I can't get over my boyfriend being divorced! I think about his ex CONSTANTLY!!

[Kitty04]

 

My first message ever, I get so much insight from all of your communications, hopefully some of you can help me with this!

 

My boyfriend of just over a year (he's 27, I am 28) is divorced. He has no children, has not had contact with his ex for many years (they've been divorced for about 4 years) and doesn't speak of her. It seems like this should be a non issue, but I can't get over the fact that he was already married and promised his life to someone. I feel so silly feeling this way. He's a great guy and the best boyfriend I have had by far. We speak of getting married but I can't get the idea out of my head about him standing at an alter promising his life to someone else. I drive myself crazy thinking about him calling someone his wife. My thoughts are crazy but I just don't know what to do to get past them. Its to the point where its coming between us. We talk of this but he can't see what all the fuss is about.

 

They were married for only about a year. It was a clean break, but she did call him a few years back to tell him she was getting married. He wanted the divorce, she did not. He tells me he didn't love her and it was easy to walk away and get on with his life. Maybe thats what bothers me. The wanted different things in life, she wanted to be an actress and move far away, he has more traditional views on things and wasn't into the whole scene. I have never dated anyone divorced before, even though my parents and ALL my friends are divorced. This started on our first date when he spoke of his ex many times in what I thought to be inappropriate contexts, such as I love red heads..and my ex had red hair. And he told me of running into her while he was out on a date. I just didn't want to hear it. And he had a wedding photo up in his office until I saw it recently. She was not in the photo, just him and his family, but I still thinks its insulting to me to have your wedding picture up...its like...why do you want to remember that day??!!??!!

 

I just feel like she took something from me, like that excitement I would feel on our wedding day will be old news to him. Like his family and freinds would just snicker and roll their eyes, "oh, here's number 2". Although the ex alienated everyone pretty quickly I hear. I get crazy if he mentions something about a limo or tuxedo, all I think of is him on his wedding day. I keep rehashing questions in my head about why he married her, why was she good enough but now he's dragging his feet with me. How can I make this better before my anxiety ruins things?????? I just want to be happily in love with a fabulous man and not have my imagination run wild like this!

[Normella]

Ah, talk to him about it! I'm not in the exact situation, but it's similar. Read my post "Jealous of an ex who's not even around!" lol don't you feel stupid? Like, why do I feel so jealous when this girl isn't even in his life anymore?!

 

I know exactly how you feel in that aspect. I'm not sure what kinda advice to give you, because I feel similar, but just know you're not alone lol not alone AT ALL.

[Kitty04]

How funny, I was just reading your post when you replied to mine! It's reassuring to know that we can't possibly be the only ones that feel this way. As I read some other messages, I am so thankful that I don't have some of those BIG problems, I think we should both be thankful for that.

 

This jealousy is insane! I wish you so much luck and good fortune in getting past what ever it is that makes us this way. Hopefully we'll both get some good responses we can share. Keep your head up!

[Merin]

Have you ever been in a relationship and told someone you loved them? Only for the relationship to go south for whatever reasons it just didn't work out..... does it mean that you never meant what you said when you told them you loved them? Does it make it not sincere because it didn't work out?

 

My point is, regardless if your boyfriend had been married previously or not, we have all had relationships that meant a lot to us AT THE TIME. They didn't work out for whatever reasons, so we learn and we grow and we move on.

 

His being married previously doesn't diminish the REAL feelings he has for you. I don't know that he is dragging his feet where you are concerned, I think that because of past experience it makes you just more careful and cautious. We all have baggage.

 

His ex is remarried, and you know more power to her. He is with YOU and that obviously is where he wants to be.

 

IF it gets to the wedding day between the two of you, there isn't a black cloud on it. It means that he has been given another chance at happiness with you, and it isn't like your guy is a "serial wedding guy" who just marries who ever so good ol aunt milly isn't going to be rolling her eyes and thinkin yeaaaahh right!

 

Don't stress over this girl. He loves YOU, he is with YOU.

[teck21]

Hi Kitty and Norma,

 

I understand exactly where the two of you are coming from, for I am a guy a have exactly the same problem with my GF, although I think I have largely overcome the problem and am hopeful my GF’s past will be a complete non-issue sooner rather than later.

 

I have received advice, a lot of it on the lines of ‘Get Over It!’, which usually come from people with totally different mindsets (read holier-than-thou-know-it-all’s when it comes to relationships who blindly stupidly believe one size fits all) and is about as useful as advising someone who is ill to ‘just get better’. To overcome this problem, we need to have it resolved at a visceral level, and it is not good enough to know it only on an intellectual level. Of course we know we have to get over it, but it must be felt by the heart rather than instructed by the brain.

