Amicable Breakups That Become Nonamicable

Looking for advice and also stories from everyone here to help me out.

A recent ex of mine and I were very friendly after the breakup. We stayed pretty close friends too but we gave each other space. But we see each other a lot as we've been involved in theatre projects together as it is a small town.

Lately we've been quarreling worse than ever, and it kind of came out of nowhere. We're both at fault. I made some comments that got back to her about her new guy, when I was drinking - I admitted I was wrong and apologized, and we let it go. She, on the other hand, has turned into a bitch on wheels.

When we dated I sort of got the impression that she had tunnel vision at times. In other words, when she had problems, nobody else's problems in the world mattered except for hers. So if we both had bad days, I'd wind up consoling her and asking her about it, and she'd often not ask me about my day or offer the same. But I didn't care because I loved her.

Likewise, I sometimes apologized when I didn't necessarily feel I was wrong. To me, the end result is more important than me "being right", so if I felt like it would square things away, saying "I'm sorry" was something I'd do. Her apologies often contained the word "but" after them, like "I'm sorry...but you know you did this". I can't stand it when people do that.

Lately she's been distant to me, and I didn't get why. Recently I helped her run auditions for a show, came and saw the show she directed twice, and anytime she had a bad day or a problem (which with her seems like every 2 days), I offered my support and tried to leave her alone. But she gets really prickly when she is stressed and she takes it out on people. She'll later say 'I'm sorry, it's not you'...(ok, so why did you take it out on me, then?). But now she's not even doing that. It seems she only talks to me to make fun of me, to tell me to do something, or whatnot.

So it came to a head this week when Tuesday, during a rehearsal, tensions were high and a lot of people in the show were fighting. I was mad at her, and she got called out by the director, and I felt it was unfair, so even though I was mad at her, I consoled her and offered my support to her. I texted her and called her after it was over to see if she was alright.

The next day, she still acts prickly towards me...not even grateful for me being a shoulder for her. I had a bad day, and my other friends helped cheer me up, but not her. Today, she proceeds to shout out loud criticisms of one of my performances in the show minutes after I got complimented on how well I did in front of the entire cast.

Obviously, we need to talk...but I feel like I've been more than patient. i'm not perfecct, but I can admit when I'm wrong and I do apologize. But I'm not sure what else I can do. Do you think it's time to pull the plug, or to have a serious conversation bout it? "m leaning towards the latter first....

I think most ilxors are going to come down on the side of "yeah man, this is hopeless." Seems like you're a decent dude; sorry to hear this kind of stuff is going on.

thx. i really hate to lose a friendship but I can't deny myself and just apologize for the sake of apologizing either. It's about self-respect. I am thinking of asking her to have a sitdown where we both give our side without interruption by the other, then have a chance to rebut, then both apologize and promise to do better.

Except I know the convo will end up with us shouting "SUCK MY ASS" to each other at the end.

In general, it's hard to stay friends with someone when you're newly broken up, and even more so when a third party has already stepped into the picture. But, added on to all of that, there seems to be a dynamic here in which she has all of the power in the relationship. You have to support her, you have to sincerely apologize when you make a mistake, but she doesn't have to do any of that. She can more or less do what she wants with you without consequences, because in the end you're going to do whatever's necessary to preserve the relationship, even if it means you have to do things like apologize when you're not even in the wrong. If I'm describing this correctly, unless you can have a talk with her and work all of this out, you're either going to have to continue to put up with this dynamic or forfeit the relationship. Which option you choose, of course, is up to you.

Hope that is somewhat helpful & that others will chime in with their own comments & advice.

I think most ilxors are going to come down on the side of "yeah man, this is hopeless."

By this, I more or less mean: "[...] unless you can have a talk with her and work all of this out, you're either going to have to continue to put up with this dynamic or forfeit the relationship."

I am thinking of asking her to have a sitdown where we both give our side without interruption by the other, then have a chance to rebut, then both apologize and promise to do better.

you sound a lot like me, and if this girl is anything like my ex the conversation will go something like this:

"why are we talking about this? talk is cheap. we fix this or we don't. what is there to discuss?"

if she is as you describe, uninterested in the way you feel or think, your conversation may not be too different.

