How can I get my cheating ex out of my life?

I WAS 18 when I met my former boyfriend, the first man I’d ever really fallen in love with — kind, funny and so sweet.

When he went off to university it upset me, but I always supported him.

From the first night he moved away he cheated on me. He continued the deception (I found out later) for seven months.

I should have been smarter and recognised the signs — hardly ever coming home and barely speaking to me for weeks at a time.

Eventually, I found a text message on his phone that broke my heart.

I made the mistake of asking him when he was drunk to tell me what had gone so wrong.

His answer was to pin me to the wall and tell me I was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, but that he loved me more than anything.

I gave him a choice between me and the other girl and he told me that he couldn’t pick between us. I left him and didn’t hear from him for around five months. Then I contacted him again — hurting someone in the process. I cut contact once more.

Since then we have both been in other relationships and he has moved to another part of the country.

I’m now 24. He has never really stopped trying to contact me: a message, a Facebook friend request, a follow on Twitter or Instagram, even the odd call or text.

My friends and family dislike him. On some occasions I have contacted him back and have always regretted it.

I’ve tried to forgive him, tried to be friendly, tried not to be friendly, tried changing my name on social media.

I don’t know how else to tell him we can’t be friends and that I could never love or trust him again.

I know he’s sorry, I know he misses me and I know I was the best girlfriend he ever had and how much he regrets hurting me.

How do I tell someone the past is the past and that he has to move on?

ELLIE

You are a lucky young woman (your whole life before you) who should stand tall — raising a fist like a feisty female — and get rid of this useless man clogging up your mind and heart.

What is it with some women that they cling to losers? Roll over and cry: ‘Hurt me again’?

Why don’t they have the strength of mind to sing out, ‘Go now!’ — and really mean it? How come they simply cannot see just how much of their own fault all this is?

Yes, Ellie, I’m looking at you here! In your longer letter, you write: ‘So I guess I am partly to blame...’ And all of us want to shake you gently and say: ‘Wake up, pet — of course you are!’

Let me immediately underline that if you have any fear this guy is stalking you, then the situation becomes very different. It would be obvious to you then that you should tell people and get help. Be very clear about that.

But all my instincts tell me that’s not the case here. Instead, they say you locked yourself into him emotionally when you were 18 and have never had

the strength to cut all ties — even though he behaved so badly and everyone you care about dislikes him.

In your uncut letter you used the word ‘weak’, so you do know the fault is largely your own. That being the case, why did you write to me? You must surely have known what I’d say. So I will.

Your ongoing weakness is evident when you write: ‘I know he’s sorry, I know he misses me and I know I was the best girlfriend he ever had and how much he regrets hurting me.’ oh, come on! How feeble does that sound? You don’t ‘know’ anything of the kind and the fact that you wrote it proves you are still (at heart) a deluded victim. It’s time to give it a rest and toughen up, my girl.

Do you know the Paul Simon song, Fifty Ways To leave Your lover? It starts: ‘The problem is all inside your head, she said to me / The answer is easy if you take it logically / I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free / There must be fifty ways to leave your lover.’

The lyric then lists some of the ways: ‘You just slip out the back, Jack / make a new plan, Stan / You don’t need to be coy, Roy / Just get yourself free.’ And so on. At 24, you owe it to yourself to be free of this old, dead relationship.

Nobody else can help you face up to your own truth; you have to delve deep within and haul out all your womanly strength yourself. At this stage it will necessitate your being much nastier than ever in the past.

Changing your name on social media is the action of a victim, not somebody in charge. What would happen if you totally ignored every single communication? Would he grow tired in the end? I suspect he would.

That is the only way, but you could kick off the communication blackout with the crudest, four- letter instruction as to what to do with himself. I certainly would.