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Maybe this is petty of me, but I'm feeling vindicated

So a little over four years ago I finally ended a very, very unhealthy relationship that had been on and off for about seven years. I broke up with him and made it clear I didn't want him to contact me again, and aside from an errant one-line email and a bizarre comment on my blog, he hasn't bugged me. I still think of him, the way you'd think of anyone who was a big part of your life for seven years, but in a very, "Good lord, what was I thinking???" kind of way. I have him blocked on social media and I don't visit his website or blog.

Yesterday I was talking to my mom on the phone and gushing about how proud I was of FI for getting sent to cover the local gubernatorial election for his job. Then my ex came up and I mentioned how lucky I felt to be with FI and not have to deal with ex's nonsense anymore. She asked me if I knew what he was doing and I said nope. She then said, "Well...I kind of do. Do you want to know?"

She's not FB friends with him of course, but my cousin still is (my cousin has never even talked to him, so I'd imagine she just hasn't bothered defriending him because she's never on FB). Mom said that much of his page is private, but she was able to tell that he's still way, way into anime (no issue with those who do, but he took it to a really unhealthy level), has gotten a lot uglier, is in an "open relationship" with a girl who looks 20 (he's 31), works a crappy retail job (he's trained to do much more skilled positions, but any time his jobs get hard he has the tendency to get fired or quit), and as far as she can tell still lives with his parents.

So, some of those details are super petty. I get that. But it felt good to hear that after four years, he really hasn't changed. Meaning that he was never going to change, and I absolutely made the right decision to cut him out of my life. Even if I hadn't met FI, it still would have been the right decision.

Just needed to share. <3
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Re: Maybe this is petty of me, but I'm feeling vindicated

  • Good for you for having the strength to get out of an unhealthy relationship after all that time. Sounds like you made a good choice :)
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  • I think it's great that you made the right decision for you. But I think it's really childish to snark on a past SO's current position in life, especially when that relationship ended four years ago.
  • You know what? You're right. That was pretty immature of me. But I had that moment of weakness.
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  • It is pretty immature, but I do it too. Especially if someone treated me poorly, it makes me chuckle to see how not-awesome they are still doing at life. Or if they're current SO is ugly. Sorry, not sorry. 
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  • I can understand where you're coming from. I dated a guy off-and-on for about 3 years and we lived together for the last year and a half of it. He had a tendency to be verbally and emotionally abusive, which I didn't even see as being that bad at the time because my previous relationship was with a guy who was extremely physically abusive and stalked me, threatened my life, attacked me multiple times after we broke up (as in tried to strangle me to death) and completely terrorized me for years. So the verbally abusive guy? Not so bad. 

    But he had a lot of anger towards his mom for some reason, and everything was his moms fault. He failed out of college cuz his mom. He won't go back to college cuz his mom. He won't try trade school cuz his mom. He won't get a job cuz his mom. He has a drug problem (but according to him it wasn't a problem) cuz his mom. He stole money out of my purse to buy drugs and support his gambling problem  cuz his mom. 

    I tried so hard to help him get his life together but he wouldn't. Had no interest in improving his life. I finally couldn't take it anymore and broke up with him, and it felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders. To this day I cannot figure out why I stayed with him for so long. It was such a waste of time. 

    I couple years ago I ran into an old friend who told me this guy, years after we broke up, still has no job, still has a gambling problem, lives with his mom, and just sits in her basement playing video games all day. I didn't feel vindicated about this, I felt so terrible for him. I still wonder what went wrong in his life to make him end up that way. The whole situation is just really sad. 

    If I found out physically abusive guy now has kind of a lame boring life, though, I might smile a little bit to myself. Petty, yes, but sometimes we  can't help it. 
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  • I think it's great that you made the right decision for you. But I think it's really childish to snark on a past SO's current position in life, especially when that relationship ended four years ago.
    I agree. I still keep in touch with my ex and I feel bad that he's still a loser, instead of thinking about how wonderful I am. And I feel bad for his wife. 
    Image result for someecard betting someone half your shit youll love them forever
  • I'll admit I looked up an old classmate of mine who had deemed we were in "competition" with each other and was a total bitch to me. I didn't really care that we were in "competition"...I was curious about what we were in "competition" for. Not dates, we were only in one club together but did different things in said club, played different sports, still haven't figured it out. Anyways she used to go on about how she was going to be a big deal and she'd be impressed if I even finished community college, well I have a masters and she's still enrolled at the local community college. I felt good about that. I felt bad that I felt good, but I felt a little good still. Then I went and stalked one of my friends who has a cute baby and liked all the cute baby pictures. 

