Reply to Ex-gf reached out w nasty message

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your ex's behavior is inappropriate and unhealthy but you are engaging in multiple behaviors that likely made it worse. It's fine to be unhappy with her for what she's doing, but you need to recognize what you are doing as well:

1) She sent you a nice message seeking to rekindle the relationship and you chose to ignore it. You needed to respond, state clearly and kindly that you were not interested in getting back together, and that you wished her well. This is what growtnups do.

2) At the point she sent you the mean message and it was clear she was stalking your new GF's socials, you should not only have blocked her on your socials but told your GF what happened and ask that she either not post photos of you or lock down any posts featuring you so they aren't public. Once your ex is in the habit of stalking her socials, every post of you will just feed it and the only way to break it is to give her nothing to see.

Again, the ex's behavior is totally wrong here, but this kind of thing happens. Many, many people have trouble dealing with rejection due to mental health issues. But bad social behavior (like ghosting and ignoring) combined with people being very public on their social media exacerbates this issue. You need to do what you can on your end to cool the situation off. You made this worse.[/quote]

He ABSOLUTELY did not need to respond to the "nice" message. What is wrong with you?[/quote]

Yes, he should have. [b]He needed to set the boundary. [/b]Silence doesn't communicate what people think it does. He thinks "oh I didn't respond, she will understand that means I have no interest." In reality, depending on her state of mind, she fills that silence with all kinds of things that might not be true. That was his opportunity to set the tone for their interactions by being polite and kind but also very clearly letting her know he wasn't interested in getting back together and was moving on.

It was cowardly not to just to respond that he is not interested but wishes her well. And if you care about someone enough to have an intimate relationship with them, you do actually have a moral obligation to at least acknowledge their existence in the future. You don't have to stay friends or entertain the idea that you'll get back together, but it's incredibly rude to simply act like they don't exist. And people in fragile emotional states tend to respond very poorly to ghosting.[/quote]
Not responding WAS the boundary.[/quote]

In general (not specific to this situation, which I think is complicated) I think being totally non-responsive is a weak way to set a boundary. I've done it, sometimes it's all you feel capable of, but I know from experience that it can be misinterpreted and create communication issues. Especially if the person you are dealing with is not thinking clearly. It's very easy for someone to tell themselves stories, convince themselves they are true, and then start taking action based on a fiction. Like for example, someone like this might convince themselves that the new GF is preventing OP from responding, that the new GF is controlling and cruel and that secretly OP wants to be free of her and return to his ex. Yes, a total fantasy. But also one facilitated by the silence.

Whereas if you just respond and state clearly that you aren't interested, she still might invent a narrative but it's harder because she isn't working with total silence.

Some people need to affirmatively be reminded of reality. Refusing to engage can feel safer in the short term because it avoids an awkward exchange, but in the long run if you can figure out how to communicate stuff like that firmly without engaging in drama, it's better.

I know not everyone feels capable of that though.[/quote]

NONE of what you said is OPs problem. He didn't owe her a response. Her reaction to his silence is completely on her. She needs to deal with it in therapy and stop expecting that the world will cater to her crazy, FFS.[/quote]

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