtjg6oLmLOI

[Butchers Blind]

Get on the amphetamines ASAP

[Zetetic]

acting like my problems were an unfixable part of silly old me

I certainly find avoiding this very difficult: Treading the line of recognising that you've done something bad without tipping over into the - largely disabling - sense of overwhelming shame that you're a terrible person.

Spoiler alert

(And there's a vicious circularity there as well, of course, as you start feeling ashamed of your response to having done something bad...)

[close]

Too slowly and imperfectly, is how I've got better at this.

[Bernice]

Yeah, trying to be friends immediately with an ex is a recipe for disaster, even if it's what I always think I want to do. You need time apart -totally apart, not stalking the socials - to slowly and painfully learn to be whole on your own (and also start shagging new people). If you're lucky you will be able to be genuine friends with an ex, after at least a year of no/minimal contact once you've both moved on. But you can't demand it happen and you can't fixate on it as an outcome. You have to accept, really, deeply accept, that someone you love/loved is gone from your life, that a relationship you were invested in is over and that there's no sneaky backdoor friendship route to replicating the connection you've lost.

I wouldn't waste time feeling like a creep or a prick or whatever, it sounds like you're in a pretty common headspace with all this. But it sounds like she made the right (and merciful) move in blocking you. Unfollow the shop and kill it dead now.

[Buelligan]

It depends what being friends means.  I've stayed friends with everyone, even people who've treated me badly.  By this I mean that there is no animosity, if they needed my help or knocked on the door, I would certainly help them, without question and have done in the past but we're not going to be round each other's houses all the time - that's ridiculous - apart from any other consideration, you have to consider new partners and their feelings.  I don't go on social media, ever, I think that probably helps. 

IMO, Bernice is correct about the unfollowing advice.

And the shame thing, shame is a tool to use to learn how not to be ashamed again.  That's its only value, use it sparingly.  Proportion in all things, that's the ticket.

[Shaky]

I wouldn't waste time feeling like a creep or a prick or whatever, it sounds like you're in a pretty common headspace with all this.

I appreciate that very much but increasingly I've not been really looking after myself so I have brought a lot of this on my own head (and her's). She also had a HORENDOUS upbringing, the details of which staggered me as to how she's managed to stay sane and prosperous. I just feel like another bad apple, abusing her in my own small way. I've apologised for my emotional outbursts but apologies gets old. My anxious attachment is genuinely something I need real help with. I fret like fuck when I don't see someone I'm crazy about, sometimes to a debilitating degree, and can be guilty of trying to base my world around theirs. it's hard to keep that in check sometimes so I get moody, needy, passive aggressive. They either put up with it for a while or walk. With this latest ex, we talked about all that but ultimately my reactions were becoming too much for her.

I clearly see now we should've stayed apart for a while after the break. But I just... couldn't do it.

[Brundle-Fly]

One crumb of comfort you can take from this current heartache is at least feeling like this you know you're alive and not some dead behind the eyes character out of a Todd Solondz movie or Eightball comic.

[Twit 2]

Get on the amphetamines ASAP

Then...GO APE AND SMASH SHIT BABY YEEEHHH

[mobias]

One thing I have learned in my time on this planet is to NEVER agree to try and stay friends with an ex. Especially if they're the one who's dumped you and they're the one who wants to stay friends.

THIS! Very good advice but sadly very difficult to follow through with sometimes. If you're in love with someone you just want them in your life at all costs, often in the vain and naive hope he/she might want you back and you might be able to sort things out. It never works and you end up just putting yourself through hell. Quite often you end up rather unfairly putting the other person through hell too as they end up doing more and more to unwittingly hurt you.

I actually went through a very similar thing to Shaky last year and I've not yet really fully recovered from it. You do inevitably learn that when something ends you have to walk away completely from it. No trying to be friends, often on their terms fuelled by their sense of guilt. You have to be brave and take control. It is difficult to do that in the moment though.

On the wider subject of being blocked by someone. I had a weird experience just before Christmas. I'm single at the moment and to cut a slightly long story short I got introduced to a girl via a friend of mine. I chatted with this girl over a couple of messages, she seemed nice, and I tried to come across friendly and non pushy but wanting to find out if she might be interested in getting to know me more. Just after Christmas I sent a little message asking how she was and if she had had a nice Xmas only to find out she'd blocked me. Really weird behaviour. I guess the default setting for some girls is that everyone online who shows an interest in them is guilty of being a total weirdo until proven otherwise.

Its certainly an odd feeling being blocked. It does make you really doubt yourself, which is why I don't ever do it to others. Its just childish.

[BlodwynPig]

Dan Mason knows your pain

Get down to Laguna Beach, tumbler of whisky, aviators on top of your head, middle distance staring into the ocean as the sun draws inexorably down on a cool summer's evening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHDwogw6d-U

or this uplifting, reinvigorating tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkHwGmiKoX8

[peanutbutter]

Wish every single one of them blocked me tbh. Have actually wound up becoming friends with a few but the first few months after a breakup it's way too hard for me to even tell if I am trying to be friends, trying to keep things going or just unable to shake off a habit of them being my go to person to message about certain shit. And like, if I can't tell then I can't imagine they're able to guess what my agenda is either.


In fact, the ones where we did become friends basically all involved a sizable length of me not messaging and feeling notably different when we did get in touch again.

