Betrayed leaving me lost

This is my first forum post ever. I am somewhat desperate and am hoping to hear advice and maybe similar experiences to help me cope. A somewhat short back story is I have been divorced for 5 years. It was a very mentally abusive and controlling relationship. Once it turned physical is when I found the courage to escape. A short time after my divorce I met a man that I instantly fell in love with. I thought my rest of my life would be spent with him. Well the fast and furious desire in the relationship started to dwindle on his end after being deployed in the air force. When he returned from his deployment he started acting distant. I was clinging on to any ounce of hope I had left. We dated on and off for four years. Just a year ago we agreed well more like I complied to his wish that we no longer speak or see each other. I had a best friend at the time that was there through it all. Who saw my pain and tears when our relationship was ending. Who knew every little detail about our relationship. Who tried to cheer me up. The break up was a year ago last month. My so called best friend started acting weird and stand offish and distant. I found out a couple hours ago she has been dating my ex for four months now. She posted a picture on social media hash tagging things like #datenight and #heisthebest. You might be wondering how I wouldn't know for four months. But i was cut off completely from his life and my friend well we have had a rough year on both ends and haven't been available to each other. This isn't the first time she has hurt me. But it is the first time I have felt so lost. I'm not asking for advice to help mend my friendship, that is long gone. I'm asking for help with how I cope with this. I feel like throwing up. I cant sleep. I cant stop my thoughts. The disgust I have right now is beyond words. How could they do this? They supposedly hated each other from day one. Now I'm sitting here crying because they are apparently in love. I know i might not have described everything perfectly but hopefully you get the gist. Someone, anyone please I'm begging for advice. I am broken.

Hi 3ROKEN, and welcome to the world of 'disembodied brains floating in jars'. ;-) 1. "A short time after my divorce I met a man that I instantly fell in love with." You were still attached, emotionally (underneath all the crap, I mean) to the ex so you just transferred this attachment to this new man. Like attracts Like, so I imagine he matched you situationally? Think of it like a TV soap opera, starring you and husband. Husband gets fired and a new co-star seamlessly takes his place in the storyline (despite some details differ). Your prior relationship thus continues (without the abuse part). Now you can see why (because it takes two) the relationship was so fast and furious and already full-on. 2. A drastic change in total situation helped him detach and recover from his own immediate past OR he met someone else to take your place in said soap opera, transferred his affections to her and THEN started to realise he'd made a mistake in having tried to immediately forge a relationship with anyone, and should dump you AND the replacement and be free and single. But the trouble with free and single is - no sex-on-tap. So he stayed with you for that reason alone - hence (I'm betting, whenever he wasn't performing adequately and you complained) it became on and off (him having the say-so each time). And then, finally, he committed fully to the idea of going it alone. 3. When you divorce - as provides enlightment and growth - you find out who your true friends are...and who doesn't merit the term 'friend' but more acquaintance-competitor/parasite/pupil. This friend is a competitor and parasite who wanted what you had, got close to you to get all of the inside gen in order to know the angle of approach to take with him and how to contact him, etc. Once she'd managed to bag him, you were then surplus to requirements. But she didn't want to expose herself and her gameplan, so she tried to just phase you out...sneak quietly out the back door with your ex. Alternatively, she could be the needy type whom, not getting enough attention from you despite she'd been having a rough year (- you were meant to be there for HER, see, not the other way around), decided to switch best friends. This would mean she's paying him with a currency called sexual relationship whilst underneath it all, just wanting a friend. The contract is a false one, so it won't last, I can guarantee you that. Here's the analogy: because of all you've been through and the intelligent person you are, you've gained in maturity and wisdom. You moved up a step on the echelons staircase (let's call it step 5) but were still trying to associate with those on the step below, Step 4, believing that these people would climb the self-improvements staircase with you and thus were bound to catch up. NOPE. They don't see what they did as heinous because Step 4 people can't. That's why they're still on Step 4. Step 5 is actually a LANDING, a waiting area between Step 4 and Step 6. Six is where new things start to happen to you - meet new friends, meet your REAL Mr Right, etc. You won't be able to complete your move to Step 6 if you're looking backwards/downwards. It only happens when you turn your back and look forwards/up. Do that and I guarantee you that pretty soon (when, not if), you'll end up in the midst of Step 6 people, places and things. And when that happens, you'll realise these people are beneath you. You'll pity them, and congratulate yourself in recognition of your being meant for greater things, including the greater happiness and fulfilment they bring. You could also see it as the school year system: you've gone up to the next year but they've been held back to repeat year 4. Because they're thickies. Basically. Probably could be savvies, like you, but the difference betwee someone like you and people like them is, their issues get the better of them as dumbs down their intelligence and intelligence potential thus moving up capability/suitability. Stairway to Heaven. Onwards and upwards! :-) Does that help?