Yea...I'm hoping it goes better. Right now I'm more temperamental than I usually am, which is why she thinks I'm being "mean" (when in reality it truthfully was a chore staying as even keeled as I did for 9 months).

But she sleeps until 2 pm everyday and doesn't even have a job. Granted, she lives with her mother, who has various ailments, and helps her out, which is admirable, but she has this condescending attitude towards older people that I think she wouldn't have if she actually was forced to be self-sufficient...

You broke up - why invest so much energy into maintaining it like its still a relationship? Curious.

well we wanted to remain friends. and we managed to for a while. right now I'm more or less looking for "not being a bitch" since we have to work together on this project and another upcoming one.

I still care about her a lot as a person. She can be really sweet. But I spoiled her too much I think and now I'm paying for it with her bitchiness.

This is the same person though who complains that I eat too loud, and one day I bought her lunch and she asked me to eat in another room because teh loudness of my eating was annoying her. (I didn't)

It may not be easy to do, but really, you need to learn to not give a shit. I think you can learn something from this:

"why are we talking about this? talk is cheap. we fix this or we don't. what is there to discuss?"

thanks guys. i'm sure as hell not going to let it ruin my evening. part of it is also because we share so many mutual friends that I know she's probably already off telling her side of thes tory and them replying "if he can't see how awesoe you are, then he's a fool". it irks me.

but, to be fair, I am doing the same thing right now, so I have to deal with it, end of story....

I made some comments that got back to her about her new guy
Where's this guy while all of this is going on, and shouldn't he be handling her "bad days"?

Haven't you found someone new, maybe you could invest your time in that rather than someone who seems selfish.

I wouldn't hang around with a 'just a friend' who acted like this, even if I had to work on projects with them. not_goodwin otm.

PULL THE PLUG

for gods sake pull the plug

^^^^^

dogg u may think u need her friendship but u rly don't. there are better bros in the sea of broquility.

if it was rly serious, u can't rly b friends

imo

disagree...i am still v close friends with ex gf from most serious relationship i've had. you can get to know someone v well in a relationship, it doesn't have to end as enemies.

i'm with mayne on this one, tho that's prob as much to do with what i'm like as anything else.

also there are reasons beyond starting to dislike each other or whatever that relationships break up, eg different stages of life, living in diff places, all these kinds of things. in the case i cited i am fairly sure neither of us would want to get back together now, but still v good friends, though we don't live in the same city so it's not as tho we've had to see each other around etc.

i could definitely stay good friends with exes i didn't have to see at all!

yeah it's only i my o. i don't get how (via jealousy), but it can work for some people. but if it's going to, though, then there's no urgency to it.

the past is the past

it is a different country, imo, and the customs/security people are violent, nasty and vindictive cunts.

ime one can be friends with ones ex but its a different kind of friendship that plays by different rules and has a different set of boundaries and breaking points

Why are you trying to be this girl's boyfriend if you aren't dating?

You don't actually have to put up with any of the things you're describing, regardless of whether you want to remain friends or not. If she is going to take out her frustrations on you, tell her not to. If she vents to you about all of her problems, either tell her to talk to her boyfriend or respond with your own problems instead of automatically giving her sympathy. You don't have to be mean and nasty, but you do have to draw the boundary and let her know how you expect to be treated; turning yourself into an emotional punching bag so that you don't upset her isn't being a friend, it's being a pushover/patsy/victim. Don't do that.

"Why are you trying to be this girl's boyfriend if you aren't dating?"

Ive done this before and it was a foolish move.

Thanks guys. Lots of good and interesting viewpoints.

For the sake of a pleasant work environment, because I have to work with her another 2 months, I'm about to call her and talk it out.

The guy she hangs with now isn't technically her b/f but I'm not dumb, it's probably headed there.

Oh btw guys I left this out. My ex is convinced she's a psychic and one day she told me she could see what her future daughter looked like and who the father was, and that I wasn't the father, and that she knew who the father was, and that she didn't know him real well yet, but she did know him.

