10 Warnings I’d Love To Give My Ex’s New Girlfriend

After some shameless social media stalking, I recently discovered that my ex is in a new relationship. They look happy in their pictures and I’m generally unphased by their budding relationship, but I can’t help but think about all of the things I wish I could tell her about him to warn her what she’s getting into.

1. He’s really reckless with money. When we were together, my ex made it seem like he had his finances in tight order, but about a year into our relationship, it became clear to me that he only wanted me to believe that. He made a decent amount living but I came to find out that he didn’t save well and bought a lot of meaningless crap. Then he ran out of money and relied on me. I want to make sure she knows what she’s getting herself into on that front. Money habits are really hard to change.
2. What you see isn’t what you get with this guy. I want to tell her to do her due diligence. I want her to make sure she knows as much about him as possible before she really commits herself. He’s good at patching up the less than desirable parts of himself to make them look better from afar but when you step close to him, you can see through the patches into who he really is. When he was my guy, he worked hard to make me think that he was someone that he really wasn’t. I naively believed him because I didn’t want to believe he was too good to be true.
3. He’s a self-preservationist. I want her to know that he’s a super selfish dude. He cares more about himself and the way he looks to other people on the outside than about how he makes others feel. He won’t care about her the way she’ll care about him.
4. You can’t compete with his bad habits. He drinks too much, and when he drinks he becomes someone that she might not know. His drinking habit was always the worst part of our relationship because multiple times a week, whenever he put a drink to his lips, he turned inward and away from me. He coped with stress and anxiety through alcohol and I felt like I could never make him feel the way it made him feel.
5. He’s a serial monogamist. She shouldn’t be surprised if you date him for a few years and then he dips out on you! I want her to know that she’s like his ninth relationship in 15 years. She should curb her expectations. A man like that is always looking for something in a partner that’s unattainable. I’d tell her to carefully guard her heart.
6. He’s a lazy lover. I want her to know that he expects her to put all of the work in their sexual relationship. He expects oral sex but he won’t reciprocate it. He won’t work as hard as she will to make her feel pleasure because the only person he’s concerned about sexually is himself.
7. He still plays video games for hours on end. I know this sounds petty but it’s true. He likes video games and played them frequently and it made me feel like I wasn’t important. It made me feel like I was dating a child, not a man. If he hasn’t popped out his game console yet, I’d explain, he will at some point when he gets her super comfortable with him.
8. He has an achievement complex. He would never admit this but he can’t stand for a woman to achieve more than him. I’d want her to know that he might not be as supportive as she needs him to be of her career aspirations because he becomes super jealous of women who achieve higher than him. He can’t stand it. I’d tell her about how unsupportive he was of my career and about how he diminished my achievements. I’d tell her that he made me feel bad about my hard work.
9. He doesn’t know how to apologize. You know those people that start off with an apology but then insert something to negate the apology? Like the people who say “I’m sorry you feel that way” to make clear that they aren’t taking any responsibility for how they made you feel? Or the people that say “I’m sorry but I still feel the way I do” completely nullifying any modicum of remorse? Those people are the worst! And this guy is like that. He never learned how to apologize and I doubt he ever will.
10. He’s unwilling to deal with his emotional issues. My ex harbored emotional issues stemming from childhood. Emotional trauma is something that I take seriously and I would never make light of it. However, every time I suggested he talk to someone to work them out, he declined, professing that he could handle it himself. The truth is, he couldn’t handle his issues and it affected our relationship. I want her to know that he has emotional baggage and that unless he takes the initiative to deal with it, it will come up over and over again in very unsavory ways.