My ex groomed his homewrecking girlfriend

My ex cheated on me with a girl he groomed. He met her online when he was 16 and she was 13. He’s now 22 and she just turned 19 this January, and finished high school in 2024 (he finished in 2020, and is currently a 5th year senior in college… studying to become a high school teacher).

During our relationship, he swore up and down they were just friends, good friends but just friends, and that of course he wouldn’t be interested in her, their age gap was weird, that she knew he was with me so she would never. She blocked him at one point over the age gap, before he and I met, and called it creepy. Then she unblocked him after turning 18. I ignored the red flags, like the fact that her contact in his phone was “(name) blowjob hands” (yes, definitely should have realized the two of them talking about sex was already wildly inappropriate).

Fast forward to the fall semester, where it takes him less than 3 weeks to secretly invite her over and they get drunk and cheat. This 22 year old man gave an 18 year old alcohol and then had sex with her, all in secret. I even believed him when he made his excuses, blaming me, claiming it was an accident, he was blackout drunk , that he hadn’t had any involvement with her before she turned 18.

Funny enough, his high school ex was convinced he was cheating with this (at the time) middle school aged child. He called her crazy for feeling nervous he may be a pedophile. I cannot express how much I regret calling her crazy as well. Wouldn’t you know it, he also cheated on her!

All this isn’t my fault, but I still feel gross and stupid. I should have paid attention to the signs and not been so blindly trusting. I feel sick when I realize I let this man use me as a cover and a body while he was grooming this child to become his future girlfriend. Once I got over the anger and the hurt, I realized how supremely fucked up this situation really is. I feel really bad for this freshman, she may be a homewrecker but she is also a victim of this grown (and self-admittedly manipulative) man.