She tells me this while we're dating, and I didn't go "girl you crazy" or "seeya bye". Oh well, we had sex right after anyway and I let it slide.

so basically she is crazy and you are placating her so she doesn't gouge out your eyes and eat them

"using yr psychic powers as bedroom fodder" is NAGL in 2010 just sayin

lol. i'm glad she at least didn't use her psychic abilities on the bedroom activities.

'i see this won't last more than 5 minutes'...:/

"i'm not sleeping with you tonight- i've looked ahead and i don't even come"

minority retort

but, logically speaking, doesn't that mean she AS to sleep with him, otherwise she'd never have gotten the precognitive flash that she was going to be unsatisfied?

HAS

Oh btw guys I left this out. My ex is convinced she's a psychic and one day she told me she could see what her future daughter looked like and who the father was, and that I wasn't the father, and that she knew who the father was, and that she didn't know him real well yet, but she did know him.

She tells me this while we're dating

DANG every time I think I've heard it all...!

I mean she more than had her sweet moments too but the dickish ones started poking out towards the end...

@HI DERE: Yea I suppose in a 12 MOnkeys of sex type way she would have to...

nah i disagree with the whole 'precognition means you can't change shit' theory.

absolute doozy of an excuse, mind. beats seven bells out of 'i'm washing my headache' or what have you.

ask her if she had a premonition of being a dick to you

yes^^

I should slap her in the face and say "why weren't you preparrrrrrrrred?"

or I could throw her a barbecue....(see: ILTMI)

this is becoming nonamicable imo

amicable face slaps which become nonamicable

house unamicable activities committee

future g/fs have to fill out a questionaire that sez "are u a psychic? y/n/n/a"

cast her in a play where she has the-guy-whose-baby-she-thinks-she-is-going-to-have's baby and in it you will play her ex boyfriend, then get her to watch minority report if she hasnt seen it and tell her you wrote the play based on a recurring dream you had while you two were dating.

It's probably not going to be possible, or healthy, to continue this friendship. You're prioritizing her needs and it's making you insecure; the main issue is that her needs here are bullshit (using emotional blackmail on an ex is just as wrong as doing it to a current partner, maybe more so) and in the guise of 'professionalism' it's possible to both disconnect and in so doing change the framing of the situation so that when she does spaz out in the professional setting, it's all on her and you look like you are adopting a position of WHATEVER, which is for the best. NB if the girl was securely in a new relationship she really wouldn't be attempting to play two men off each other - I don't know why a certain kind of person behaves as though this is proof of desirability, or being desired. If it were me I'd point out that the way I was being treated was NAGL to any new guy who might be watching all of this from the sidelines.

As to you, know when you're being used and don't be so wimped-out to think that you're useless to yourself/others when you're only of no use to a user. It's generally a good idea to give *yourself* some space from an ex embarking on a new relationship, because, yes, people are only human and that's when the shit that hasn't hit the fan previously finds its target. Your colleagues and mutual friends are theatre people who may enjoy a bit of drama so long as they are spectators, but where are these people really going to be for either of you in six months?

a.k.a. - all fair questions. I'll answer a few while I have the energy.

1. No, not trying to win her back. I gave up on that possibility in January as it was clear it wasn't going to happen. Was just enjoying being friends as it came (originally) without pressure.

2. She's a "I'm sorry, but..." person. Many of her apologies were so loaded with modifying statements absolving her or blame or implicating me that they essentially weren't apologies.

Ok, enough on that topic. So I'm pretty damned attracted to another one of the chicks in the show. Problem is she's only like 21 or 22, making me much older (I'm not divulging my age, but no I'm not 40 or anything).

I also am only interested in a booty call at the moment and I think she's too nice to subject to that.

eh go for it but let her know the score; besides who knows, successful relationships have been founded on much much less

Wow, it's enough having one person fall into two of the ex/friend/colleague categories, but all three? the situation itself is tough before anyone's behaviour.

Either way, I guarantee that with most women, once they feel that someone's "hooked" on them, they take liberties, and can be emotionally calculating and cruel

Yes, it's definitely only women that do this.

