Sorry for the typo. The researcher is John Gottman

Thank you. I am going to therapy next week after a long break. I've vented a lot of feelings to a friend to ease the burden in the meantime. I ideally want to separate as diplomatically and kindly as possible. I would never want her to feel she's in the wrong for needing different things.

I appreciate your words. Going to look into John Gottamn - books are usually very helpful for me.

I did make a mistake by not setting boundaries. It's hard to look back at the beginning of our relationship and see how fulfilled I was then vs now where there is no physical love. I thought it was the honeymoon period wearing off but I guess it was deeper.

I have been in therapy off and on over the years, and yes it's time to go back. I'm already seeing my therapist next week and you've given me food for thought.

Hi friend. Judging whether your actions are right or wrong isn't something I can objectively do, but I can say this: You and your partner have different needs that you two seemingly were unable to reconcile. Neither of you should feel burdened over this if you believe that you made considerable efforts to reach out to the other.

If you still feel unease over how the relationship ended, please consider finding a therapist who can help you to unpack your feelings and orient you towards recovery.

TL;DR: You dodged a bullet. That relationship was doomed from day one.

I could write you a wall of text, but you'd still need source material. John Gottamn Gottman is the relationship researcher/author you want. Your needs weren't being met, were never going to be met, but you persisted. That is on you for not understanding and subsequently communicating your boundaries. Get some therapy yourself or you may repeat these mistakes.

She has zero intent of ever meeting you halfway, and now she is playing the "I had no idea" game. To be that far out of tune with one's partner... That's less than a roommate. Get out ASAFP.

Edit to add: no, it's not superficial. Intimate relationships balance on three pillars: sexual, intellectual, and emotional intimacy. Intimacy here can be synonymous with compatibility. Knock any one of those out, and the relationship becomes precarious. It is absolutely the kinder act to euthanize that relationship. It sounds harsh, but most people need to get dropped on their ass to realize they need to seek professional help.

Im really not sure why people are thinking I want to control my ex's actions? She can do what she wants to do. I don't want to control my friends either. Our current plan involves not introducing people, maybe that is rude but it's not affecting people's autonomy. She can talk to who she wants, my friends can do what they want, and my partner and I can chose to have a life detached from her all at the same time.

Idk people seem very chill with an ex of 3 years deciding to divulge to someone who they know to be our close friend but are total strangers otherwise our relationship drama from 3 years ago.

I'm of the mind that this is a vindictive transgression, but I'm not interested in finding out if it turns to something more. Why can't I choose to protect myself from someone that is A. Doing things that upset me and my partner and B. Not a person who I owe anything to?

Sorry not to be rude, is this a bot message? Based on the icon I'm a bit confused.

There a couple upvotes so I'll add: The suggestion that I thought was good advice is actually very different from the original plan, which involved not speaking to him at all. The suggestion I got was to tell him what's happened and how it affects me and my partner, if my friend (24M) doesn't chose to help mitigate it, that's all I can do?

I think that you're right in that there is a point of disagreement, and some people are very focused on my Ex. But more that I didn't know what to suggest otherwise for a plan, not that I think my partners feelings are unjustified. I don't have any messages to paste about it, we talk face to face about things like this.

There is really nothing you can do and you really shouldn't do anything. Your Ex has every right to tell her own story and her relationship with you. Even if it's one sided and all lies. She is entitled to talk about her own experience. You can't stop that and you can't stop your friends or anyone else from listening.

If you try to control this you will seem crazy (because you will be acting a little crazy). Just be a bigger man and tell your story. If your ex is lying all around town people will see that and take your side. Just let it be.

Sorry this is causing you so much stress, and I hope all this venting is helping...

You can control who you choose to spend time with. You can also learn to control how you feel about people/opinions that you don't care about. That parts harder.

You can't control your friends. You can't control your partner. You can ask your friend to stop spending time with your ex.

After that, it's on you and your partner how you move forward regardless of the friends answer.

If you need to vent, that's great, writing can be a good outlet for that.

Honestly, he's a good friend and I think he would be open to doing that. Thanks a bunch for giving more detail, that's really good advice.

Our problem is that my Ex is involving herself in our life when she is not wanted and it is done in a way that feels adversarial, and doing this after 3 years it concerns us that this may happen again. Maybe we are being anxious, but I can't imagine anyone thinking it's okay for someone's ex to go out of their way to talk to your friend, who is a stranger to them, like this. We don't want to have to deal with this as a regular occurrence.

Of course the things she said are things I don't want my friends to hear. Some of it is embarassing, some of it is straight lies and some of it is personal. The lies are easy, but I don't want to be discussing the fine details of an ex relationship with my friends. If you can handle an old relationship always being brung up, having to discuss it in detail with friends and give me side to an already been and gone story is something your fine doing were just built different. I don't want to be thinking about this in 2-3-5-10 years, and what if my partner is right and she does something worse? Why take the risk?

