No worries. No, I would say we both integrated into it before we started dating. So by the look of it, it was an equal starting field, whereas now it’s absolutely not. He owns it.

I think what you’re feeling is normal and I can understand why you are feeling upset…. but the thing is… what you are going through now is the downside of the risk you take when you date someone who is already in your friend group…. and that’s not entirely your ex’s fault. You seem angry with him because he hasn’t reacted in a way that you feel that he should have reacted, but, in truth, he’s his own person with his own perceptions and he’s under no obligation to react any certain way. If he moved on fairly quickly or is acting differently than you thought he would, he likely just thinks differently about the whole situation than you do. Sometimes our expectations of people can mess with our feelings… we expect things we maybe shouldn’t or people surprise us in the way they react/respond and it makes us feel bad… and then our own perceptions of how things should be when we aren’t accepting things as just being how they are can make us feel angrier.

I think it might help you work through this if maybe if you reframe the situation in your mind to accept more of the responsibility for how you’re feeling rather than saying HE made you feel this way, because you are also part responsible for what is happening now for choosing to date within your friend group and you’re also responsible for how you perceive things (and usually it’s our own perceptions that play into our emotions)… so you might be really angry with yourself for putting yourself in this position in the first place. Right now, you two are broken up so he is under no obligation to make anything better for you or to remedy any domino effect you feel he’s created (especially since he might not feel the same). He is absolutely entitled to just go on living his life however he pleases… so in order for you to feel better, you’re likely going to have to take ownership of your feelings and accept things as they are. Accept that, although he may own the group right now, you could change your feelings on that if you maybe shift your focus off of what he is doing and instead focus on building your relationships with the people in the friend group without any focus at all on him, and that should hopefully lead to you naturally regaining equal footing with them… or you can find a new group entirely if you don’t feel that will work for you or it’s not something you want to do.

I want to add that I know it feels AWFUL when people don’t react in the way it seems they should or when it seems like you get the raw deal while they don’t seem to suffer at all. It’s enough to make anyone angry! And I’ve definitely been there, too. But there comes a point where, when you’re tired of being angry, just accepting that you can totally take control of how you feel by shifting how you perceive the situation, that nobody really owes you anything in terms of a reaction, no matter how close or connected you were in the past, and that’s okay… that sort of helps to release the anger.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Valora.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Valora.