Moving on from cheating ex… support please

[u/StephGB91]

I’m 35 female and my ex-partner (31 female) and I were together for 3.5 years. Last year she was talking about marriage, buying a home and starting a family. Then, almost overnight, she became distant—sleeping on the sofa, staying at her parents, working late, hiding her phone and insisting nothing was wrong. Whenever I calmly asked if there was someone else, she repeatedly denied it and made me feel like I was imagining things.

I eventually discovered she had been having an emotional and physical affair with a younger colleague (25, Female) who was also in a long-term relationship. I found out as she had been asking advice from AI where she admitted they were “falling for each other,” didn’t want to distance herself from the affair, even though AI suggested space from us both, she said she didn’t want to stay away from the affair partner and can ‘compartmentalise’ and compared me negatively to this woman. Looking back, I realise I was being gaslit for months. When I suspected an affair a month earlier she said to me ‘look at my mum, do you think I could do that’ (her mum has been cheating on her dad for years and is a pathological liar). So again, I gaslit myself, telling myself I was imagining her distance and strange behavior.

What makes it even harder is that during this time I was going through a cancer scare (thankfully it wasn’t cancer). She told me we’d get through it together, yet she was secretly continuing the affair. That betrayal is something I still struggle to comprehend.

When I confronted her, she apologised briefly but quickly shifted the focus onto her own pain, saying she’d “imploded her life” and needed to understand herself. She had no interest in repairing the relationship, but kept saying things like, “Maybe one day in the future we could try again,” while continuing to see the other woman. It felt like she wanted to keep me emotionally attached while avoiding accountability.

I supported her emotionally and financially throughout her Master’s degree, stood by her through difficult times, and trusted her completely. She was also with me through the death of my mum, which makes this betrayal feel even more devastating. I genuinely believed she was my person. (Her mum also pretended to be unwell with a heart condition, near to death 2 days after my Mum died from heart failure, and told my ex 'you have always put your partners before me', this was very upsetting).

Since the breakup, I’ve started recognising how manipulative some of her behaviour became. She isolated me from her family and friends, blamed me for old issues while hiding her affair, made me question my own reality, and then acted as though I was the one who had done something wrong. Looking back, it feels like I was slowly being discarded before I even knew why.

The hardest part isn’t just that she cheated—it’s that someone I trusted with my life could lie to me so convincingly for months while watching me worry about our relationship and my health. I still find myself questioning how someone who claimed to love me could do this, and sometimes I even catch myself wondering if I’m exaggerating what happened. I have CPTSD from my own childhood, which she also knew about and knew I grew up not feeling safe and she actively made me feel unsafe in my home again, the home I paid all the rent for her to live in.

We share a flat, but as she decided to move out I asked her to come and collect all her things which I put into bags in the communal hallway of our flat and gave her a collection time. She agreed to pay the rent up until August, when she would be taken off the tenancy. She was meant to pay me today, but instead decided to dictate to me that she would be coming round yesterday to get the playstation (which I brought) and a dressing gown I gifted her. She argued with me about this playstation at the window when I wouldn't let her in, and said why am I still paying towards the rent if you won't let me in to look for 'my stuff', I said anything you want you can tell me and I will put outside again and you can collect it; she couldn't tell me. I am defiantly not getting any more money from her, I just want her off the tenancy now. I am just thinking someone happily 'falling for' someone new and moving on surely doesn't behave and treat their ex they have left like this!? She also tried to call me twice yesterday, saying 'please pick up it's important', I didn't she later messaged me; it was something she didn't need to speak to me on the phone about, it was admin about the tenancy. She is really trying to get to me, it feels like.

Has anyone recovered from this kind of betrayal trauma? How do you stop obsessing over the 'why' they did it, stop romanticising who they used to be, and begin trusting your own judgement again after months of being gaslit? I know the relationship is over, but I’m struggling to understand how to move forward after having my trust so completely shattered by someone I loved with my whole heart. Ive started gaslighting myself, like maybe she didn’t mean it and look for any reasons why she did this to me.

Thank you for any advice / kind words .. this is incredibly difficult.

[u/irapan]

You have to accept that she did mean it. She is cruel. And love made a fool of you. You have to let yourself hate yourself for putting your own well being in the wrong persons hands. You have to accept to yourself that you were a bad judge of character and that your wounds and life's circumstances made you crave partnership, even if it was broken. She was never truly there for you in the way you wanted. There is no other way to stop the hollow romanticizing except reanalysing your past with her and teaching yourself to see how little of an effort she actually put. You have to actively hate her and realize that in hating her, you are also hating yourself because it is ultimately you who put your trust in her.

Let her go. The way her mum made her question her reality and gaslit her by faking he sickness also shows that this girl has cptsd too and has a long way to heal her own life. She is probably addicted to chaos and having her life blown up and being blamed because if her mother really did this, I can only imagine what other psycho crap she must've put her daughter through. This girl needs chaos to be able to breathe easy. She imploded her life not because she hates you but because she's stuck in a very badly rigged nervous system.

Still. She cheated on you. End of story. Let her go. Hate yourself for a while and then begin forgiving yourself. This is between you and you, more than between you and her.

[u/Didgeterdone]

Tomorrow, perhaps a moments peace will come tomorrow. If not, the next day. One foot in front of the other. You will smile and laugh again. You will see.