From my partners perspective, some random person, who had a relationship with me is A. Trying to involve herself in my life and B. Trying to cause drama with her friends. She finds the behaviour unpredictable, and a breach of her personal life by a stranger.

The question solely surrounds my friend (24M), we have a solution but it will affect how I can socialise with my friend. I respect that he is friends with my ex still and it hadnt affected our relationship up until now. I'm just kind of sad, because there was no problem between me and (24M).

Edit: I’m still in two minds, wouldn’t it be controlling to tell him not to invite people to events with her? I don’t really believe in: “they’re my friend first so therefore you have to follow my rules”.

I'm not saying to make it an ultimatum or anything close to that, just let him know the details of what happened so he can be aware that it could happen again and how that makes you feel. Hopefully that'll make him mitigate the problem in the future, either by playing interference between your ex and your friends when they're nearby, by making sure your friends can handle the minor drama before putting them in a situation like that, or by not putting your friends in a position like that at all if it's too much to handle. His actions are his own, but you're also allowed to set boundaries.

The fact that you posted about it means either:

A) She's not lying about your past, and you're ashamed of it B) Her stories are lies and they are effecting your reputation with your friends C) A bit of both

If it was basic couples stuff then it would be a non-issue to you and your friends, you wouldn't be posting about it.

All I can say is, you've already talked to your partner about it. Your mutual friend doesn't believe it. You can ask your friends to stop hanging out with your ex. If my ex was telling mutual friends lies about me, I would.

Or you can ignore it. The people you care about are the only opinions that matter.... As long as it's not impacting your career or causing law issues, then what's the actual problem?

We did and are happy that the friend said it sounded nothing like me, and of course she didn't know this person so it didn't make sense to take her word for it.

My main priority is my partner, so I'll talk to her more about me talking to (24M). He is a longtime friend, so I would never stop talking to him of course, but it does feel unfair if I were to exclude him from new friends I make. Perhaps this is a boundary I can make with him.

Edit: I'm still in two minds, wouldn't it be controlling to tell him not to invite people to events with her? I don't really believe in: "they're my friend first so therefore you have to follow my rules".

Thanks for the reply! This isnt so much affecting my relationship with my partner because I don't want to explain things to my partner, what she heard from her friend didn't lead to any further questions about this ex relationship because I had already talked to her about it. My partner and myself feel uncomfortable that my ex has said these things to her close friend. The only thing my Ex could know about this friend is that she knows me and my partner before telling her these things. I'm not entirely convinced that she is out to get me like my partner is, but I'm definitely uncomfortable and don't have the energy or time to deal with this again. I've moved on with my life and my partner wants nothing to do with my ex in the first place

The hard part seems to be that both of your friends (24M and 29F) seem reasonably blameless in this scenario so there's nothing you can really do to prevent this in the future. I hope you or your partner (or both) had a good conversation with her best friend (29F) about what she was told by your ex and got enough of the other side of the story to come to her own (reasonable) conclusions.

The only serious advice I have is basically just do what you don't want to do. Sometimes hard things have to be done, and discussing what happened between (29F) and your ex to your friend (24M) who invited (29F) would be good to make (24M) understand that your ex can't be trusted around your friends. It's also a fairer than isolating (24M) from the rest of your friends.

If you talked about it together with your current partner and this doesn't affect negatively your relationship, why care ? You can stay friends with the common friend and ignore gossips from your ex.

You should feel comfortable discussing with your current partner about what was reported in gossips, clarify and give your side of the story. If you are put in a bad light because of things you've done that are true or partially true, it's also good to be able to show how you've learn and grown since then.

Do you guys think she may comeback?

Probably not.

Does this happen?

All the time

I really can’t live without her.

You can and you will.

I never felt alive and happy before her nor after.

Yeah you will. This is only a moment in time. It too, like all others, will pass.

Don't be sad because a good relationship ended, be happy a bad one did. As happy as you were with them, you'll be happier with the next person. Take some time to evaluate what went wrong. The path to a better relationship is a better self.

Glad that you met her there . But also darn, I think bumble has added age verification thst requires your face to get through so I wont be using them any time soon.

Was years ago on Bumble—think they screwed that one up a bit ago but it used to be alright

I can't help but think that if you were better with relationships, you wouldn't be having this problem.

ya whem I matched then went on one date with someone on a dating site I wiped my fetlife account cause... why keep it at that point? That person promised to be exclusive to me . SO ill stay exclusive to them.

Welp they ghosted me . so I just remade my account after that lol. It wasnt as detailed before nut it was good enough.