So Your Ex Has a New Girlfriend

Reading Time: 8 minutes

12 Good and Not-So-Good Strategies for Dealing With It

So here’s the sitch. You’re just sitting there minding your own business, sort of, when pictures of your ex show up on your social media feed, and there he is passionately embracing his new main squeeze. On a vacation. In Mexico. An elysian vacation in Mexico. (Elysian is a vocabulary word I learned today. It basically means ‘heaven on earth.’ So yeah, looks like your ex is in heaven on earth.)

You are seeing these pictures because Mark Zuckerberg is literally getting paid to expose you to full color photos of your ex cavorting with some woman in a bikini months after you split. Yup your romantic history is making a billionaire even richer than he already is.

If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be seeing those photos because there’d be no Facebook or Instagram if it wasn’t making Mark Zuckerberg very very rich. And no one else would be seeing those photos either. But now they are public. Everyone can see in exactly what manner your ex has moved on and with who. That’s what the world has come to.

That’s right, when Big Tech isn’t busy facilitating the spread of election misinformation, undermining democracy and generally destroying the fabric of society for short-term profit, it’s taking aim at your personal life. By showing you pictures of your ex with his new girlfriend!

If that doesn’t make you pretty fed up with the world today, well probably nothing will.

But in the meantime, what are you going to do? About those pictures of your ex I mean. How are you going to react to the bizarre romantic and emotional and sexual dilemmas of the day? At least you’ve got plenty of company with this particular situation.

So herewith 12 good and not-so-good strategies for dealing with those damn pictures. Choose one! Try them all! Mix and match! Add a better strategy in the comments or just say what you would (or actually have done) in a similar situation.

Strategy #1: Your ex and his new girlfriend are looking good – but you’re looking better.

You’re a beautiful strong woman and you know it. So does everyone else. Of course, they’re going to want to know how you’re reacting to your ex engaging in PDAs with some Instagram body influencer type. But who cares? You’re not going to let them see you sweat it because you’re just as good as his new love – if not better. You are one admirable woman.

Strategy #2: You want to outdo them. On social media and elsewhere.

Your first impulse is to compete. You want to post pics of yourself looking sexy, getting drunk, half-naked, or being admired. Maybe you don’t have a new guy to flaunt in their faces but you definitely don’t want those pictures to go unanswered without you doing some showing off too. You think it’s empowering to to show off your fit and toned body. You’re in it for the clicks and the likes and you’ve got to show them up.

Strategy #3: You’re not going to say a thing publicly about the relationship publicly.

You are devastated. It looks like he’s happy and you hate him. He deceived you, you got burned, and now he is throwing it in your face in the public space of social media. From now on, well at least for a while, you are staying off social media altogether. And you are not dating anyone else who has a social media account or who has any exes who have social media accounts, because you hate it all. The only consolation you have is that deep down you know it is wiser to stay away from social media. Love should be about love and not about pictures and showing off. You know that. But for right now, it hurts.

Strategy #4: You don’t know what you’re going to do yet but you feel vulnerable. This is your sex life on social media.

So you’re embarrassed. And maybe humiliated. You had thought he was the one. You had been the one posting happy pictures of the two of you all over Instagram not that long ago. You had gushed about it. You had bragged about him even maybe. You had been so sure you had hit the love and happiness jackpot. And you had been so wrong. So publicly. Crawling into a hole and slowly dying seems like a plausible option. Thank god, thank god, thank god, you still have some supportive friends you didn’t completely alienate during your delusional phase with that awful awful guy. Thank god for friends and family, you see that now.

Strategy #5: You’re going to put up a chaotic and anguished and heartbroken post on social media yourself.

You will kind of lash out, kind of take the high road and kind of veer all over the place. You will dump your emotions. You are used to living your life on social media so that’s what you’re going to do. The good, the bad, the ugly. You are honest with people, as much as you can be. You don’t know any other way to be.

Strategy #6: You are getting yourself a new boyfriend stat! Like right this moment.

And you’re going to post about that ASAP. You’ll show him whose pictures are better. If you can do it with the new girl’s ex – even better. You don’t care. He’s not going to humiliate you like that. And you’re going to diss him in your new posts, just so everyone will know how pissed you are and that you’re not really over him. You will call him a liar or imply it or hint at your grievances and just generally entertain other people who like to witness relationship drama. You’re going to get personal. Restraint be damned!

