I am a 31-year-old lesbian & am currently going through the most difficult breakup I have ever had. My partner & I were together for 3.5 years. About 6 months ago I moved out due to some violence/anger issues my partner had. We stayed a couple and were hoping to get through all of this. We were actually supposed to move back in together this month.

However, two weeks ago the ball dropped & I found out that she had met someone the previous weekend and was starting a new relationship. She was not honest or forthcoming about this. I found out through social media. For about a week she contacted me every day saying how sorry she was & that she was confused and didn’t know what to do. She also sent me messages stating how the new girl wasn’t me and wasn’t doing things the way I did and it made her miss me. She even came and stayed with me one night. I told her that we could go to counseling if she wanted & try to salvage our relationship but then she would circle back to being confused. At no point was I contacting her first. I always left the ball in her court.

Last weekend I went and got the rest of my things from her home. When I got there she tried to hug me, hold my hand, & was even crying. All of this while having hickies on her from her new girlfriend. Since then I have only heard from her once and it wasn’t the same I-miss-you-I-love-you type of message.

All of this has consumed me. In my head I understand that our relationship had some very toxic points but I cannot get my heart to let go. We had signed domestic partnership paperwork and were planning on getting married this summer. (Her idea, not mine.) Then all of that was taken from me in one night! I don’t know if she is truly confused or was just trying not to be the bad guy. I love her desperately and do not know how or if I am capable of moving on. Should I give her time or just cut my losses?

Heartbroken Midwestern Lesbian

My response after the jump...

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Cut your losses? No, HML. No, no, no.

Thank your lucky stars.

You gotta recognize your ex-girlfriend's recent behavior—getting a new girlfriend, letting you find out about on social media, stringing you along while she was fucking the new girl—for what it is: more of the same violent/angry behavior that prompted you to move out in the first place. She may not have done physical violence to you on the way out, HML, but she sure as hell beat you up emotionally. And she did it so stealthily that you don't even realize what she's done. She even cried—real tears!—to make you think she was suffering too.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Everything she did to you over the last two weeks was—consciously (likely) or subconsciously (charitably)—was designed to punish you and make you suffer. And it sure sounds like it worked: you're miserable and unhappy and isn't that what she always wanted? Her anger and her violence made you unhappy when you were together, HML, and the game-playing, emotionally-abusive bullshit she pulled on you over the last two weeks have ensured that you're unhappy without her.

My advice: get angry yourself.

Stop telling yourself that your ex-girlfriend is a good person with problems who just needs help before she can stop making you miserable by accident—it wasn't her! it was her problems!—and start telling yourself that your ex-girlfriend is a manipulative, lying piece of shit who made you miserable on purpose. She'll probably make the girl she's dating now miserable and every other girl she ever dates in the future and she'll have a chance to make you miserable again too, HML, if you're foolish enough to get back together with her. Don't make that mistake.

Get angry, get over her, get on with your life. Go find someone who is worthy of your time, your love, and your attentions.