Just letting off some steam

Quick backstory...ex wife had an affair and we divorced at the beginning of 2015. Married 8 years and had a 2 yo daughter. It killed me that the family was splitting up but I was doing surprisingly well. The whole thing really hurt but I was ok with finding a new person that would be more compatible with me. I waited close to a year to start dating and eventually met my ex girlfriend that i'm currently depressed over.

In the first year of our relationship, I watched my ex have a baby, marry her affair partner, get a dream house, get pregnant again, and generally have the life she always wanted. Now I really loved my girlfriend but it was pretty painful to watch my ex wife go through all of these changes. It wasn't because I still loved my ex wife. It was just a hard pill to swallow. People that didnt know the details generally thought that I was the one that cheated. I felt like a loser. The part that upsets me is that not once did my ex girlfriend ever ask if I was ok. She never considered that it could have any impact on me. In fact I felt that she was almost waiting to see if I was upset so she could accuse me of being in love with my ex wife. I never gave her any reason to think that. The only communication I had with the ex wife was child business.

I can understand that it would've been awkward for her and she had no responsibility to care for me in that regard. But isn't a bit of normal human compassion in order here? Shouldn't the person that loves you be able to transcend their own insecurities just a little and ask how you're doing? I certainly think I would have checked up on her if the roles were reversed. My friends and family could see that it would bother me. Why couldn't she?

In the end, when she broke up with me, she seemed cold as well. There was no second chance. There was very little compassion. Just a quick "sorry you're hurting. It will get better". I suppose i'm trying to flesh out her character and convince myself that she was never capable of being the one for me. Its funny the things I need to do to help myself get past this. It's coming up on 6 months and I feel like it will never go away. Meanwhile she is with someone else, almost a decade younger than her, and probably quite unaffected. FRICK!!!

More reasons why she is not the right one for you.

She lacked the maturity and compassion to put her insecurities to one side and empathize with you.

I'm sorry you're hurting and I'm sorry for all the pain you've gone through.

I doubt your ex is unaffected, most people tend to mull things over and question themselves. Just be patient with yourself and don't rush to meet someone. They'll be plenty of time for all that when you've completely processed the new separate lives that you and your ex are now living.

I feel a little differently, but in my opinion it's not her job to inquire about your mental well-being regarding your ex wife. That should have been on you to sort out while single. When you enter a new relationship it's expected you've successfully dealt with your "baggage".

I don't know the details of your most recent relationship, but she possibly sensed how much your ex wife still affected you, and frankly, I can understand how things went sour, if that's the case.

I could be wrong, but I don't feel it's so much on her for lacking maturity or compassion, but wanting a partner who, understandably, has successfully moved on and is in a good spot emotionally.

Sorry for your pain, buddy. You've been through a version of this before—you'll get through this one, too.

No adult is without baggage, and when we get into a new relationship we do so with the hope that (a) we've dealt with our baggage as much as possible; and (b) we've connected with someone who has the capacity to handle whatever pieces we haven't sorted through. And sometimes, without even knowing it, we get into a new relationship with the hope that it'll lighten the load of our baggage, which is generally a remedy for a relationship that will wobble the moment that baggage reasserts itself.

Maybe your current ex sensed the way your ex wife affected you, as mentioned above, maybe she just didn't have the fortitude to handle things when things got momentarily hard for you—the truth is it doesn't matter. At the end of the day she wasn't able to offer you the kind of compassion you needed when you needed it, which means she wasn't right for you.

Take some time to feel what you feel, to reflect as needed, so going into something new you know what you want and need. And as someone said above, I suspect your current ex is affected by everything too. We all handle that differently, and one of the hardest things about breakups is that you don't get the comfort of hearing from the other about the ways they hurt, still think about you, whatever. It's just part of what we have to let go of, to make room for what's next.

OP, to what extent were you struggling with the news of your ex-wife's new life? How was it affecting your relationship with your then-girlfriend?

Before we pile on and call her immature or lacking in compassion, I think it's important to understand how this might have looked from her perspective.

When you are genuinely over someone, what they do simply doesn't affect you. You are truly in a place of meh about them. However, in your case you were deeply emotionally affected and no doubt your gf at the time saw that and it did affect your relationship with her in many negative ways. Basically, you may have waited a year, but you were still not ready to be with someone else. Not only that, but you expected your gf to play therapist for you and that is both wrong and unfair to her.

