Ask Anna: When an ex moves on and you don’t

Dear Anna,

I asked my ex-boyfriend to go on a break with me a little over a year ago. We didn’t get back together even though I wanted to. He said he had already moved on with his life and that he loved being single. Months later, after he had our mutual friend lie to me when I was suspicious, I found out through other channels that he was dating his best friend, a girl he knew before he met me, who caused a lot of insecurity in our long-distance relationship.

I confronted him about the rumors, and he was sobbing, saying to me they weren’t serious and he still thinks/dreams about me all the time. I think they started dating just nine months after we broke up. Despite that conversation, I see on social media they are getting more and more serious. I have, of course, blocked everyone, but it’s showing up on other friends’ accounts now. I just went on a muting spree and let go of everyone that could potentially post something about it. But I feel really left behind.

I am casually dating (with very high standards as I like to say, so not a ton of luck), making big career moves, strengthening my friendships, feeling better and better about my independence and my self-worth, but I still feel rage and sadness when I think about this. He was my best friend and we were together for years. How did he move on so fast? Was she always a backup plan? How would she feel if she found out the way he talked about her to me when I confronted him? Why can’t I let this go? — First Heartbreak

Dear FH,

Heartbreak is never easy. It’s not something we can fast-forward through or make hurt less, no matter how we might try.

Any way you slice it, it sucks to think of someone we loved loving someone else, even if we were the one instigating the “breaking,” as you did. In an ideal world, all of our exes would just walk into the sea the moment things ended and never be heard from again. But that’s not the reality, and it’s certainly not a reality with social media in our faces every waking moment. (P.S. Good on you for muting and blocking and retaining your sanity.)

It’s also too easy to tell ourselves a story about our exes once they no longer play a starring role in our lives. Stories like: If he moved on so easily, he must not have loved me that much. Or, maybe he was in love with his best friend the whole time we were together. Or, maybe I’m the fool for still being in pain, while he’s walking around carefree.

But “moving on” is rarely so simple and you’ll drive yourself batty if you entertain such notions.

In spite of heartbreak’s general suckitude, it’s also important to remember that such stories are simply that — stories — and often ones that aren’t remotely true. There’s no way you can know what your ex is thinking or feeling — though I will say his sobbing on the phone to you is a telling sign that he’s not, you know, feeling nothing. There’s no way to know if or when someone has “moved on,” as lots of people date and even end up in relationships when they’re not ready or in a good or healthy place to do so. People cope in all kinds of ways, and one of those ways is avoidance, hence we hop back on the apps and pretend we’re fine, hoping that sex or Taco Tuesday or even just having someone to text when lonely will cure the void we feel from the loss of our recent partner.

You’re not doing that. You’re doing the hard work, the crap work that pays less than minimum wage with no overtime and no benefits. You’re feeling your feelings, even when they’re terrible.

And at the end of the day, that’s what matters. You. Your life and choosing to live it every single day with intention, with all of the messy grief and sadness and left-behind feelings. Not only that, but you’re setting yourself up to thrive in the next relationship by doing the grunt work of allowing yourself to process, to move forward, then back, then forward again through the loss. Your ex? Not so much. At least not by the looks of it.

But I encourage you to pay him as little heed as possible. Because he doesn’t matter. You do. You’re casually dating, making big career moves, strengthening friendships and feeling better and better about your independence and self-worth. Those are not small things, FH!

And I wish I could offer you something other than “keep doing what you're doing!” but the slow slog of healing is not glamorous or whimsical or fun. You do it anyway because the alternative is to self-destruct or to believe you’re not worth caring about. And you do care about yourself. I can tell even from your short letter. So keep doing so. The reward is the future payoff that you can only know when you’re standing on top of the mountain. Until then, keep walking.