Dear Roe,
I’m 36 and was with my ex for 3½ years. We broke up two years ago. We had a lot of issues in the relationship, mainly stemming from his lack of affection and some commitment issues on his side. He was reluctant for us to spend significant time with each other’s family and friends, wasn’t romantic, was cagey about sharing anything about us on social media and avoided conversations about the future. I wanted to get married and have children and wanted to be able to plan while he felt pressured and eventually we broke up. I have dated since but nothing serious which has caused me to think that maybe I should have just given him more time. He got into another relationship very quickly and she has posted a lot about them on social media and it’s everything I wanted. Photos of them travelling, of him doing big romantic gestures, lots of photos of him with her friends, and I found out through mutual friends that they’re probably getting engaged soon. I feel completely worthless. I don’t know why he wasn’t able to do any of this for me but does it all for her. I feel so angry that I spent nearly four years waiting for him, begging him for affection, being patient about making plans just to see him give it all to someone else who he started seeing within months of us breaking up. The fact that he found his likely new wife and I haven’t found anyone just adds to it. I feel like he won and I just wasn’t good enough for him.
I’m really sorry you’re feeling like this. I think a lot of us can understand the feeling of second-guessing a break-up and a lot of us have gone through this experience of seeing your ex with someone new, happy and seemingly on their best behaviour. Social media has heightened this phenomenon immensely, as we see everyone’s highlight reels and best performances, and judge our worst moments against their picture-perfect ones.
I hope it’s not a surprise that I’m going to tell you to stop following and looking at both his and his girlfriend’s social media. Mute them, block them, delete your apps for a while — do whatever you need to do. Looking at this is just emotional self-harm for you right now. You feel bad about yourself and continuing to look at content that keeps you feeling bad about yourself is just perpetuating your warped, negative inner monologue that is telling you you’re not good enough. You have to work on dismantling that belief system, and you’re not going to be able to do it while actively choosing to look at content that makes you feel worse. So hit the mute and block buttons, and every time you find yourself looking at their photos, say out loud to yourself what you are doing, why you’re doing it, what this is doing to you emotionally and what you could do instead to feel good about yourself. Say out loud, “I am looking at photos of my ex and his girlfriend. I’m doing it because I feel lonely/sad/bored/bad about myself. Doing this is making me feel even lonelier, more sad, jealous and is damaging my self-esteem. I’m going to stop and go for a walk/call a friend/dance around my kitchen/write a list of my great qualities/write a list of lovely little moments that have happened this month.” Speaking these words aloud will move your actions from unconscious to conscious and will help you notice what you’re doing and make a better choice. One of those actions is also going to be finding a good therapist who can help you dismantle the negative self-talk and esteem issues you’re grappling with.
They can also help you dismantle the self-blaming questions and assumptions you are asking yourself, like “what’s wrong with me that he couldn’t do this for me?” and “if only I was more like her, he would have treated me better”. You are feeling slightly out of control in your life, so you’re latching on to the easiest narrative possible, that you are the problem because your brain is telling you that if you’re the problem then you can change yourself and that’s a solution that’s in your control. But that’s a false narrative and a false solution. You are not a problem. You were simply in a relationship with someone who could not meet you where you were.
For whatever reason, your ex couldn’t give you what you wanted. He wasn’t ready or your dynamic didn’t work or maybe he was just young and it took you two breaking up for him to self-reflect and realise that the things you were asking for were in no way unreasonable, so he was more equipped for those things in his next relationship. Or maybe he just learned how to be more performatively romantic on social media and still has a lot of other things to work on. Whatever he learned, people grow and mature at their own speed, and relationships and break-ups are often very steep learning curves for people. In the same way that travel and new experiences teach people in ways that simply imagining or intellectualising cannot replicate, people learn and evolve and re-evaluate their lives after break-ups in ways they simply can’t while in the relationship. That isn’t a fault with you, that’s a design of human interaction.
Your ex may be a more mature person and partner because of his experience with you. That’s not a sign that you were not worthy and it’s not a sign that you’re missing out now. He was not your person and was never going to be, because he was not able to give you the love and affection you need and deserve. You were not in the same place at the same time, he wasn’t getting there with you, and that’s solely due to his own self-development. And while it’s understandably frustrating to feel like someone gets to be with the more mature version of your ex, it’s not a sign that you don’t deserve affection, romance and commitment. I need you to take that very seriously. Your ex has chosen whatever lessons to take from your relationship, and you need to choose your lessons too. And I’m not letting you stick with, “I wasn’t good enough” because that’s not true.
You learned that you deserve more than someone who can’t commit fully to you. You learned that you want a shared vision of the future with someone. You learned that you should not shrink down yourself and your desires for someone who can’t show up for you. You learned that you need someone who is your emotional equal, not someone who needs to spend years taking someone for granted to learn how to show up in a relationship. I’m sure there are many other lessons that you could learn that are not about making you feel bad about yourself, but certain of what you learned in that relationship that make you a more mature and evolved person
[ I ended my last relationship and am worried I won’t find anyone elseOpens in new window ]
I’d also encourage you to think about what you want to learn during this time between relationships. When you meet your person, what do you want to tell them about this time, the ways you invested in yourself and what you learned?
Stop investing your energy in this man. You have given him enough of your time. This is your year. Think of all you’ve learned, all you know about yourself, and all you’re ready for. If you keep looking backwards at him, you may miss it. Chin up, eyes open, heart ready.