[Relationships] Looks like my ex-fiancee is now cheating on her boyfriend with a girl

To quote one of my favorite movies: "hate is baggage."

I realize that anger does have a purpose, but to me, in this situation, remaining steadfastly charitable to her is the most constructive thing I can do, much as I bash her here to get the frustration out. She is fundamentally very selfish; she sees the world as a series of people that are there for her to use, and once she can't get anything else she wants out of them, she doesn't give a damn. I know her childhood story about as well as I do my own by now, and it's truly not all her fault that she is the way she is. Her parents are both that way. She learned it from them.

That was one of the biggest problems with our relationship near the end. I was the only one that ever managed to stay with her for as much as a year, let alone two. I realize now that there are two primary reasons for that. First, I'm extremely selfless in relationships, and she's extremely selfish. So we worked in that way. The other thing was that a number of times throughout, I felt an awful lot more like an older brother to her than an equal. I was keeping her in line and trying to minimize her selfish and insecure nature as much as possible. Problem is, two years of what essentially amounted at times to counseling from me doesn't make up for decades living with the most screwed-up, selfish parents you can think of.

So I try to give her a little credit; give her a little unconditional support, since she doesn't seem to be familiar with that concept. At the same time, I realize it's also important to realize that it's not my responsibility to save her, or anybody. It's not my fault or my problem that she is the way she is. She's got to want help in order to really be helped. I know that. I'm just taking a shot in the dark that maybe if I'm charitable enough towards her for long enough, she might eventually realize that not everyone is fundamentally like her parents. It doesn't cost me anything to do so.

No offense taken. Yes, she's extremely selfish, but that selfishness came from somewhere. Her parents never taught her selflessness or charity. If people only hate her for who she is and never act kindly toward her unless they get something in return, doesn't that only support her worldview that all people are basically selfish? She legitimately did not understand how I could possibly still wish her well after what she did to me. She didn't understand it at all. Think about that: doesn't that imply that very few people in her life have shown her what selflessness looks like?

Of course, it wouldn't work either to just be nice to her no matter what, because that would just be enabling her. What she really needs is some tough love, and apparently I'm the only one who's ever given that to her. Her mom is so insecure that she treated her daughters like friends instead of children since they were old enough to talk, and her dad just plain didn't give a damn.

It's a tough problem.

Well, we were at that point about two months ago. Problem is, since then it's regressed, because I found out she was going around implying to everyone that she was single so she could scope out some action on the side. Once I realized that I majorly chewed her out and asked her what the hell he had done to deserve what she was doing to him. Then I told her that the freaking world didn't revolve around her and that while she may be screwed up, she should at least TRY not to drag other people along for the ride. Naturally, we haven't spoken since. I'm fine with talking to her, it's her that won't talk to me at the moment because she doesn't wanna talk to anyone who refuses to just smile at her as she treats everyone around her like garbage.

I'm definitely "over her" as a romantic interest, I'm just frustrated at what she's doing to herself, and what she's doing to other people even more. I'm frustrated that no one else close to her in her life has stones enough to tell her she needs to get help and that she needs to stop treating everyone she meets as pawns in her selfish little game. This long ago ceased to be about me. It's about her being self-destructive and taking good people along for the ride. I have no desire at all to see her end up as a severely depressed, divorced 50-year-old with zero self-esteem and two kids like her mom, and I have even less desire to see other people suffer because of her. This is where her parents or her good friends should step up, but they're not doin' a thing. Heck, half of her friends abandoned her because of what she did to me. While I understand and even appreciate that a little, I sure wish they'd be there for her right at the moment.

But hey... I can't do anything about it right now. All I can do is hope that I got the message across the last time I talked to her. It's out of my hands for the foreseeable future. That's fine. I'm all for less drama right now.

 

Well now... that's blunt. Does marriage really suck all that much?

 

Thanks for the kind words.

It is very sad. The most tragic part of all is that the way she's going, I find it very likely she'll get married at some point, get divorced, and do the exact same thing to her kids that her mom did to her. I can see it comin' a mile away, just like I saw her "temporary breakup" with the new guy comin' from a mile away.

No kids deserve her as a mom.

 

I have two guys who are basically my best friends, and one of them is borderline r****ded. He's constantly doing truly idiotic stuff in all aspects of his life. I sit there and wonder what the hell went wrong in this guy's head, because it seems like he used to have it on straight. The other friend is a lot smarter, but he seems to keep repeating the same routine over and over: he can get himself into any job because he's the smoothest talker ya ever did see. But he can never keep any of those jobs because he doesn't work hard enough, and he gets bored too easily. Every two weeks he's got a new plan that will change his life, and they're good plans, he just never sticks with them.

Especially with my second friend, and with my ex, it's not just frustrating that they keep making mistakes, it's that they keep making the same mistakes over and over. I'm cool with the whole "make your own mistakes and learn from them" thing, but neither of them is doing the "learning" part. They're masters at the "making mistakes" part, though.

As you say, it's tough. I can't help but try to lead them in the right direction. I'm lucky enough that with all three of them, I have seen tangible signs of improvement that resulted from my efforts, though they were/are minuscule in the big scheme of things. I just try to be glad that I managed to help at all and hope that they get where they need to be eventually.

 

I actually realized after all this one problem I do have, and that's this: I'm so selfless in my relationships all the time that I tend to attract/be attracted to needy people who have a lot of issues. Fixer-uppers, if you will. They give me something to do, I suppose. Something to occupy my time. Clearly though, that's not healthy.

So there's actually this chick I've been hanging out with a helluva lot lately. She helped me realize this about myself, because it turns out we're both exactly the same way. We've both been through several relationships where we give give give, and our needy counterpart just takes takes takes. At some point, both of us must've decided that that's how relationships are supposed to work. We're both tired of it on the one hand, and we realize we need to stop doing it, but it also just seems to be in our nature: we both sacrifice our own priorities for those we care about without even giving it a second thought. It's really irritating.

And we don't know how we feel about dating one another, because we both just got out of long relationships, and we're both always looking to fill the provider role (she's even worse than me: whenever we go out to dinner or anything, I have to remind her when the check comes that I'm not going to let her pay for both of us like she always does for everyone else). It's like trying to forcibly push two positively charged magnets together. She's quickly become a very good friend to me, but we're both having a tough time visualizing ourselves as more than that. Maybe something will develop there eventually, but I don't know. She does have plenty of her own issues too (including being frequently beaten as a child... yay!), and I'm not sure I want to deal with the consequences of those issues way down the line (i.e., she's dead set that she wants to beat her children when she has them).

 

I don't understand the question... is this directed at me or codell?

 

I think we need to define "over her" more clearly, then. The reason my posts are so voluminous, IMO, is simply that I'm bored and have nothing better to do. I got really used to the routine of taking care of her, and now that that's gone, I don't really know what to do with myself. At the same time, no way do I want her back, because that could only end badly.

If being "over her" means I have to completely stop giving a damn about her at all, even as a friend, then that'll never happen.

I'm "over her," if you mean her as a person I'm interested in spending the rest of my life with.

I readily admit that I am not "over her" as far as no longer having a routine that I'm comfortable with that maintains my interest. I do still long for the comfort of that routine with SOMEONE, but not for her specifically.

And as I said a few posts up, I have a problem with being attracted to needy women. I'm working on that problem, but I sure ain't there yet.




And besides all that: never underestimate a former English major's inability to shut up.