I'm in such a weird situation with respect to dating and my ex.
I casually started dating someone who then became a long term girlfriend. We moved across the country together for work and became very close over 3 and a half years. The problem is: her parents are super judgemental assholes and did not like me from the very start. Eventually this became too much to overcome, and we split up, despite all the feelings still being there.
In the following year, we would reach out to each other here and there, hooked up a few times, and even went on a trip together (used to be our thing). She would text me that she loved me, and various "hey I still am so thankful for you" type messages. She has since moved back to our home state, and I am about to do the same, and I had in the back of my mind an idea that maybe she'd tell her parents to fuck off since there was still clearly a connection there.
Over that time, I tried twice to convince her to give us another shot and that we could actually confront her parents since we never really did before (hoping they'd get over it), but she would always come back with "even though I have feelings for you when we're together, it's not that simple; my parents are 100% not interested in us and that's not changing though I wish it could" After each of these times, we'd end up seeing each other after time had passed and things would be normal. Even a recently as NYE, I invited her out and she was all over me, giving me mixed signals. Also we were just both recently in our friend's wedding and she acted like my wedding date the whole weekend. You can see how I'd keep holding on to hope.
Little did I know that in the time since NYE and the wedding, she had visited a friend in Texas, hit it off with that friend's husband's cousin, and then went on a trip with him on Valentine's Day weekend. This is someone who was all about doing what was "realistic" with respect to us and even took a long time for us to get to a point like that. According to that friend, she has no intent on anything serious with him and isn't thinking about moving or anything, which has pissed the friend off because she is messing with family now. When my ex tells me about this (excluding all the info about who the guy is and how quickly this all happened) she tries to paint it as "this was always going to hard when we started seeing other people, I understand how you feel, I couldn't keep things platonic when I'm with you and didn't know how to stop and still stay on good terms"
I basically told her I was beyond done having my emotions jerked around and peaced out. I feel very vulnerable because I was so miserable in the city we lived in, without her, and knew I was going to move back home so I didn't really try to meet other people. I think it's a completely different situation than us splitting up, not talking, and her eventually finding a legit relationship. She's been living with her parents since she moved back 6 months ago, and seems to be trading me for another person she can use to feel good since she doesn't know what she wants in life. It just hurts so much to think of her with anyone else given how intensely in love we were for so long and how she basically used me for a year.
Looking back, I maybe thought the relationship was something that it wasn't, and despite her and everyone telling me I couldn't have done anything differently to save it, it still feels like a failure and rejection of me. I'm now turning 33 this summer, am going to be living in the same area as her, and I guess I'll start looking into local activities to meet people. It just feels like such a waste of my time, money, and effort and I have little positivity to be trying to open myself up again to someone new.
I guess I'm just venting, but need advice on how to move on from such a colossal change in my life, and betrayal by someone I thought I knew.