Scarleteen

So, i broke with my gf, like a month ago. then we went back together and then she broke up with me 18 days later. it was also very random, like we went on a date but i was a bit late and we had a little fight about it, then she told me that it’s better for me to leave and after a few hours she told me that “i take too much space in her life (i asked her to not cancel out dates and see each other once-twice a week like we used to btw) i need too much of her attention, and i’m also insecure and i want people to pity me.” okay we broke up.
recently she started reaching out to me randomly. like begging me to block her on tiktok so she can’t see my reposts, asking me if i were putting magic spells on her because she can’t believe that she was so sad after our break up. she also told me that she’s going in therapy because she realized that she is avoiding intimacy and connection with people, and that was the core reason of our break up, not my minor insecurities. These texts were giving me a false hope on our future so i blocked her. we talked it out again (she reached out via calling me) and she told me that she’ll stop and that she didn’t text me to get back together.
okay cool, out of sight, out of mind.
here’s the thing though, we have the same friend group. after we broke up i stopped going on hangouts, choosing to spend time with just my bf and her gf (they’re also in this group btw).

and it upsets me, the fact that they all hang out together, have their own jokes already, while i’m choosing isolation for the sake of my sanity and future-moving-forward-from-a-breakup. they still invite me but i don’t want to go if my ex is there, and she’s ALWAYS there. i know it won’t do me any good if i see her. but i’m still upset that i lost all this group. i’m also upset because my ex prioritized THEM over our relationship, even though everyone knows that as soon as another couple in the group breaks up this whole group is prone to death, cause no one except me and my ex will be okay with their friends hanging out with their exes. i don’t know what to do and how to solve this thing.
one of the guys also invited me to his birthday and i don’t want to go there bc my ex is there. (i also didn’t want to go because we’re not so close and i know that he’s been judging me when we were in relationship with my ex) i don’t know what to do. sometimes i wish my friend also didn’t talk to her but i can’t force her, it’s not my choice.

Hey PomPom, sorry to hear that this has been troubling you it sounds like your hangout spaces has been rather limited now that you've broken up with your ex. I hear your frustration, especially if you find your other friends good company, but they continue to associate with your ex. You're allowed to be upset over this. You're allowed to wish that your other friends were able to see how badly the relationship between the two of you went, and provide you moral support. And of course, you don't have to go to this one guy's birthday if you don't feel like it.

Speaking of the people in your shared friend group, are any of them aware that the two of you have broken up? How did they react to the news? I know that they've been involved in some way or another, based on the conversations we've had in the past year.

they know, now they don’t try to get too involved in this, so i don’t know most of their opinions. as far as i know a lot of them aren’t surprised and share my opinion that my ex’s messages are weird and that i was right for blocking her.
i don’t talk about it a lot, my friends aren’t interested in all this drama that much and most of our talks doesn’t help me. they think i’ve done everything i could though and it’s not my fault that she broke up with me.

i know i’m allowed to be angry and upset but it doesn’t help much. i’m afraid that if i stop hanging out soon they’ll stop inviting me and i’ll be alone all summer. i also don’t know if i should or shouldn’t go to this guy’s birthday, because he’s also been nice and maybe i’ll enjoy it a little bit, and i’m also afraid to refuse him. i feel like if i refuse him now, explaining it with my ex’s being there i’ll have to turn off all of the birthdays that follow.

Hi PomPom!

First of all, this sounds like a pretty isolating experience! I am really sorry to hear that the break up has bled into how you engage with your friends.

As far as attending the birthday party goes, I do not think that rejecting the invite automatically means you will not receive future invitations. You could say directly something like "I think I still need a few more weeks before I feel like comfortable interacting with my ex". That way the reason is clear but there is a timeline on how long it lasts.

If you do decide to go to the party and use it to test the waters of being around your ex, I would come up with some guidelines for yourself about how to interact. Some ideas could be 1) we won't talk about the breakup/relationship, 2) I want to at least ask how they are doing, 3) if we end up alone, I can break the tension by saying "I don't want to make this awkward. I'm happy we can both be here for our friend."

When it comes to the friend group as a whole, are there one or two people you could confide in about the discomfort you've been feeling? Could you ask a few people to hang out without everyone there? I think it's understandable that you and your ex would want some distance without sacrificing your friends. Is there a reason you have not been direct with your friends about your discomfort? Are there other friends or family that you could hang out with while you recover from the break up?