My Best Friend Is Dating My Ex & It’s Driving Me Crazy

A couple of weeks ago, my best friend told me that she’s dating my most recent ex. After getting over the initial shock, I did what any good friend would do: I said I was OK with it and wished her well. In reality, I’m really ticked off.

  1. She lied to me. For two months, my best friend was talking to my ex. I broke up with him four months ago. That means she’s been lying to me about who she’s been talking to and seeing for months. My best friend and I are very close, so it’s tough for me to deal with the fact that she could lie so smoothly, especially concerning something that she knew could potentially hurt me.
  2. She waited until the last minute to tell me. I understand that things in the dating world are complicated. A lot of the time, you end up talking to multiple people because you don’t know which relationship is going to pan out. But my best friend and my ex were getting closer to that exclusive mark for months. She could have told me at any point, but she waited until the last minute to do so. She waited until there was nothing that I could do about it and robbed me of the opportunity to voice my feelings.
  3. She didn’t ask for my permission. Not dating someone’s ex is one of the first rules of girl code. As my closest female friend, she should have approached me from the first moment he messaged her and asked if I’d be OK with them talking. If she had, I would have said no and our friendship would be fine. Still, I’m not a selfish friend. If she were still pining over him, I would have worked my mind around it and given her my blessing. As things stand, she completely disregarded me and now our friendship is in danger.
  4. She doesn’t value my opinion. My best friend sat with me while I cried over my ex. She knows everything that he did to me, so her dating him is like a slap to my face. She’s basically calling me a liar or suggesting that she can handle him a lot better than I can. I know that my ex will only bring her pain, and I already voiced that opinion dozens of times to her. That means she doesn’t value what I have to say, which is hurtful.
  5. She’s putting me in an awkward position. It’s still early days for my best friend and my ex, but I know that he’s going to have to come around eventually. I don’t understand how guys do it, but I’m not the type of girl that likes to hang out with my ex. My best friend is important to me, so I know that I’ll have to find a way to get along with him. I hate the fact that she hasn’t given much thought to how her new relationship will affect me and our friendship.
  6. She hasn’t bothered to check up on me. This is a real kicker. After my best friend told me about her new relationship, she dropped off the face of the earth. Sure, she still likes a few of my posts on social media, but we haven’t really spoken. I understand that she’s in the honeymoon phase, but given the complicated nature of her relationship, it would be nice to have her check in to make sure I’m doing OK. I feel like all she wanted from me was a green light for the sake of her conscious, and now she’s closed the book on that issue.
  7. She talks about him to me. In the limited communication I’ve had with my best friend, she continuously mentions my ex and the things he does for her. It hurts like hell on two levels. One, it shows that, once again, she doesn’t care about my feelings, but on another level, it makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me. My ex is acting differently with my best friend and it’s making me feel like there’s something wrong with me because he never treated me as well as he treats her.
  8. She’s making me question my entire relationship with my ex. I don’t have feelings for my ex. I’m glad he’s out of my life, except now I can’t help but wonder if he was dating me to get to my best friend the whole time. He was very quick to move on with her. I know my best friend would have told me if he was hitting on her while we were still together, but what if I was an unwitting pawn in his game?
  9. She chose a brand new relationship over a five-year friendship. With her actions, my best friend told me that men are more important than friendships. She broke yet another rule of girl code. My best friend has been with me through some of the worst experiences of my life, so this feels like a punch in the gut. I wonder if she ever valued my friendship as much as I valued hers. I was a great friend to her. It’s sad to see I invested in the wrong friendship.
  10. She ruined my trust in people. My confidence in both men and women has been broken. The fact that two people that I had such faith in could hurt me like this makes me want to curl up into a ball and never leave the house. But I won’t do that. I know that there are better men and friends out there for me. I would never do what either my ex or my best friend have done to me. I guess in a way, their relationship has been a hard but valuable lesson for me.
Hannah is a twenty-something-year-old freelance writer, obsessed with reality TV, and all things sweet.
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