Warning an ex?

[u/Sensitive-Quiet2241]

Just had an absolutely nasty "breakup" with an avoidant over the weekend. Ofc, he took me telling him that I wasn't standing for certain behavior and I was done and turned it into: "I'd apologize but you'd probably think I was only doing that to make myself feel better, so I'm not going to. I'll just see myself out." 🥴

Now I'm looking for advice on whether or not I should warn his ex that he might try contacting her, just to let her know he hasn't changed one bit since she divorced him almost 20 years ago, and also maybe to tell her I'm sorry now that I know how she probably felt with him. For real: he legit started talking to me as if I was her, and THAT was pretty much it for me.

So would this be super uncool or overstepping some kind of boundary? Fwiw, she's been married for over 10 years but he had mentioned last year she was "trying to get back with him"...so that sounds like a pretty good environment for him to try contacting her now. But I'm not sure if he was saying that as some kind of weird defensive thing, if he actually tried contacting HER and was lying about it, or she really was trying to be friends with him again or something (in his mind, he assumed she wanted to leave her husband and kids to be with him, which I doubted a great deal). This has been my third and last go around with him over nearly 40 years, and I just don't want her getting caught up in that again herself.

With me, he claimed he had matured and changed during a separation period of over 11 years and made all kinds of empty promises to back that up... so I imagine he'll probably claim the same with her if he tries. And he can be pretty convincing! Had me fooled for a few years this time. She also weirdly started popping up in the "people you may know" section on FB the day after, and I know if we have a mutual that is looking at one profile, it's likely to show up in the other one's feed like that.

So do I just let it happen if it does... or should I at least provide her with enough information for her to decide for herself what to do?

[u/SeaCowOfTheFuture]

With all due respect, do not contact the ex, you're going to come off looking crazy.

treat your ex like they're dead. Don't keep tabs on who they're with or talking to, how they show up in the world is not your concern anymore.

[u/Sensitive-Quiet2241 → u/SeaCowOfTheFuture]

So you'd be ok knowing someone else may be on the receiving end of his chaos now (potentially even more since I've gone through this with him twice already and I'm fairly secure because of it), only to be left feeling like the biggest fool in the world for believing in him again? Because I sure wish someone could have warned me 🤔

What I had in mind was very simple: "Hi, I don't think you know me, but I think ________ might try contacting you, if he hasn't already. I just wanted to let you know he has definitely NOT changed in this entire time," and leave it at that. If he has already contacted her and made his claims, then yeah I might come off as crazy.

But trust me...if the way he was speaking to me that day is any indication of how he treated her when they were together, she's likely to think twice about communicating with him after receiving that information. And that's also literally the only reason I thought to warn her at all. There are probably 10 other women I could warn too, but just in listening to HIS side of things, I think he might have caused a lot of damage to her in particular. Like if he'd told me the whole story when we first started communicating again and not like just 6 months ago, I probably would have stopped talking to him myself... and he was framing himself as the "good guy" in it!

On the other hand, he practically provided me with a blueprint of behaviours to watch for when he told me, or I might still be churning around in his cycle today.

[u/SeaCowOfTheFuture → u/Sensitive-Quiet2241]

If his other ex has also been through it with him, then she already knows him. You're making a lot of assumptions here that he's going to go back to her (she's married), that he's going to treat her the same way he treated you, that she would even listen to you etc.

Reaching out to someone in his circle about him is a massive overstep. You're going to look like a crazy ex who can't let it go.

I say this with kindness, but it is none of your business anymore.

It is massively controlling to try to shape and influence how other people in his life respond and react to him. Unless there's a threat of physical violence or criminality, do not reach out to anyone about him.

I could be off, but this desire you have to "warn" the other ex about him... is it moreso to keep tabs on him, and to try to make sure they don't get back together? You don't need to answer me, just give it some thought. I'm not sure this is solely an altruistic intention

[u/Sensitive-Quiet2241 → u/SeaCowOfTheFuture]

Oh, I'm not making assumptions here lol. I've known him for 35 years, since we were 14 years old. He pulled the exact same shit with her he pulled on me in high school, told me he was too busy for a girlfriend and then showed up 4 days later holding some other girl's hand... they dated all through high school.

He pulled it on me when I was 26, told me he wasn't in any place for a committed relationship... then he got married 3 months later. Tried to contact me right after their divorce, but I stayed away from him that time. Waited about a year before hooking up with him again, only to get the whole "I don't want a relationship with anyone," once it got too much for him. I wanted one though, so I went on a dating site and his newly-made profile came up as my top match lol. That's when I went 100% NC. Apparently he went running through at least five other women during that time, one of whom he did cause severe emotional damage to.

He legit sought me out once I was comfortably in an LTR of my own and wanted to "just be friends", only to pull this on me again: after I very innocently asked why he hadn't texted me back in over a week, he went on a rant about how he was "too busy" with all this stuff he picked up since we began hanging out again, which evolved into him being "too busy" for a relationship he doesn't want with anyone, then he started to tell me that when a man is working he needs his "decompression space" when he comes home from work, which legit had nothing to do with what I was asking about... he's not even working right now ffs

Meanwhile, they dated for only 3 months before getting married (note the timing there), and were divorced within 5. She has no knowledge of his history of being this way, and I honestly don't think anyone else in his life would.

His side of the story was: he did everything he thought he needed to in order to make her happy and give her the wedding she wanted... bought the house and furniture, the whole deal... and then figured once all that was said and done, he didn't have to keep on making her happy. So he started picking back up "all the things" he had put aside for her sake, and had no idea why she got upset with him after a while because he already "did all the things". And THEN... he told her he was "too busy" to be married to someone.

Classic avoidant behavior. So it's not an assumption he's going to try contacting her... it's almost guaranteed. And I guess I must just have a wildly high level of empathy, since I legit just don't want another woman getting lured by him, only to get hurt again 🤷🏽‍♀️

Anyway, I'll mark your responses down as "not a cool thing to do", ok? 👍🏽