From what you wrote, no she is not some cold fish. You weren't/aren't over your ex-wife and you were trying to use your gf to help you deal with that. You really need to work on truly getting over your past or else it will keep wrecking your present and your future. Don't blame others for your emotions and if you need help with that, then pay a professional and don't burden whoever you are dating with it or better yet, don't date until you have control over your baggage. As others pointed out, when someone dates you, they expect you to already have a handle on your past and be fully open to a fresh beginning. They aren't there to be your shoulder to cry on or to play therapist because you aren't over your ex.

Here is the best analogy I can think of. Let's say you loaned a person a large sum of money and they never paid you back. You keep calling and trying to get your money but they avoid your calls. It's enough money that it causes you to have to make some major financial changes. You file a lawsuit but it goes nowhere. Some time goes by and you are like "fine, I lost the money. Screw that person, though. They are a piece of s*&t." Then one day you turn on the news and you see that that person won $1 million in the lottery. A month later they win another million. You realize that you'll never get your money back but it kind of stings. Thats how it felt.

I had no romantic feelings towards my ex wife. I didnt care that she had a new man. All I wanted was my new gf. But these events happening are major life changes. They are blows to the ego. When someone wrongs you and then it appears that they are just winning the f*(k out of life, it stings. Had we not had a child together and id never have to deal with her again, I couldnt care less. But I am/was in constant low contact with her. I dont think its realistic to say that when you are genuinely over someone, what they do simply does not affect you. I mean, in the case of an ex girlfriend from 10 years ago where there are no children or bad blood, sure. But people are complicated creatures that rarely walk the perfect, straight line. Example being, the ex gf previously dated a physically/verbally/emotionally abusive guy. He cheated on her several times. Guess who got the brunt of that? ME. She accused me of the weirdest things. At the end of our relationship, she was talking about him in a really good light. I asked her if she still loved him, 7 years later. She said "well, yeah. I mean we had a lot of great times together." I was so caught off guard and told her that I didnt even love my ex wife of 3 years ago and she snapped and told me not to make a thing out of it.

I didnt expect her to be my therapist. I just wanted her to cut me some slack. I wanted to see a side of her that didnt exist. In fact, she called me overly sensitive all the time and admitted on several occasions that she wasn't a warm person. The major reason that the relationship didnt work had nothing to do with my ex wife. It was that she lacked the ability to form any appreciable relationship with my daughter (while wanting me to adopt her son). I just couldnt get over that and I brought it up often. She wanted to be put first, over my daughter. Im SO glad I didnt do that.

I am ok with the fact that I could be totally wrong about this. I really want to know if I have unrealistic expectations. I can admit that this post is probably just an emotional outburst to make myself feel better. But for some reason, this is affecting me like no other breakup has. I AM over my ex wife. I AM NOT over my ex gf.

Regarding your ex wife, when her life affects you to the point where you feel low about yourself, get emotional, and feel like a loser, that's your clue that you have some baggage to work through. It may not be romantic feelings but it's more than just " ouch that stung". Also, I still think it's completely unfair and unrealistic to expect your current partner to help you work through that. That's on you and again if you need help, better get professional help than try to dump it on your partner.

That said, it sounds like you picked a gf who herself wasn't and perhaps isn't in healthy place. Equally it wasn't your place or your job to take the brunt of her abusive cheating ex issues and pay that price. For that reason alone, you should have walked away from her instead of expecting some kind of reciprocation and sympathy for your own issues. Two broken halves do not make a whole, they just create more drama. Add to it that she didn't get along with your daughter and really this had to end.

The one thing that stands out to me is that you seem to be very focused on what your ex's are doing after things end with you. Why is that? You do need to realize that what they do and with whom is no reflection on you, what you had or didn't have with them, and certainly not a reflection of your worth. Both relationships ended for good reasons and it does seem like you are picking not exactly the best women to be with. You might want to put more thought into that aspect of your romantic life.

It's not about realistic vs. unrealistic in terms of expectations. It kind of just sounds like, for all the good you and your current ex had, there were some rubs that never quite smoothed out. That happens, and sometimes we don't know the severity of the friction until life delivers a blow or two and you see how you weather the storm with someone.

That said, I do agree with the above that both you and your ex have some baggage to work through, and that maybe, just maybe, you guys were using each other at the beginning as a way to sidestep that individual work. Like, the analogy you used? The subtext of that is that you're a victim—that you're getting the short end of the stick in order for someone else to enjoy the long end, that your ex wife is a millionaire twice over while you're resigned to licking wounds over dollar tacos.

