Getting over your ex
Okay so based on the info I’m about to share, I feel like I know what the answers will be but I ideally need different advice because “cut him off” is not an option. In January of this year, I started seeing one of my best friends from work (already a big mistake but seemed great at the time). It was incredible but we just wanted it to be casual. We ended up both needing somewhere to live and moved in together in February. As the months went by, we had the best time together, and the feels started to develop. When I get feels, I can be prone to jealousy and unfortunately this person I was with made that very difficult. He is a very outgoing person who consistently follows and enjoys attractive people, knows a lot of beautiful people and talks to EVERYONE online. But in a very complimentary way and always tell people how beautiful they are. And I’m all about that because I know I do the same but the way he does it is sims thing I’ve never seen before. I can’t even properly explain his personality because I’ve never met someone like him. Incredibly wonderful and makes you feel wonderful but says all the same in depth stuff to everyone so you never feel more superior. Anyway, he ended sharing that he missed his ex after about 6 months of us being together which was a stab in the cut because I had strong feelings. ( apparently he does too) but we have still been living together since then (over a month since ending things) and it has been the worst time. We have tried to continue being friends because we were best friends but constantly seeing messaging other people and giving them these ridiculous compliments has made my anxiety consistently out of control. Just being around him has also impacted it. Any time I try to communicate the things that upset me, he begins to play the victim and tells me how much he hates himself and how he keeps ruining relationships and everyone always walks out on him and it’s not that I want to not have him in my life because we do have great fun together. But my biggest issue is our lease is nearly up and we have already agreed to keep living together but with 3 other friends from work so we can afford a nicer place. So I’m committed to having to do that but my anxiety continues to get the best of me and I just need to know what are the best ways to stay friends with someone you wanna be friends with but might be really toxic on your heart right now?
Comments
hey @groovy_thyme I'm sorry that you're going through such a rough time at the moment, I can't imagine how hard it would be to still be living together after ending the relationship. I know you mentioned you committed to living together in the future, but as @StormySeas17 said, if it is going to be detrimental to your mental health it may be a good idea in the long run to consider living away from them, even if it means backing out of your previous agreement. In this way, you don't have to cut them off completely but you can have some space and not see each other everyday, it might improve your relationship and allow you both to move on. Have you spoken to any of your other friends who you plan on living with about the situation? Would you consider speaking to a professional about the anxiety you're feeling right now?
Hey @groovy_thyme I'm sorry to hear that you're stuck in a scenario where you're finding someone toxic to your mental health and need to find a middle ground. It sounds like this person really pushes on doing things that make you feel bad intentionally or unintentionally and it can be so frustrating, I've known that feeling. For me it was a jealousy that my ex seemed to spend more time with other people in his life than me and I felt really excluded because he flaked on me a lot. While I didn't live with my ex it did become toxic to be in his friendship group after we broke up because of his connection with other friends I felt like were being rubbed in, despite the fact we wanted to stay friends. I found that drawing boundaries on what our friendship meant, mainly in my own head, was what helped me. I made a decision early on that I didn't want to rekindle any sort of romantic relationship even though I had feelings because I knew it wouldn't work out. Alternatively, I told myself that I was going to 'wait out' these feelings I was having and see if they still existed months along the line and if they did I would act on them, and by that point they didn't. As time went on I found myself getting over the bad things and feelings my ex brought up and the connection changed naturally because I delayed my response to the feelings and could focus on other stuff.
Along with the lease that you said you were going to be a part of, if it's going to kill your mental health to be with this person in close proximity despite having a better place to live and you might want to bail, I wonder if bringing up the idea you might not want to be involved would be good to bring up sooner rather than later? I have a friend who had to do that and just explain she didn't have the headspace to move and while it was annoying for the housemates they made it work. Another thing might be that if you're living with multiple people at least you'd be able to get away from him?
