Did anyone else deal with their SO having an ex who was now a 'bestie'?
I did and it was super strange. My path crossed with this woman's for a while just as he and I were first starting to spend time together. She wanted very much to be my friend, and was advocating for me to date D. Heavily. I sort of think of her as his 'pimp' at this point,
. She'd also been close with another good friend of mine when we were in our 20s which is why I gave friendship a shot with her. In fact, she's always been around the periphery of my friend group, but I never really knew her. One of those deals. She ended up being a bit much for me. Lots of drama, infighting in her (separate) friend group and in my group of friends was always thought of as a bit 'wacky'. As an adult she plays this sort of 'mamma bear' role to people in her life-even though by her admission her relationships with her own children were rocky. I ended up letting things just sort of drift apart after while. My life is a lot quieter than all that.
I'll reference this ex as P henceforth. She told me how they'd met on a dating app (my ex just loves his dating apps,
. I think they're creepy). She told me how he brought me up constantly during their relationship...that I was 'the love of his life'. P told me how when they connected on the app, he told her he thought she was me for a moment when he swiped on her. We don't look alike. At all. We are both petite women with the same color eyes and hair (before I stopped coloring) that's where it ends. She had a habit of turning all of our convos to him at some point back then. Frankly, it started to make me a bit uneasy.
She told me a LOT of things about their relationship-things I personally feel should've remained private or should've been his to share with me when he was ready. Things I'd be furious about if an ex-friend-whatever shared with a potential new mate. Lots and lots of over sharing about so many things, I barely knew her! In fact-now that I'm typing this out-she seemed to have a lot of BPD traits, too. No dx that I'm aware of. Lots of neighborhood drama-in particular, I remember P's next door neighbor being a frenemy she often griped about. She did odd spiteful things to antagonize this neighbor-put things 'as decoration' in her yard the neighbor would find offensive, etc after the rift was formed. Why not just leave it alone? Lots of child and ex husband (she has 2 of each) drama. While P was with my ex, she had ANOTHER ex (and now bestie, yay! /s) of hers (who she described as the love or her life-or something similar) move into her home as a roommate. Then proceeded to tell me how D (my/her ex) would get incredibly jealous about it. Whaaaaat the F? We were people in our mid 40s at the time. I think most people would find that arrangement distasteful. No? She's attempted to insert herself into the life of every woman D has dated since her-about 3 of us. Now, (you can check out my other recent posts), he appears to be dating a good friend of hers-number 4. P doesn't have to insert with this one-she's already in pole position. Haha. I DO wonder what it'll do to P and her friend's relationship when everything implodes with D...as it most likely will. P's friend is recently divorced.
This woman has remained an integral part of my ex's life after their split as a 'good friend'. It's been about 7 yrs since they're split. P herself has been in a new relationship for about 3 years now which seems fairly serious from what I hear.
What I found really troubling was the total force she still seems to exert over my ex in this friendship role. 4.5 years ago, when D and I originally started dating, P was blathering on about how they were still good friends. He, at the time, said she was a pain. I asked why he remained friends with her and he cryptically replied that she 'knew too much'. Whatever the f THAT means.
It started to make me uncomfortable how much she still wanted to be a part of D's life. P hadn't started dating her current at this point-that wouldn't happen for another year. P wanted to FaceTime with D. Still go to events they went to together as a couple since 'they always did that'. Mind you, he'd dated another woman for a year after P, before me. This woman refused to accept P's social media friend requests from what P told me. It clearly vexed P.
I expressed my discomfort with these things. At first he told me he'd stop being her friend if I wanted that-I said no and that I would NEVER ask for something like that. Who he keeps in his life is his choice. It's something I need to gauge my own feelings about and decide if it works for me or not. I explained it made me a bit jealous and I'd like some boundaries set in said friendship, that I wanted a bit of time to think about how it made me feel. No ultimatums or anything like that. Not my style. He seemed very disconcerted but also, underneath it all, unwilling to really sever ties anyway.
He and I sort of split for a few weeks. My friendship w P, by my choice, dissolved around the same time.
D and I continued to date off and on for the next 4 yrs and he NEVER told her about me being in his life again. (I'm sure he's bashed the crap out of me to her in the past year tho!)
I asked and he, by turns, lied poorly or uncomfortably admitted it. I still wonder what that was all about. Over these next few years, P has become 'very important' to D. His own words. One of his best friends. One of his only friends, if we're being real. The last time we got back together-he refrained from speaking about her for the first couple months. I cautiously hoped their friendship had run its course....Then, one day, boom. The triangulation started and he was talking about P all the time. Mentioned they spoke on the phone almost daily. Come to think of it-as soon as D knew the friendship made me uneasy years back, he started to attempt triangulate with her. "P is so smart" "P this, P that". It hurt. But, I kept my cool-I expressed my discomfort without being mean in a validating way. I understood what it was. I'm not sure D even realized what he was doing on a conscious level. It almost seemed as though he was trying to make me jealous so I'd get super emotional and yell? That's not something I really do. Even if my feelings are big, I prefer to take some time to process, then discuss things calmly. I grew up in a home/family with a lot of yelling and it's not a way I live MY life. I find it stressful.
I will always give credit where credit is due; these things being said about P, I believe she does have his best interests at heart. However, I think P is enabling him on multiple levels. She IS quite intelligent, but also a bit unhinged herself. I think the enabling is happening as she's trying to be supportive, but isn't particularly healthy herself so the advice/commiseration is sort of unhealthy and a bit woo-woo. Like an echo chamber almost: I've seen how she thinks/reacts to things firsthand. I'll say this-D also has a neighbor (or 3) he antagonizes. One of them is/was even embroiled in a civil lawsuit re: properly lines and trees with D. Neighbor does seem like a jerk in this case. Lol
I also think D portrays his progression toward mental health as being/going better than it really is. He was...not well when I had to walk away last summer. He was on Paxil at the time, trazadone for the insomnia, drinking again and abusing gabapentin prescribed to one of his DOGS for it's anxiety. Also smoking copious amount of weed. He was wasted the last time we spoke just about a year ago. Had been up all night drinking and whatever-ing.
Even if he suddenly decided to take my advice and enroll in DBT or work a book himself, he's a 48 yr old man with deeply entrenched maladaptive coping mechanisms. A change as big as the one needed isn't going to take root in year. Especially not when he'd have to have dealt with getting sober again, first. Nope, I don't buy it.
Now D appears to be dating a good friend of hers. <~disclaimer: this may be conjecture on my part but my gut says it's a thing.
It all just seems so unhealthy, creepy and incestuous to me. Am I being uptight? If we were 20, maybe. It just seems like such a high school dynamic to still surround yourself with exes, having them as besties while dating your friends, as roomies, etc. It's not like we live in a tiny little town. We're in the 3rd largest metro area in our state! I wonder how P's current bf feels about these things? He doesn't seem to mind? Maybe I am just being uptight and insecure. Not that I'm NOT friendly with most of my exes. I just don't consider them besties or have them as roomies when I'm dating someone. I've def hung out with exes when we're both single-like 'wing man' style back when I still went out to bars more often. But, not a constant bff dynamic.
Does anyone else have any similar experiences with an ex still being a huge part of their pwBPD's life?