I get how you can feel that way, given the challenging circumstances, but really what you and your ex wife are doing is you're just living lives. Her life, today, is not something she is doing to you, simply something she is now doing without you. When you're able to untangle that—and, hey, maybe this moment is a bit of that untangling, a moment where you're seeing some knots that were a bit tighter than you knew—whatever she does will affect you less. Maybe not the holy "meh"—that, I agree, may be more utopian than realistic given the complexity of human hearts—but at least a calm sigh without the disruption to the ego.

Bluecastle - thank you. I always enjoy your replies. The interesting thing to me is that since the breakup with the ex gf, the relationship with my ex wife is exponentially better and more peaceful. We are very friendly with each other. I can see why we liked each other many years ago (NO I do not have feelings for her!). I don’t know if this is bc I’ve been completely shattered and have no energy to care about the minutiae or if there isn’t a third person analyzing the relationship with the ex wife. I’m thankful that at least that’s going right.

As for the ex gf and her new relationship, I’m really struggling with that. I don’t look at her social media anymore and am slowly telling myself that it is over forever. It’s just so hard to let it go. I’ll get there eventually. It’s just not something I expected at 42. It was supposed to be easier at this age!

Dancing - thanks for your replies. I totally agree that my worth should not be dependent on them but unfortunately it is to an extent. I’ve been in weekly therapy for the last 5 months to deal with all of this. It’s a long process. I’m inching forward but it’s painful and unfortunately not magical.

Interesting indeed. Maybe that's just a coincidence—time, as we know, has a way of smoothing over wrinkles—but maybe it's also a sign that on some kind of semi-conscious level you were "using" your last relationship to work through some issues. Or that your own emotional equilibrium can get a little bit overly outsourced to others. We do this—we ALL do this—often without realizing it.

So, like, it's worth just observing that when things were "good" with your current ex they were "bad" with your ex-wife. Now that things are "bad" with your current ex, things are "good" with you ex. What to make of that? Who knows, exactly? Just a thing to mull over and see what questions surface. One thing that is kind of great about that "shattered" state is that it levels us in a way that, if we can listen, sorts out the total bs from the real sh&t, you know?

I'm sorry about the current struggle. I'm just 4 years younger than you, and believe me this has been one of those years where I've just scratched my head and wondered at times if I've learned anything since, I don't know, seventh grade. You kind of have to laugh at it, and be thankful that even after all these years, and all we've seen, the head and heart still have the capacity to be totally blown away—sometimes in ways that soothe, and sometimes, yeah, in ways that shatter. Life would be awfully boring if we were just coasting at this point. A work in progress until the end, I say!

It is hard, so hard, to remind ourselves that the choices others make (i.e. your ex getting into something new) are not verdicts on us. It's just people being people, sometimes with grace, sometimes with wobbles. Sometimes they're the bull in the proverbial china shop, and sometimes we're the china—and vise versa. Heck, zoom out far enough and we're all bulls, all china, as maybe Buddha would say. Took me a while to get there with my ex, but once I did it was really fortifying. She's just a woman out there in the world making choices—a woman I cared deeply for who brought into my life a heady mix of joy and agony, and who is now out there living her life in whatever way she sees fit.

I feel a little differently, but in my opinion it's not her job to inquire about your mental well-being regarding your ex wife. That should have been on you to sort out while single. When you enter a new relationship it's expected you've successfully dealt with your "baggage".

I don't know the details of your most recent relationship, but she possibly sensed how much your ex wife still affected you, and frankly, I can understand how things went sour, if that's the case.

I could be wrong, but I don't feel it's so much on her for lacking maturity or compassion, but wanting a partner who, understandably, has successfully moved on and is in a good spot emotionally.

When you are genuinely over someone, what they do simply doesn't affect you. You are truly in a place of meh about them. However, in your case you were deeply emotionally affected and no doubt your gf at the time saw that and it did affect your relationship with her in many negative ways. Basically, you may have waited a year, but you were still not ready to be with someone else. Not only that, but you expected your gf to play therapist for you and that is both wrong and unfair to her.

 

From what you wrote, no she is not some cold fish. You weren't/aren't over your ex-wife and you were trying to use your gf to help you deal with that. You really need to work on truly getting over your past or else it will keep wrecking your present and your future. Don't blame others for your emotions and if you need help with that, then pay a professional and don't burden whoever you are dating with it or better yet, don't date until you have control over your baggage. As others pointed out, when someone dates you, they expect you to already have a handle on your past and be fully open to a fresh beginning. They aren't there to be your shoulder to cry on or to play therapist because you aren't over your ex.

Agree with these.

I always use the statue analogy, each relationship chipped away at you, the marriage and the way it ended took off some big chunks, you never bothered putting yourself back together, so now youre even more broken.