    I've only looked up a few ex's, stayed away from the really bad ones though. Some of them found me and I was like no we are not going to be friends cause it turns out I can do so much better and I did. 
  • I think it's great that you made the right decision for you. But I think it's really childish to snark on a past SO's current position in life, especially when that relationship ended four years ago.
    I agree. I still keep in touch with my ex and I feel bad that he's still a loser, instead of thinking about how wonderful I am. And I feel bad for his wife. 
    I feel bad that my ex-husband is still a loser too. I don't keep in touch with him, but I do hear things about him from time to time. And it makes me sad, not happy, that he's still working a dead-end job and living above the garage at his brother's house. And this is a guy who put me in financial ruin and stole thousunds of dollars from me. 
  • I will admit that I did this a lot with one of my exes for a while after we broke up. I was still bitter about the way he treated me, and it made me feel like I was somehow getting a one-up on him. It was totally immature and I feel a little embarrassed to admit I ever did that. Now when I see something about him through a mutual friend (I unfriended him long ago but all his stuff is public) I can stop picking apart his life and focus on the good in mine. I did the right thing by breaking it off, and I've built a much better life than I could ever have with him. I stopped feeling like I had something to prove or like it was some kind of competition. I'm doing well, I'm happy and successful, and what's going on in his life has no bearing on my happiness.

    Remember that you don't NEED to be vindicated, focus on the good in your own life.
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  • I do :) If I hadn't heard that stuff about him, I would have felt no less happy about my life. And honestly I did go through a period right after we broke up that I had some pretty embarrassing thoughts. It didn't take long for those feelings to actually weigh me down, and I found I was much happier without them. I probably should have said no when my mom asked if I wanted her to tell me. But I am weak sometimes.
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  • I keep getting friend requests from someone who was friends with my ex after we broke up. I finally messaged her and was like idk why you can't take a hint, but I dont really know why you want to be friends with me because we only met like once and I feel like you are just trying to spy on me for my ex
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  • I agree with you OP. Although, it is childish to feel like you won, that feeling lasts such a short while. 
        I was in an emotionally abusive relationship a long time ago. And he had cheated on me for almost the entire relationship with one of my sister's friends.  When I left him, he was begging me to take him back. I didn't. He kept trying to contact me, and I blocked him on FB.  My life is so wonderful without him in it.  I do feel sorry for his new wife, because he had a bad temper.  But the moments of gloat are rather short.  It lasts about a week after you hear about him, and then you go back to "whew, dodged a bullet, there."
       I find that it is okay to think immature thoughts if those moments are small and you go back to who you normally are.  Nobody thinks good thoughts, all of the time. And as long as it's a thought that will be brushed aside in a bit, and not an action, I don't see the harm. And since I found out, until this post, I have rarely thought about my ex. It's like I wiped that part of my life out of my brain, because I'd much rather make room for positive memories. I don't think this is a big deal, as long as you don't dwell on doing better than him for too long. I think it's just a phase to overcoming a truly awful relationship. When you are onto the next phase, you feel so much better and are almost cleansed by his role in your life. This is a wonderful phase, because harboring resentment makes you focus on the past.  When this part of the past has no room in your mind, you only think of the future with your fantastic FI.
  • Its immature but I do it too. I hear random stuff about my ex from mutual friends. And when he moved home with his parents, I could help but think that I was winning the life game. Its childish, but after the shit he put me through, it made me smile.
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  • For some reason I'm reminded of the Seinfeld bit about the phrase, "The best revenge is living well." Though I have trouble thinking of my happiness as a form of revenge. I just prefer being happy.
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