Girl [20s?F] who my [23F] ex [23M] cheated on me with reached out to me. Not sure how to respond.

A Reddit user (23F) shares her story about receiving a message from her ex’s (23M) former lover, Jessica, who she found out about during their breakup. The ex had cheated with Jessica, and after their breakup, Jessica started dating him publicly soon after.

Now, six months later, Jessica reached out to apologize for her role in the situation, but the user is unsure how to respond, especially after everything has settled down. She’s still angry about the timing and feels like Jessica should have known better. Read the original story below.

‘ Girl [20s?F] who my [23F] ex [23M] cheated on me with reached out to me. Not sure how to respond.’

My ex and I broke up 6 months ago. We were together for about 3 years. I found out he was cheating on me, but to be clear, there were a lot of other reasons why we broke up. It was a messy breakup because my ex just basically split and didn’t want to discuss things.

Told me he didn’t need to discuss things anymore because he already had someone new. A few days after our breakup, my ex and this girl (who we’ll call Jessica) started posting all over social media about their relationship. I found this gross, but what else could I do? I just basically was hurting but didn’t engage anymore.

My ex’s family reached out to me to basically say they were also uncomfortable about it. A mere few weeks after our breakup, my ex brought Jessica to a family dinner to introduce her. They weren’t enthusiastic because they know that she’s the girl my ex was cheating on me with, and everything was way too quick.

My ex’s dad reached out to me and even told me to not feel hurt if I saw pictures online, while they were uncomfortable, they didn’t want to cause a scene. I just unfollowed people related to my ex so I wouldn’t see. His family has been very caring about me and would support me to say they wish we could work things out.

Each time, I would decline, and said that I just wish we could close things well. Ultimately, I mustered up the courage to message my ex so that he would return very sentimental, valuable things. Some of which belonged to my family. I also asked if he would already talk to me so we can finally close things. He agreed, and we did.

The gist of our discussion was him apologizing for what he did, he told me he and Jessica broke up but were still talking(?), that he still loved me and just general reminiscing. Not a lot of people get closure, so while the discussion was a bit confusing, I appreciated it. I thought that was the end of it.

We never spoke after, we’ve both said our piece. I was already dating someone else, and they were still talking so it seemed the both of us were just moving on. Yesterday, I randomly received a message from Jessica. She said she knew I was mad and that I deserved to feel that way and if we could talk. I asked her what about.

She said she wanted to apologize for everything and that she understood how what they did hurt me. She said that her mistake was after finding out about the truth (my ex’s cheating), they should have kept their relationship “lowkey”. She said she always wanted to reach out but didn’t have the guts to.

She even mentioned that she tried talking to my ex to talk to me. I don’t know how to take it and what a proper response is. I just don’t agree with her sentiments on the situation. It’s already been many months after, and I didn’t appreciate the need to suddenly dig up on things I thought were already resolved.

I also don’t buy the idea that she didn’t know about me. Just 3 days before our break-up, my ex was still positing pictures of me on his social media, posts he didn’t delete.

But even giving her the benefit of the doubt, she knew almost immediately after we broke up that my ex cheated on me with her. Am I being too harsh and bitter? I don’t think I’m too angry anymore but maybe I just have a great dislike of her.

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

get_you_high_tonight −  Honestly– f**k her. She’s a l**r, and they’re both creeps, and you don’t owe either one of them anything.
Just pretend you never received her message and continue to move on. Good luck OP.

aklg517 −  Seriously… her guilty conscience is not your problem. This whole apology thing is 100% for her . dont put your self out . I would block em both and forget it .

kharmatika −  I don’t think you’re being too harsh, however, you could do the zen thing by assuming she’s at least trying to move on with her life and forgive her for yourself. Resentment is a poison that we drink and both parties die.

Be the bigger woman, tell her that you forgive her and hope she’s learned a bit from the experience, and move on. I actually ended up in a similar position with my exes ex, we linked up and both realized he’d played us for fools, and became pretty good friends for some time.
It may be more therapeutic than you think, jussayin.

Do you think the user should engage with Jessica and hear her out, or should she leave the past in the past and move on without further communication? How would you handle receiving an unexpected message like this? Share your thoughts below!

For those who want to read the sequel: https://aita.pics/suJRF