I think taking this forum alone is evidence people think they can take shortcuts by finding completeness in someone else. But broken seeks broken and the success rates are terrible so you end up doing double the recovery when its over.

I know youre saying youre over your ex wife and I believe that but the emotional baggage is still there. It chipped away at your self esteem and you never took the time to build it back up, you gave that task to someone else under the guise of her having compassion.

Pay now or pay later, but you will pay. I wish people trying to rebound would see this.

Excellent post blue!

I know youre saying youre over your ex wife and I believe that but the emotional baggage is still there. It chipped away at your self esteem and you never took the time to build it back up, you gave that task to someone else under the guise of her having compassion.

 

Pay now or pay later, but you will pay. I wish people trying to rebound would see this.

This. I think this nails it; your ex-girlfriend could not and should not have been the one you expected to pull you out of the funk caused by your ex-wife's behaviour.

I feel a little differently, but in my opinion it's not her job to inquire about your mental well-being regarding your ex wife. That should have been on you to sort out while single. When you enter a new relationship it's expected you've successfully dealt with your "baggage".

I don't know the details of your most recent relationship, but she possibly sensed how much your ex wife still affected you, and frankly, I can understand how things went sour, if that's the case.

I could be wrong, but I don't feel it's so much on her for lacking maturity or compassion, but wanting a partner who, understandably, has successfully moved on and is in a good spot emotionally.

I agree! It does not sound like you are over the ex, and should not have been dating.

I can't imagine consoling a bf, because his wife had moved on with her life. She is not your therapist, she did the right thing by breaking up.

Agree with these.

 

I always use the statue analogy, each relationship chipped away at you, the marriage and the way it ended took off some big chunks, you never bothered putting yourself back together, so now youre even more broken.

 

I think taking this forum alone is evidence people think they can take shortcuts by finding completeness in someone else. But broken seeks broken and the success rates are terrible so you end up doing double the recovery when its over.

 

I know youre saying youre over your ex wife and I believe that but the emotional baggage is still there. It chipped away at your self esteem and you never took the time to build it back up, you gave that task to someone else under the guise of her having compassion.

 

Pay now or pay later, but you will pay. I wish people trying to rebound would see this.

And this here is the mic drop. Seven sentences of real wisdom earned, I suspect, in real trenches.

I spent some time thinking about this post. I felt a bit angry and misunderstood but also know that there is some wisdom here. I'd like to parse it out and hopefully not offend anyone, as I know everyone is here to offer friendly advice.

Regarding my need for compassion from my ex girlfriend...maybe I didn't explain myself well or my choice of words was poor on this post but I stick by my desire for compassion from her. It is something that I can provide to another person and I expect the same in return. I did not require her to be a therapist, a shoulder to cry on, a crutch, a replacement, a rebound, or anything of the sort. All I needed was the kindness of someone that loved me and realized that we get scarred as we go through life. I gladly listened to her when she spoke of her abusive ex boyfriend. A word of encouragement or "I'm on your side" is all I needed.

More importantly, moving forward...I realized after a brief fling with someone that I am in no shape to date. I seem to be able to connect with women very easily now and that has mistakenly led me to believe that I'm ready to be with someone. In reality I think it's just me craving a connection with another human. The truth is that when it comes time for me to commit myself or expose my true self to another woman, there is nothing there but pain, mistrust, insecurity, etc. I wont beat myself up too much about it, though. After all, people often jump from one relationship to the next without trouble. My ex wife never missed a beat. My ex girlfriend likely didn't either. So if they can do it, why cant I? Why can they move so quickly on to successful relationships while I flounder around with all of the wounds? Maybe I get connected more deeply to them. I don't know. I just know that I need to feel at peace with myself before I get involved with anyone else. I can see that now.

So thanks to everyone for their advice. I may not agree with it all but there is great stuff here.

It's great that you are recognizing that you've got some healing to do. I still say that the biggest thing you need to continue to work on is how you see the lives of ex's and how it affects you. For one, you are assuming that their relationships are great and certainly that's what people always display to the public. In reality, you've got to understand somehow that no, their relationships aren't healthy at all, not even possible.

I can guarantee you that since your ex wife cheated, her relationship is wracked with distrust, insecurities, jealousies and two people constantly looking over their shoulder. Of course, you won't see it, but I guarantee you that it's there despite what all else she is getting or what house they've bought and so on. Between them, there will always be that nuance of "how I got you is how I might lose you" and it's poisonous.

Your more recent ex - totally damaged goods and yes, she is taking that with her to the next relationship and the next and so on, until she takes a time out and heals herself and deals with her issues. No happily ever after there either.