Thank you SOULMATE! You really put things into perspective. I have had other friends trying to tell me similar things but the way you worded it, it finally clicked. It makes sense. I find comfort in that. But right now I need to mourn and this hurts a lot. Maybe because I have two betrayals? Maybe because I lumped all my hearbreak together? All I know is im devestated. Im lost. I feel like i taught her how to date him. Do you have any advice on how to start over? How to cope with the pain? How to work on trust? I am way too trusting of people which can be good but in my experience is a major fault of mine. I've recently lost all trust in everyone. I have had so many people lose my trust that I now think of it as something inevitable. That given enough time everyone will disappoint you. I'm not expecting it to be today or tomorrow or next week or next month, but it will go away right? The pain I mean. I feel like i was finally at a point that I was making peace with him being gone, and now I'm back to square one. Not that I want to be with him or be her friend. But im back to the start of the grieving process. I've had multiple deaths to our relationship and it's as I'm standing at the funeral all over again. I want to find MR. Right. But im afraid I will attach too much of what Mr Wrongs have done to any new guy I meet.

I definitely feel doubly betrayed. The first time she met him, he thought she was as dumb as rocks. And she saw what I went through and would try to help me through things. She said that she didn't like him at all and would eventually try to convince me I need to move on and get away. Looking back that makes a lot of sense with what SOULMATE was saying. I'm not positive there was much of a break between us. I would bet they were having sex a lot closer to our breakup and just made it official 4 months ago. It hurts a lot. I'm slowly piecing things together and it's just making me sick to my stomach. I just need to find something worth celebrating for. This news is literally hours old to me and the process going on in my brain is hard to keep up with. I appreciate your insight!

Damn right you have two betrayals. When you're genuinely someone's good friend, you do not date their ex, especially if you know the relationship and the break-up hit them hard and left them bruised. Ever. For starters, you sense you're a bird of their same feather, meaning, if the man they dated didn't appreciate them or, worse, treated them badly, then, neither are they any friend of yours, let alone someone you should try dating and making it work with. Sorry, but she must have known she wasn't of your feather and, further, found the ins and outs of how he behaved towards you in that relationship actually appealed and suited her (the challenge plus kidding herself she could prove herself better/more desirable than you, probably). So they truly deserve each other. Imagine trying to have a relationship with a snake and backstabber like her and expecting to end up happy! And same for him! Two perpetrators together with no option for loving (because that takes being teammates), just outdoing each other as to who can get the upper hand. Rather them than you, eh. Even leaving that aside, what kind of basis for a relationship is it, you and a man having become united through both having taken a sh*t from a very great height onto the head of someone they were each supposed to care about (him, in memoriam)? He'll probably cheat on her, whilst she'll probably try to get it on with one of his friends. I mean, think about it: what makes YOU so special? Trust me, it was nothing personal. This is how those types behave. They're not happy people because they're worshipping false life philosophies whilst shunning things like morals, a sense of responsibility and altruism. So that's what's in store for them until they learn to be decent human beings who accordingly seek out likewise decent types to associate closely with. As for how you get over it, try this: Imagine you've been banged up for a couple of months (2 minimum, 4 maximum) in an invisible emotional prison (psychological version). You committed an emotional crime (this case, towards yourself: having failed to take better time, care and attention over better ensuring your emotional long-term protection). If you do your time acceptingly, no struggling or whining about the sentance being unfair, and keep your nose clean, thereby showing your unseen wardens that you aim to embrace rehabilitation upon release by working that much harder at using all your faculties towards making your life a more emotionally safe and smooth-running one, you'll get given early parole (which might be instant full-blown or via daily increases in freedoms and time to enjoy yourself). As far as prisons go, yours is a pretty cushy because it's an open one (due to the fact your crime wasn't that serious). So you can still go to work every day, eat when you like, sleep when you like, watch telly, go to the shops.. enjoy almost normal freedom of movement, etc. But it's just that you meanwhile have to carry around with you, almost everywhere you go, a sack of quite heavy rocks (in your heart), which at any given time is anywhere between uncomfortably cumbersome and decidedly naggingly, achingly painful to the point of making you cry. Happily, you get to put them down for however-long periods each day. But warning: don't ever try to wriggle out of picking them up again when signalled to or you'll get penalised with EXTRA rocks added to your pile and/or your sentance lengthened. With every week that you behave, including willingly carrying around your load, a rock or two will get removed, meaning the load will get lighter and lighter until only a few stones remain. Those ones won't hurt but they will in future occasionally hit a nerve and make you wince (usually when someone unbalances you or you experience a wobble and believe they have). Those are just to remind you to never disrespect yourself like that again in terms of jumping too soon into a relationship before having allowed fuller healing and not having spent enough time judging and assessing whether the suitor was actually worthy of you (which is why you were given an earlier caution in the form of him merely being a Rebound job). Sense? Although you can't see it yet, those two actually did you a favour, you know: they took one another off your hands. They each get a slimy snake as a partner whereas you're headed for your REAL next relationship with a diamond. And he'll be so good both as a lover and a friend that he'll make them BOTH look like sh*t - increasingly. And then you'll raise a glass to them in abject gratitude. All of this is inevitable because although YOU'RE unique, the psychological path to recovery that you've been walking along is a standard path that everyone (i.e. those who can learn lessons from their experiences) gets to tread. All I've just done is hand you a very rough map. Believe me about this: your pending Mr Right? You won't even HAVE to trust him. You'll just know you can and it'll come automatically. Because it'll dawn on you instantly and increasingly as you get to know him, that he's you with a dangley (and you him with t*ts). Ninety-five percent of the time it'll feel like trusting YOURSELF. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Fear simply won't feature, no worries.