Dear Hella:

A little summary of what you shared and then my input:

You had an on-and-off relationship with a man for a couple of years, officially a couple for about three months, a rollercoaster experience. He is now in a relationship with a girlfriend he had before he met you and perhaps at times during the on-and-off relationship with you. The two of you have been two people in a group of friends in the last five years.

My input/ understanding: your anger at him is about him pretending that what you know happened- didn’t happen, or didn’t happen the way you know it happened. And so, what you know is true is being compromised by him and within the group of friends.

The truth is that  you and him “shared intimate emotions and super intense sexual chemistry.. for years”. When he expresses his narrative that negates the truth quoted, he is negating you, being “extremely condescending to (you)”.

Basically, you are alone with what you know was true, having received “no clear explanation or even empathy” from him, and to top this lack, what you did receive and you keep receiving within the context of the friend group is a false narrative, a pretense, a denial, a made-up, convenient-to-him story.

And he has been successful in making this story believable to the others in the group, except for you, which leads to you being alone, outside the group, denied by all, “blurred out and disappeared into the ether”.

“I can’t stand to  pretend to agree with the false narrative HE has created about us… I just want to scream my truth about what happened”.

“he acts like everything’s just fine and that I should just move on. This is something he always did in our relationship and still does… making me feel like what I am going through isn’t important”.

My suggestions: your involvement with him and with the group of friends cannot or shouldn’t continue as is and as it has been for so long. If he is a dominant person in the group, and reads to me that he  is, a trend setter of sorts, his narrative being his trend, and you have been a passive person in the group, the others seeing him as more valuable to the group than you are, then I see no other solution but to exit the group altogether.

The price you have been paying to be part of the group, to not be alone, is too high.

You can choose to “scream (your) truth” to  him and to the rest of the people in the group, this is up to you. It is a good  idea if it will help you feel better and if you are willing to accept the likely possibility that his narrative will come up  on top because of his position in the group.

Your thoughts/ feelings?

anita