My instinctive tough love answer: This is simple. She brings you down, it's not fun, you have to second-guess everything that's going on ===== you are not friends. There's therefore not much point putting this through the wringer trying to figure out how to make the friendship work or any other such thing. I mean, like, what's so great about this person or this situation that you really want to salvage it? The good times for this relationship were a long time ago, sad to say.

Cattle Grind: I think you're pointed in the right direction now. Just as there's a lot of insight into yourself that a girl can give you, there's a lot of insight that you can come to by laying that someone completely to rest. She was deserving of your affection and continued attention at one stage, yet not all good things were meant to last. It is no more you than her.

Not the Real Village People: Touche. The remark could have been gender-neutralized. On the other hand, I was speaking of something different than your run-of-the-mill colossal lameness that you and I each suffer from as members of the human race. That gendered slip didn't come from an instinct to denigrate the opposite sex, but from direct, personal experience with cruelty. To my surprise, the only way I can continue to see this person as in some way human -- my experience as in some way natural or explicable -- is to rationalize that she wasn't the sick outlier she must have been, but that I just was too inexperienced with what goes on in women's minds more generally. I go back and forth -- certain people can be this cruel, or most people/women?

The details are irrelevant, but they involve finding out that a person's spirit of compassion isn't always a solid disposition. It can be a very sophisticated front for a fundamentally dishonest emotional life. Nothing is as shattering as the souring of a relationship with someone with a front that was all too carefully maintained. Beware the narcissist.

I go back and forth -- certain people can be this cruel, or most people/women?

with respect to your experience (which sounds pretty bad), "most women" statements are kind of a drag. assigning motives like "manipulation" or "cruelty" to one gender based on relationship history just means you haven't dated certain types of dudes.

^^^^^ I'm fully aware as well that maybe sometimes her attitude towards me isn't always based on what I did but what guys before me have done. IE, guys can be just as bad in the manipulation boat, they just have a different way of achieving it.

FINAL WARNING It's still not your baggage, or your problem anymore. Disengage.

Oh no I know I was mostly just trying to counter that it's not just women. I'm done theorizing, I had a great night last night.

Hi Dere OTM. Go for the booty call but be up front about it. Channel your nice-guy empathetic abilities into yr acting. Don't waste 'em on the ex.

true. it does help where at one point of the show I get to motorboat this new chick too.

To the jaws of impermanence and soul death (reddening): Agreed. And again, it was a slip. I hadn't intended to say gender had much to do with it, it just came out that way, for the reason you latched onto -- still trying to figure out how the whole corrosive experience with that woman was even POSSIBLE.

I don't want to sidetrack you from Cattle Grind's (cough cough) booty call. The title of this thread more or less paralleled what happened in my case. That's why I jumped in a little too enthusiastically.

If you want to know WTF you're likely go through with a narcissist, once their affected charm finally crumbles away and exposes their more heartless core, read the excerpts here of this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Oz-Other-Narcissists-Relationship/dp/0972072837/ref=pd_sim_b_6#reader_0972072837

thanks for the advice all, I think this is a nonissue in my life now. time for y'all to talk about your bitch ex's now...both sexes!

My 'bitch' ex (IMPORTANT NOTICE- not a bitch at all, a lovely girl really) graduated as an accountant, went from a software tester to financial manager of a large hotel group and starting banging a biker dude- all within 3 months of dumping me, which in turn was three months after my mum died in a house fire.

I lol now, but at the time O_o

I think I've said this before, but I may have been holding her back a little.....

thas cold dawg

This thread title describes the past 3 years of my life. We remained friendly for 5 years after the breakup, but while I thought we were actually friends, she was merely biding her time, hoping that we'd get back together at some point. When she finally realized that wasn't going to happen, she pretty much just cut me out, and our infrequent interactions took a real turn for the worse. That in itself wouldn't be a problem except that she spent most of the 5 years cozying up to my friends (I was living in a different country at the time), so I sometimes run into her at weddings and parties and stuff, and she once hosted a birthday party for one of "our" friends, that she met through me, and was never particularly close to while we were dating, and didn't invite me.

