So sick of being lied to on a constant basis

I've been having a hard time the last few weeks and I'm finding it quite difficult to cope. I don't feel like I want to die, but I'm hurting so much all the time this last month that I just want something to make it stop hurting. I wish people would stop manipulating me, it makes me so upset and hopeless that I don't feel like it's worth putting the effort in to life at all. I don't know if this is something someone else who might be reading this might feel? I don't understand how regular people can move on and just get over stuff like this. I'm not managing well at all and I feel like I'm on the edge right now.

I've been quite close with an ex of mine, since about 2002, quite a long time, and she has never been in another relationship even though we were 'just friends', we'd still have sex about once a week on average. This week she met someone and now she told me that I'm her friend and she doesn't see me like that. I was like "what the fuck?", she proceeded to tell me that she doesn't want to have sex unless we were in a relationship. This was 1 week after sleeping with each other all the time, and now she wants to be friends. The connection we had was quite intimate too, I mean it wasn't just sex for me.

I would be more OK if she just told me "I'm with someone else so I don't need to be with u" - but what's the point of twisting it around to make it about me and stating that it's not fair on me to abuse our friendship? It was Fair for 8 YEARS, but now it's not fair 'on me'... what the fuck.

The reason that I've been with her and haven't gotten too involved with other people is because, before she met this person she's with now, she was telling me that she'd like to visit me and live together for a while 'next summer' or 'next winter' but whenever the season ended and she was supposed to come something would come up. Grandmother dies. Her friends invite her to Hawaii instead. She wants to do an extra term at uni during the break. I've been waiting all this time thinking she just can't get around to it but now that she disconnected from me after all that time and said "life's not fair, deal with it" I feel so pissed off at her. It's unimaginable.

I feel like the whole "I want to live together" thing was a lie to. If I ask her how come she is throwing our intimate connection out the window she said it's cos it's not fair to abuse the friendship, when I ask how come she doesn't come see me, she will write that something came up. I just feel that what she speaks when she speaks is all BS. I can't find a grain of truth and it makes me feel like I've wasted a good part of the life I've had so far waiting for her. Now I think, what if it was all fake?

But it just drives me insane how someone could be so fake. I've been with other women in the short term and if she called or was feeling alone I would not think twice, I would stop and drive to her right then to comfort her. I am feeling so sick thinking about her with someone else right now (she's with him while I'm writing this) and I called her telling her I'm not ok, I can't cope and can't handle this pain, I can't because I'm shaking and I just need her to be here but all she keeps telling me is "be a man, get over it, find someone to date" - after all that time I was there for her she finds someone and I'm not even a part of her life. Just like that, in 1 week.

I don't know how to handle something like this. I've just shut off, I think. I don't know what to do.

Hello Alex

I hear how hurt, angry, used and upset you are. I hear you are in pain right now. You say this relationship was 'just friends' but it sounds like that is not the case - it was much more than that. I wonder why it was called a just a 'friendship'? - friends don't have sex with each other. It was a sexual relationship and that is very different to a platonic friendship and i think that is where the problem lies. It feels like you are very attached? You are grieving for this woman who has treated you very badly because it's easy to do that if it was 'just a friendship' - that suggests no commitment - but sounds like you were very much committed? It sounds like you get attached and committed yet another part of you is afraid to make a commitment and that leads to difficulties with where the boundaries are?

I think it might be very useful to perhaps see a counsellor so you can have someone alongside you to work through your obvious pain and what it is that happens for you in relationships? Keep on talking here too of it helps.

Sky xx

Thanks for your comments. They are very insightful.

I had sex with her today (not fully, but just touching etc.) to prove a point that we had something more that she can't just replace. She said "I still want to be intimate with you but I can't now because of the relationship"

So I guess she did not lie as much as I thought she did, it's just a personal value she has of faithfulness. This is problematic for me in the sense that I don't put up definitions of how things should be, I just do what feels natural and right.

animus, I feel like my life is over right now because as I said I built my world around her for the last 7 years, and now she just moved on literally within a week.

The connection we had was really deep and special but now she won't talk to me at all, and it's really killing me.

I don't know what to do with my life now. She was my world. We had both just moved to another city (for separate reasons) and I have no friends, no family here, and the only thing that kept me going was our conversations every few evenings. When I look ahead in my life there is nothing there and all I can think about is her and how I'm losing her every minute she is with him.

Hi Alex,
I'm so sorry that things are so deeply painful.
It sounds absolutely gutting to be in the situation you're in and I can't begin to imagine the level of anger, distrust, rejection and hoplessness you feel right now.
Please know that you are not completly alone and that you are being listened to.
it sounds as though this girl was quite literally, almost everything to you and now things have changed you are feeling very lost... bereft...
Sky mentioned the idea of seeing a counsellor and I wondered if it is something you had considered / ever had before. It sounds as though you really need someone to work through some of this stuff with... It might be really halpful for you.

So I guess she did not lie as much as I thought she did, it's just a personal value she has of faithfulness. This is problematic for me in the sense that I don't put up definitions of how things should be, I just do what feels natural and right.

I hear that you don't like 'pinning things down' and you like to do what feel right... I understand this ( i really do), but I also think that leaves you open to a hideous amount of hurt. Not putting up definitons seems to be another way of saying that you don't really like putting boundaries in place... But boundaries are what helps to define a relationship and make expectations/commitments clear.
Without boundaries, people are more free to manipulate and upset you. If it wasn't called 'a relationship' then it is easier to walk away from it (for her).

I had sex with her today (not fully, but just touching etc.) to prove a point that we had something more that she can't just replace. She said "I still want to be intimate with you but I can't now because of the relationship"

It sounds as though she is also very confused about boundaries...

Please keep talking here if it helps Alex.
It sounds as though you really need some space and some time and some listening. You are experiencing a huge loss and you need some support.

KK