You’re right. I don’t have to be okay with it or give him permission. I guess ultimately, I want to just not care about it anymore. It’s only been three weeks since we split, and we were together off and on for three years. I know it’s going to take both of us time to get over our break, but I want to be over this man and not think about him every day anymore. I’d love to not care who he is with. Today is hard because even though on Thursday he told me that he is not going to act on his feelings with this “friend” of mine, he went backpacking with a group of friends that included her. So I’ve been thinking all day, what am I going to find out?

I don’t want to ruminate. I want the day to come that for the first time, I don’t think about him at all. Right now he’s in my head from the minute I wake up until I go to sleep. It’s aggravating.

Hi Anita, unfortunately we are both very active in an online hiking group (actually about 10 different groups I think) and we have over 100 mutual friends that we both see quite a bit of. Our social circle is pretty tight. Even though I have unfollowed him on social media, I still see things about him in the online groups. I’ve made an effort to limit my time on social media lately to avoid seeing much about him. I did defriend the girl involved in all this. She ended up quitting the online groups (she made the mistake of telling people about the situation with my ex and people gossiped of course – she embarrassed herself to the point that she quit the groups we were all part of), so I’m not faced with seeing much of her.

He and I do still communicate. I know it would be best to cut off all communication, but we both hesitate to do that. I feel like I’ve lost so many friends over the last few years that it hurts to think I’ll be losing my friendship with him.