I’d love to be able to completely tune out my ex so that I could avoid having to see him repeatedly cheating on his new girlfriend, but unfortunately, that’s just not possible. He’s the father of my child, so I have another 16+ years before I can do that. It seriously sucks — especially for her.
- I see the way she looks at him and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. She looks at him like he’s a conquering hero on his way back from vanquishing the evils of the world and he looks at her like she’s an accessory — and that’s when he looks at her at all. It’s like he went into a store, picked out a new pair of shoes, and now they’re his new favorite crap-kickers.
- I know the way he treats her. He parades her around when they’re out and about, but it’s obviously a charade. He’s just trying to call attention to the fact that he has a new possession, something that’s yet to be broken in. I know because I remember him treating me that way in public. Behind closed doors, he manipulates you, rips apart your sanity, and alienates you from the world until he’s all you have left. He’ll hold your phone for ransom, abuse you, lie constantly, disappear for days, and then come home like nothing happened.
- She seems oblivious to everything that’s going on. She’s oblivious to the abuse, to the cheating, and to everything else that’s happening. I’m not sure how old she is, but she looks like she’s still in high school. She’s probably some naïve little school girl that he met while he was stalking the playground for some easily manipulated girl who’s yet to experience the harsh reality of having a sociopath as a boyfriend.
- Every time it comes up in conversation, I just can’t deal. He cheated on me with, at last count, 13 different “women” (they were usually teenage girls) and lied about it for years. He made me feel like I was going insane — I was fully convinced that everyone was lying to me. He gaslighted me so well, in fact, that when some random chick approached me at the gas pump to apologize for sleeping with him, I didn’t even believe her.
- It’s causing tension with my current boyfriend. I get it — every time it comes up, I feel like I could explode. It’s like I’m a ticking time bomb. I know my ex’s cheating isn’t my problem anymore, but I feel like I just can’t ignore it. It’s causing issues with my boyfriend because he thinks that I’m still stuck on my ex. In reality, I’m stuck on the damage my ex has done.
- I can’t even tell her what’s happening. I want to tell her that one day she may end up like me — walking in on him banging a random chick in her bed, in front of her child, while she was out working to pay to support him. I want to tell her that if she asks him about it, his exact words will be, “My stepdad cheated on my mom and I hate him for it. I’d never cheat because I never want to be like him. Are you going crazy like all of my exes?” because that’s what he always says. I want to tell her that all his exes “went crazy” because he’s an abusive, manipulative liar… but I can’t.
- It’d be pointless to even try to clue her in. I know my ex has already demonized me to her by the way she looks at me, so why would she believe me? Of course, in her defense, I was the same way when his ex told me what he was like. I know how it works when you think you’re the one he’s going to change for and give the world to. He makes you believe his exes are crazy and they just want to tear you apart so they can have him. Ugh.
- She reminds me of me. She’s just so glad she found him. What a dream, right? I know how this ends and it’s not her fault — it’s his. I want to save her from that, to save her from becoming me. Subconsciously, I think that if I could, it would somehow change what he did to me and then maybe I’d be less screwed up.
- I’m reliving all the trauma he put me through. He made me crazy when we were together. Lies, disappearing, making me believe that I could never remember anything correctly, constantly calling me egotistical, manipulating me in every way he possibly could… the list goes on and on. It’s stirring up some of the same feelings I had when we were together and it’s not a good thing.
