Hey Sasha -
BACKSTORY:
2008 - Date "Ed" fall madly in love. I am 21, he is 28.

2009 - Move home Mom has cancer (she beat it a year later!). Leave job/internship,feel awful and isolated. Ed cheats on me majorly. Meet "Jean". She's 29 and just moved to the state for her new husband who owns a large company (travels a lot) and feels really alone knowing no one. She and I become best friends. We are super immeshed and do everything together. Jean helps me get over Ed.

She talks her husband into bringing me along for his trips so she has stuff to do during the day. I was completely broke and living an amazing lifestyle (private jets, beach homes, yachts etc). I was practically a kept best-friend. She becomes my family (I am an only child). We spent holidays together and went to all of each others family events. I felt so blessed to have her friendship and experience such nice things.)

I meet "Rob" (awesome guy - still dating him today, side note Rob found all of this weird but was supportive of me). Ed and I talk occasionally but as friends, he and I become really good friends again. Jean and I start a business.

2010 - Jean and I have a business that is 50/50 legally ours.  Time passes, we make gorgeous things, get a lot of buzz, but make essentially no money. I no longer want her to pay for anything, and start to set more boundaries in our friendship.

2011 - She starts being inappropriate with clients and sleeping with one. She starts giving away our products without my sign off. Things become a mess, we are fighting all the time. We start seeing a therapist to work out business/friendship issues. Turns out she has Borderline Personality Disorder, and I am having anxiety attacks and super depressed.

April 2012 - She starts sleeping with another client. I pull the plug. I tell her I want to save our friendship and ditch the business. That although I don't like her behavior I do love her like my sister.  She says she'd rather have the business. I find a job immediately.

One week later she decides to divorce her husband. Moves away.

May 2012 - she sues me (first week of new job), and is BRUTAL about it. I continue with therapy.

Ed offers to represent me for free, he's a partner in a law firm now and says he owes me for how he treated me previously. The suit goes on for months. I mourn Jean all summer, especially to Ed. He tells me how crazy she seems and he helps me get over her. Ed and I become close again. Rob and I have a rough summer/fall.

September 2012 - I still don't have great boundaries with Ed, looking back I know I emotionally cheated. Ed talks me into settling in I don't want to, but I trust him. Ed's dating a bunch of different girls tells. Jean and I talk. Its strained but she's crying and says she wants to be friends. I say I hoped we could be one day, but needed time.

August 2012 - Ed makes a very sexual statement towards me. I tell him I'm done talking to him. I stick to it, but I miss him a ton, I relied on him a lot more than I realized for emotional support and friendship.

PROBLEM:
December 2013 - I find out Ed and Jean are dating/ They have been since June 2013. I talked to him 3 times a week the entire time and he never mentioned it. Kicker - they are expecting a child this month. I don't know who contacted who, but it was initiated before the settlement, he talked me into settling in a way that benefited her. I expected this from her, but not him.  I can't believe he literally lied to me for a year and a half. I feel so sad and betrayed, but I also feel like a moron. I know I made mistakes with both people so I am not completely a victim. I am also incredibly grossed out by the type of people they are.   I can't handle them being happy after causing me so much pain.

DILEMMA:
How do I move on?  (I feel lucky to be at a good place with Rob, who I love so much, and in a stable environment)

 

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Sh-t dude, I have emotional whiplash after reading all of that. Wow, okay, this majorly sucks nards but you know what sucks even more? The fact that you’ve had to piggyback this stress for such a long time. So my hope is that after reading my response you can - as Jigga says - get that “dirt off your shoulder.”

First off, there's no denying these two people have taken a large dump on your life, but the good news is that if you want to, you can free yourself from all of it. I think for a lot of us, when we get caught up in negative situations like this, we unknowingly become addicted to the emotions that come with it: pain, jealousy, loss, stress, anger etc. It gets to the point where all day, every day, we’re just bottom feeding on all the drama around us.  

S, that’s where you’re at right now; actually, it's where you’ve been for years, so it’s time to yank your head out of this f-cked up state of mind and come up for some goddamn air.  The only way to get out of this is to literally remove yourself from the equation, so if I were you I’d cut your losses and walk the f-ck away from both of them.

There's nothing here to save and nothing here you need to prove.  You've given them far too much control over your life and it’s time to take it back and concentrate on all the good that (thank god) you still have around you, Oh, like, you know, Rob, who seems like the rock in all of this. Seriously, don’t blow that. 

I’m going to leave you with something my mom sent to me not too long ago – it’s really helped me a gain a great deal of perspective with my own problems. If you can breeze through the minor cheesiness, then hopefully you can see the mental shift that you need to make.

A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full” question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: “How heavy is this glass of water?”

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, “The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralysed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn't change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

She continued, “The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralysed – incapable of doing anything.”

So S, in short, put the f-cking glass down. Thanks for writing and keep me posted on how you’re doing! xx