Strategy #7: You immediately contact your best girlfriend, your best guy friend, your mom, your best frenemy and anyone else you can think of for support.

You demand that they look at the pictures of your ex with his new girlfriend And then you wail and moan and cry and swear and spit and question yourself and everyone else and get angry and sad and all the rest of it. With animated gestures and everything. Just not on social media. You go for the IRL emotional breakdowns.

Strategy #8: After a moment of shock, you almost immediately start thinking about all the people in the world who have it worse than you do.

For god’s sake, there are innocent souls suffering the devastating effects of wars on civilians. How can you cry when Ukrainians are being bombed? How can you cry when Palestinian children are being killed in the streets? Yeah, sure you are heartbroken. Yeah sure your ex is a dickwad. But you know how to be philosophical and put things in perspective. Are you not better off without that dickwad in your life? You’re a strong person and you are able to tell yourself that there is someone better out there for you. Whatever you are feeling right now will pass. You’ve been through stuff before and you have courage. And so you mutter to yourself one last time ‘fuckwad!’ and then you move on.

Strategy #9: This isn’t the first time you’ve been burned.

And maybe it won’t be the last. But you were the one who broke it off with the guy. You knew this shit was coming. You knew your relationship with him was unhealthy. You knew you weren’t getting along. You knew he had eyes for other people. You knew other women had eyes for him. For right now, you’ll hold your peace on social media. But if anyone asks, you knew he was a jerk and you don’t care about him anymore.

Strategy #10: You take the high road.

You post a statement of social media about how the relationship was beautiful while it lasted but in the end it wasn’t meant to work. You talk about being in a healthy place now and how your life is good and you have to be true to yourself and your values. You don’t look at the relationship as a failure but as a learning experience. You say it’s time for new things for both of you. You say there may be scars now but they will heal. You are very careful not to overtly diss your ex but, you know, the implications are there. But you sign off, confident that you look like you are a better person than he is.

Strategy #11: You don’t trash your ex – you trash the new girlfriend.

To anyone and everyone who will listen. On social media, wherever. Look at her boobs, she doesn’t have any! Look at her bikini, it’s pathetic! Look at her hair! Etc. When the going gets tough – you find another woman to trash.

Strategy #12: You’re a passionate woman. But not for that jerk.

You’re not even paying attention to what that guy does on social media – well at least not for more than an exasperated minute or two. You’ve got other things going on. You’ve got a career. You’ve got causes. You’ve got things you care about. You’re into increasing representation of women in STEM fields or something else that matters to you. You’re into mentoring. You’re into changing the world, fulfilling your potential. Yes, that guy was undeniably hot and you can’t regret anything. But you dumped him once you realized how shallow he is. You’re a mover and a shaker and you’re moving and shaking your powerful butt right into something more important than some guy’s vacation in Mexico with a woman who must have bought into the small is better aesthetic for women cuz lord knows she don’t have the boobs you do. Let’s go!

So there you have it. There are at least 12 strategies for reacting to your ex having a new girlfriend in public.

So what do I think? I think a few things.

I think no matter what you do that public relationship with the new girlfriend is not going to last. They’re both going to be losers at the game of love but at least they will probably have some fun while it lasts.

I also think it sucks big time that from the very beginning Facebook et. al. have been vehicles for heartbreak. Before Facebook was even a thing – just a random app available to a few college students, women were finding out they’d been broken up with on Facebook. It was never really a supplement to IRL friendship. It was never really about friends. It’s its own strange often heartbreaking beast that in its own way is as much about destroying relationships as it is about building them. Not that good things haven’t happened on Facebook or through Facebook. It’s just that it’s always been a place that is as much about destruction as anything else. Facebook doesn’t make people better. It just gives them another space to be the people they are – for good and for ill.

I also think Strategy #12 is the one I aspire to. Let those two have each other. There are many things in life besides that guy. On the other hand, I would probably get swept up in strong emotions myself. And maybe eat an entire tub of ice cream.

What would you do? Or what have you done in the past?

Tags: relationships, sex