I never thought that this person wouldn't be a part of my life in some way, but sometimes you just have to sever all ties and move on. It's sad, but I have a lot of good memories, and I'm in a good relationship now. And while I don't regret a day that I spent with the ex, I don't need to ever speak to her again.

xxp- last glimpse was in a local paper in a 'society page'- her manohlo blahniks cost €700 apparently O_o so i think i dodged a bullet there tbh.

Oh please, my Manohlos only cost £100. Also LOL at all regional society pages (personal favourite of the genre is Liverpool's, featuring countless pix of Ian McCulloch's wife and daughter being charitable in too-shiny frocks).

http://www.blakeneymanor.com/images/carryon/fop.jpg

"Dem those rustics and their wisible bon Ton"

suzy, in fairness i think you're at the stage where you can brag about how cheap your blahnik's were, for a rural accountant west of ireland way that would be missing the point entirely :)

LOL Noodles, can you find no inherent humour in the concept of the Stab City Debutante Ball?

Actually the correct fashion thing to do is to imply that Manohlo/Karl/Stella has been 'so very generous' as opposed to paying full whack or being like me and buying my Manohlos from a V&A fashion curator who happened to be having a clearout.

haha nv

i wouldn't mind reading some of these provincial society pages but online regional news content isn't so good usually

ah suzy yeah Society pages are inherently funny but I wd broaden my contempt to include the Big Smoke, obv

'even jfk's assassination was a regional event'

I used to be repulsed and fascinated by the regional pages of Town and Country Magazine (like Tatler for the US, many pix of icky oil baron wives etc and LOL it was the '80s). Cash can buy a lot of things but style isn't one of them, as any fule kno. To see the best display of airs, just check any glossy local mag that is really just a carrier for lots of property ads and puff pieces on 'my wife is bored'-type shops. The people always look like the weird, wrong kind of 'groomed'.

April Fool's is close on, and every year I ponder ringing ES magazine on the morning and pitching them an article discussing how difficult it is to find decent help, these days.

i should be maybe clearer- it was the 'society' page of a free ads paper

The ones I see from time to time are always free glossy mags that people in certain postcodes get thrust through the letterbox, about 12-month-old aspirational living trends.

there seems to be a gradient whereby the further north you go the more fluorescent the 'icky oil baron wives' become

http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/JJ9650-001.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=2AC75F6FAA20674CDB1C77091D0C4078C06E88DEEF2E3EF749207362A3F24453

Yeah I see what you mean

I don't, linky brokey.

Also, many don't get the style memo 'show legs OR cleavage, not both at once'.

tbh provincial nouveau riche style has its charms but the need to overcompensate for living in high latitudes not so much

"you had to have seen this coming" "oh i totally did" b/w "fuck you, don't talk to me"

is that a split single or both tracks by her?

mashup

both same artist

my ex and I are on better terms but we haven't discussed anything and I'm not going to unless she brings it up. afaic she can go fuck the horsey looking mo'fo she's hanging around with now and it won't make any difference to me cuz i know his teeth will tear up that vagina

posts very much belonging in the thread they are in

lmfao

damn, cattle, that's a... interesting image there

don't look a rebound horse in the mouth, cos you will likely spy some of your ex's vagina rubble.

OK "vagina rubble" is a phrase I never ever want to hear again.

jeez you heard it before?

THAT version of The Flintstones is pretty hard to find

ha au contraire but to hell with posting those gifs at work.

stifling...laughter....

well, my ex's grandma just died. being sympathetic, having lost all of mine in very rapid spurts, I'm being supportive. I think that's the right thing to do. it made me sad to read about it, as it brought my emotions back from when mine passed. Eerily last night, I dreamed about my grandpa/grandma, who have both been dead for a while.

We're not arguing now which is good. I didn't apologize though - because I don't feel that I did anything wrong. Still, less stress is a good thing.

not that i want that last sentence to look like I brought up the topic of our fighting w/ her today - obviously I wouldn't talk about something like that now....just meant to shoehorn that in the "in the last few weeks, this happened" file.