Living together after a breakup (and she's already dating someone else, and maybe cheated)...

We were together seven years.

She'd been distant the entire year. She's gone through a lot (transition, family problems, general anxiety over COVID) that I just did what I could to support her. Finally, I realized that my worst fears have come true, she doesn't even care if I exist. I finally sat her down and asked her if she was willing to work on our relationship, and if she saw a future with me. She just kept saying she didn't know, and she needed to focus on herself more and didn't have room for me.

I felt gutted. I'd been going through so much trying to keep her sane and happy, never suspecting for a moment that she no longer saw us as a team. So, I called it off.

It's been almost two months - our lease is up in another couple months, and I need to save money to move out of state. It's still hard. We keep space apart, our rooms are separate, but we've been mostly cordial. We even still sometimes sit together and watch movies, and try to be friends.

We've fought a little since then, but mostly because she kept bragging about people who hit on her. I had to tell her on three different occasions that it wasn't appropriate to tell me things like that, I'm her ex-girlfriend, she needs to find someone else to talk to about that. She kept doubling down and insisting that it was good for her self esteem to revel in moments like that, and acted as if I was being strange and prudish.

She still constantly tells me, unprompted, that she loves me, and acts like she just needs to be alone. She even sometimes said that maybe we'll get back together some day.

I know we wont. Looking back now, I endured a lot of misery for her. She kept doing shady shit like pretending to be single on Instagram for attention and then claiming I misunderstood, or joining a dating app to "make friends" even when I told her it made me uncomfortable (later, she admitted, in a roundabout way, that she'd never mentioned me at all to these people). Even after we broke up, I found a love letter from a girl she'd met online stuffed into a bookcase. She was a very negative, manipulative person, and in a lot of ways I'm better off now, I know I made the right choice to walk away. She took me for granted, and even if she never "physically" cheated on me, she deliberately got as close as she could to still maintain plausible deniability. I wish I hadn't repeatedly assumed the best of her, and that she was misguided and suffering instead of selfish and cruel.

Yesterday, two different friends showed me that she'd posted pictures on Instagram (it's locked, and I don't use social media anyway) of herself kissing a girl.

I felt absolutely gutted. Even knowing now that I do that she'd been dishonest with me, I couldn't believe that she was so faraway removed from the person I used to love and trust. I had asked her to wait until I move away to find someone else, knowing it was a somewhat unfair and unreasonable request, and she'd been shocked, telling me that of course that wouldn't happen, she was focusing on herself, she still cared for me.

I let myself believe that even though she'd courted romantic attention in an inappropriate way in the past, she legitimately didn't want to date anyone, and was probably grieving in her own way beneath her cheerful demeanor.

I think I would care a million times less (and obviously probably not even know!) if she'd just kept it to herself. She's still so desperate for validation, she'll post about it to all our mutual friends and flaunt it. I'm not even confident that she wasn't dating this girl while we were still together.

It hurts to realize I can't even just see her as a friend. I've been in so much pain and suffered so much, and meanwhile, she lies to my face totally unprompted at every given chance.

I'm wracking my brain to figure out how to get far away from her without torpedoing my entire life in the process. We still co-own a car, my name is on our lease and hers isn't, and I'm trying to move across the country in two months. My life could be ruined if I act rash.

But good god, it's so hard to live with her. I don't recognize the person I fell in love with anymore. She's so fickle, shallow, and careless, she thinks about nothing besides her immediate validation and continues gladly to use me.

I know, logically, that she only has the power I give her. I'm trying so hard to think about her less, and no longer give her the ability to affect me or ruin my day.

It's so hard though. We've been together nearly a decade, I spent my thirties with her. I was so shy and insecure when we'd met. It still feels like a bad dream, this idea that I had this pure and supportive love for so long and suddenly discovered it to be a lie. She was as much a part of me as the air I breathed. I would have done anything for her. I did do anything for her.

I don't know if she's always been this way and I chose to see a better person, or if she's changed, but I guess it doesn't even matter, does it?

I just want to think about her less. I want to no longer care what she does, or that she's so thoroughly sabotaged what we had. I helped her have the strength and confidence to be who she is, to nurture her growth, to hold her through her worst spells, and she, in turn, has drained me dry and thrown me away without a thought.

I want to focus on the future I'm planning, not the past she's poisoned.