People aren't leaving you and off living some fabulous lives or having some fabulous relationships. That's just not reality even if your mind wants to paint it so.

Sorry again that the spins continue. I know them well, and sympathize.

On the compassion thing: I hear you, and really feel for you. You've been through a lot, and you want to be seen and accepted for all that. The thing to recognize and simply accept—with compassion, you could say—is that your ex-gf just didn't have this to offer in a way that soothed you, worked for both of you. She could not see you as you needed to be seen, and maybe you couldn't see her as she needed to be seen. That's not your fault, not her fault—it just is, you know? Because the moment you start keeping a score or a tally (the lack of an "I'm on your side," for instance, in comparison to your listening to stories about an abusive ex) you're essentially just expressing frustration at someone for being someone they are not. That's compassion as currency, a kind of barter, which isn't the same as real compassion. The rabbit hole of "if only this, if only that/I did this, why didn't you do that" is an endless one, the place where bitterness brews, and moving forward turns into a closed loop of unresolved anger and emotional paralysis.

Best to take a deep breath and remind yourself of the big picture: it just wasn't working, and that's life. If everything worked all the time we'd be bored. Or we'd be machines.

You'll be ready to be intimate with someone, be it serious or a fun fling, when you can engage in a way that is disconnected from your feelings about both your exes. When you can let go of the narrative that they're ice queens capable of moving on at warp speed while you're the wounded bird who can barely fly for the weight of your deep feelings. And I certainly don't mean that harshly, or to sound like it's coming from some mountain of wisdom. Just something I discovered in my own trenches...

I had a one night thing a little over two months after my breakup, when I was deep in the throes of heartache, questioning everything, pitying myself. I'd been cheated on, my ego was like a big swollen bruise, and I knew my ex was dealing with the breakup by flirting around. So I'm sure on some semi-conscious level I wanted to "prove" that I could do the same, that I could revert back to some inflated, swaggering, invulnerable version of myself. And, yeah, technically I could: I had sex with someone. But, man, I felt so hollow and thrown the next day, which is when I got serious about processing it all on my terms and not worrying about what she was doing.

And that's when things got truly fun! Be it the "fun" of deep solitude and reflection, the fun or surfing in a foreign country, the fun of reconnecting with old friends, the fun of discovering new shades of myself, the fun of remembering my own power and unearthing new, more vulnerable dimensions of that power. Of just seeing myself as I'd like to be seen, and not needing another to be the mirror. In all that fun I found it hard to stay angry with my ex, or to really worry about her much: she's just a person, like me, doing her best. We shared a lot of space. We loved. We hurt. We worked until we didn't, end of story. Is she having an orgy as I write this? Is she mourning me? I don't know, don't care. I wish her only the best in life, in silence. I don't need her to recognize that compassion for it to be real. It's there for me, to make my own days lighter, you know?

And somewhere along the way, in that lightness, I found I was ready to date, connect, be intimate. It just sort of happened, rather than something I forced. Being secure in my own space again, in my own skin, has relieved all the pressure and weirdness. I can experience new intimacy in the present, not as a referendum on my past, and you'll get there too. It sounds like you've just recognized the need to inhabit your own skin, truly, maybe in a way that you were close to after your divorce but kind of shortcutted with the recent relationship, hence you're a bit thrown, feeling not only bereft at the loss of your current ex but by some bigger narrative of victimhood.

It's time to let that go. It's so clear from your writing that you're a strong, emotionally intelligent, thoughtful man. Love that sh&t about yourself, and you'll find you'll be loved for it in return, when the time is again right.

Just browsing old posts, fleshing things out as I’m in a throe of self pity during the holidays. I now understand why my ex gf wasn’t compassionate. From her point of view my ex wife must’ve seemed intimidating and like a threat. She’s very pretty, successful, kind, and a great mother...things that my ex gf felt she wasn’t. The ironic thing is that i wanted it so much more with the ex gf.

Maybe I should’ve been the one to show compassion to her. Damn. Merry Christmas ex gf. I was wrong.

Sorry to hear this the holidays are a very difficult time for broken families. Hopefully you are still seeing doctors and a therapist for support, taking care of yourself and being the best dad you can be.

I was married for 8 years, divorced 3 years ago within 9 months I was dating someone else. The new girl was a polar opposite of the ex in good and bad ways

 

We dated for 2 years but incompatibilities just wreaked havoc on us and she finally called it quits.

 

I cry every single day. I don’t know if it’s losing her, losing my marriage, job stresses, House stresses, mid life crisis (early 40s) or what.