They always come back in the end, just not out of love.
Hello everyone, I am writing to update you on the situation following a post I made some time ago right after the breakup, when I was completely desperate.
My ex-partner (M 34) and I (F40) have now been broken up for nearly two months. After an initial phase where I begged him to get back together, a month ago I decided to take charge of my life and start a total No Contact. So, it has been exactly one month since we last spoke.
While I was trying to recover, an incident occurred: while doing the laundry, I found some of his clothes in the dirty laundry basket that he had forgotten during the move. To avoid any kind of direct contact with him, I packed them up and left the package directly with the doorman of his building, specifying his name.
Even though we were already two weeks into no contact, when he received the package he sent me this message on WhatsApp (quoting verbatim): "Hi, I received this package, was it you?"
Obviously, I didn't answer such a stupid question. The next day, not satisfied, he wrote to me again: "Did I forget these clothes in the dirty laundry basket? I don't understand why my name is written on the package"
Another nonsense provocation to which I did not respond, given that it was obvious I had put his name on it only so the doorman could deliver it to him.
In the meantime, I am trying to move on with my life. Lately, I have been hanging out with a girl whom we had befriended when my ex and I were still together: she is helping me go out, enjoy evenings, and meet new people. Recently, we posted some stories together: in one in particular, we were at a party with a lot of people, I was all dressed up, in short, the classic "singles' night out" kind of evening.
At that point, he had a reaction. I believe the combination of my silence regarding the package messages and seeing those stories made him lose control. The next day, he contacted this friend of mine on Instagram and, using an excuse, asked her to go to an event together, blatantly hitting on her via message.
Fortunately, this girl reported everything to me immediately, dismissed him by refusing to go out with him, and considered his behavior absolutely petty. Discussing it with my psychologist, the interpretation was crystal clear: he manipulated this poor girl just to get the message across to me, to hurt me, shake me up, and provoke a reaction that would allow him to regain control over me.
The reaction did happen, but only inside me: I never reached out to him, I didn't call him, and I didn't write to him.
The saddest part, which devastates me given my values and moral ethics, is coming to terms with the fact that he did all this solely to hurt me and out of ego, not to restore things between us or to salvage the relationship. The harsh truth I am facing now is that after 3 years of a relationship, he no longer cares about the respect that was once there, but only about dominating and not losing control.
How do you come to terms with the fact that a person with whom you shared years of your life would resort to such low games just to gain control and have no qualms about hurting you?