[peanutbutter]

She's a good sort and literally one of the only people I've hung out with over the last year so I've lost an important ally and confidante by being an anxious, reactive, hurt loose cannon.

And I think this is probably a way bigger part of it than specifically anything about her tbh. It's drastically harder to move on from people when your brain's whole concept of socializing in large part is tied to them. It definitely makes the idea of trying to be friends drastically harder.

[mobias]

The whole being friends somewhere down the line thing is great if it works out that way. I've got a few ex's I'm still friends with but generally I find with these situations the more in love I was with a girl the more a post relationship friendship, even a few years later, just isn't even really wanted. You move on, meet new people and your life changes. I definitely find its healthier to try and keep looking forward in life rather than clinging on to the past. Thats a big life lesson I've learnt as I've got older.

If a situation in life, be it a relationship, a friendship, or whatever else isn't making you happy, and you're in the position of being able to let go of it, then let go of it and move on.

[Jockice]

On the wider subject of being blocked by someone. I had a weird experience just before Christmas. I'm single at the moment and to cut a slightly long story short I got introduced to a girl via a friend of mine. I chatted with this girl over a couple of messages, she seemed nice, and I tried to come across friendly and non pushy but wanting to find out if she might be interested in getting to know me more. Just after Christmas I sent a little message asking how she was and if she had had a nice Xmas only to find out she'd blocked me. Really weird behaviour. I guess the default setting for some girls is that everyone online who shows an interest in them is guilty of being a total weirdo until proven otherwise.

Not exes and before social media but several times in my younger life I've been platonic friends with women and they've started going out with someone and that's been the end of our friendship. I'm thinking in particular of one who I was good mates with at the time I started going out with my significant ex (who she didn't seem to like much admittedly) and sympathised with me when I got dumped. Then not long afterwards she got a partner herself and I have literally never spoken to let alone seen her since I heard about this. I tried ringing her more than once and left messages on her answering machine (this was in the 90s remember?) but never got called back. I haven't a clue where she is now. There's nobody of her name on social media.

I know that some people don't like their partners having contact with old friends but I think there are also people who use getting a partner to cut themselves off from old friends. Strikes me as very strange behaviour.

[Shaky]

And I think this is probably a way bigger part of it than specifically anything about her tbh. It's drastically harder to move on from people when your brain's whole concept of socializing in large part is tied to them. It definitely makes the idea of trying to be friends drastically harder.

Yeah, my friend circle in Brisbane is non existant after people moved away, I raised two kids with the previous ex to this one to one didn't go out for ages etc. Kids have been away with their mum for four days. My best friends are all back in the UK and the poor fuckers are trapped there. Don't want to call them while all slobbery and weeping. Bit of a bummer after the festivities. Former work colleagues here don't go out or seem able to tee up a get together so it's a msg here and there.  I feel if I'd been able to get out and about with some mates it would've helped but alas, just a no go. Meetup groups are shit at the moment and the ones I've been to I haven't quite gelled with anyone. I pondered the gym but Christ, has it really come to that?

I've just realised I've literally been sitting in the same chair for well over 24 hrs, give or take slight movements to the bog or kitchen. Stayed up all night, pissing around on the laptop. Weirdly scared of entering my bedroom.

You are helping, peeps. God bless you all.

[Tony Tony Tony]

Hire the sluttiest escort you can find and turn up together where you know she hangs out loudly exclaiming "Wanda here reminds me soooo much of my ex"

Alternatively https://youtu.be/iEKLFS-aKcw?t=56

[dissolute ocelot]

Definitely agree with the above. I'm social media friends with several exes, but have muted for a few months rather than have to read how they're in a new relationship. There's been people I was less serious with who I was able to discuss our more recent dating and relationships, but some who it would definitely have been too painful (I was invited to an ex's wedding 6 months after we broke up, but declined - the speed was probably in part due to immigration reasons but still not really my place). You just have to cut yourself off, mute, block, unfriend, delete numbers from your phone, etc.

Fortunately, I've never had to deal with too much of the losing friends/social circle after a break-up; with my longest previous relationship part of the reason we broke up was probably because I hated all her friends and how fake and "let's network" it all was. There's no easy solution to that; hopefully some will be willing to make the effort, but otherwise you have to move on and find new friends as well as a new partner, sigh.

[pigamus]

Total sympathy with the OP. Bloody hard to move on these days. Your ex's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blog, whatever - all of it there all the time like a big red button with DO NOT PRESS written on it. At least before social media you didn't have to know about who they were doing now. The temptation is always there to start beating yourself up with it all, plus the fact you end up feeling like a creepy stalker if you give in to the temptation. Nightmare.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I've remained friends with exes when I've either lost interest or wasn't that into them either (and the feeling was mutual) without issue. The problem is trying to stay friends when you still really fancy them or they still really fancy you. Particularly with how easy it is to keep in touch and keep daily tabs on people's lives, it makes it extra hard to move on and resist the urge to keep talking to them/meeting them. So I can understand cutting people off completely, as harsh as it seems. It's basically what would have happened 25+ years ago anyway, before social media and everyone having mobile phones.

Totally sympathise though, but seeing someone you still really care for on social media every day living their life without you is like a reset button for your bad feelings.