 

A bit of background about my own relationship. My GF had a serious relationship of about 5 years with a guy she’d have married if not for the fact that he decided towards the end of the relationship he’d rather be a woman. One can only imagine the hurt to my GF’s esteem. She followed that up with a string of relationships with several (I think, I do not wish to ask anymore and she prefers not to hurt me by even mentioning them anymore either) guys who took advantage of her vulnerability and didn’t treat her right. For the longest time, I would be totally upset and depressed if I got even the slightest reminder of the fact that she had a past with these guys. Often, I’d think to myself whether this is something I can deal with, or will my inability to deal with it ultimately create a gulf between us that I cannot claw back. The thoughts were not pleasant, and neither are yours I’m sure. She still keeps in very regular contact with the original ex, and to a much lesser extent a couple of the others, but she has never tried to hide anything from me, and I do not doubt her commitment to me one bit.

 

I have come up with two possible reasons why I’d even have those thoughts which I will post shortly.

 

teck

[teck21]

I said that we have to overcome the problem at the level of the heart, but that is not possible without some rationalisation at an intellectual level.

 

The first reason why it bothered me was a very insidious and semi-conscious fear that I wasn’t being truly loved. It was like .’why if she loves me so much would she have been with all these other people’? Is this a reasonable expectation I should have of her? Of course not, but the heart often speaks in a way the mind could never understand.

 

Because of this severely ridiculous idea that she should have waited for me, somewhere deep down there was a voice that kept on asking myself the question, ‘Am I being loved for who I am, or am I being settled for despite being second best, or even worst simply because I am the ‘last chance saloon’ or ‘a suitable candidate’?’

 

Such reasoning is of course totally disrespectful to my GF, and I always knew that too, and that I needed to dispel it. As I have found very useful from the tons of people who have said it, having a relationship that works depends on factors beyond just meeting the other person. The old right place and the right time adage. If I had met my GF 10 years ago, would she and I have fallen in love? I doubt it.

 

In my case, I think I have largely overcome this problem, although it took some external factor to help me realize that this is something I shouldn’t even have to worry about. I hit a really bad patch in my life recently, and through it all, my GF was there for me, in a way someone who does not love me totally and whole-heartedly couldn’t possibly have. And as far as I was concerned, that answered the question in a way it could never be if I just kept on asking her.

 

If either of you think you have just such a fear, I am not suggesting either of you seek out a cataclysmic episode in your life now in order to find a solution! What I guess I am trying to say is that it is purely a matter of perspective, and keeping things that way help us discover what is most important.

 

I will go on with the second reason in the next post.

 

teck

[teck21]

The second reason I have come up with is jealousy on my part. Not jealous of other guys/exes/etc of insecure about someone coming along and snatching her from me. It is jealousy about her past. I guess it would be more pronounced in my case because she is my first and I have no doubt now, only GF (BTW, I turn 28 in a week).

 

I guess I am angry about the fact that she must have shared so many wonderful memories of her past, memories which are not mine. It didn’t help that at the time she was gathering these beautiful memories of hers, my life absolutely stank (My life appears to be nothing but lurching from crisis to crisis!). Even now, just thinking of ‘The Way we Were’ by Barbara Streisand gets me gloomy, if only for a little while now.

 

This is not something I have overcome yet, and it makes me feel awful, because it means there are so many wonderful experiences she has had to share but often has to tip her toes when talking about them because she knows it upsets me sometimes.

 

As you can see, in my case, it has always been me, me, me, and the accompanying logic that the problem lies with me and not her. As time has passed, I find that I am getting much better at dealing with issues in her past and I think we can all help one another here.

 

What we are doing and feeling is not fair to the person we love, and if we love them, it is up to us work at eliminating them.

 

Any further input from anyone would be useful to us here.

 

Thanks.

 

teck

[savethedrama4allama]

Hi Kitty,

Are you glamorizing his ex at all in your mind?

Thinking that she got something better from your boyfriend than you do?

Believing that his family truly liked her better?

 

I understand that you are envious that he made that commitment to her and not to you as of yet. You can look at it negatively, or you can look at it as this: this time he knows what he wants. He will get re-married for the right reasons. He is taking his time to make sure he doesn't screw it up with you!

 

And anyone who laughs at you at your wedding for being bride #2 is dopey. If they don't wish the both of you happiness, then that is THEIR problem. I know this is hard to accept, but it is true. You will never have a wedding without making people angry, or having people talk about you behind your back (even about the stupidest things like your dress, the meal, etc). You can't make everyone happy. Just yourself! So instead of focusing on the other woman, focus on your boyfriend.

 

Or maybe, is it that since she left him coldly and got quickly remarried, you are doubting his worth?

[billybadass36]

Teck:

 

You just artfully and exactly replicated everything I've been feeling about my current situation. I've been struggling as to how to put pen to paper with regard to my feelings about my g.f.'s past, but you've just done it. I can tell you've been doing a lot of thinking about it just as I have. Wow.

[binturong]

Kitty, I was where you are now. My fiance married a woman he had only known for 6 months back when he was 19. He left her a short time later because she cheated on him, so they were only together for under a year...but she was his WIFE while I was the GIRLFRIEND (for 5 years, no less!). We had plenty of discussions about it, how I felt that I was inferior because he wasn't ready to marry me, but was so willing to marry someone else. And to compound things, she was an ex-stripper, so of course I imagined that she was gorgeous and had a perfect body. He also saved pictures from his wedding...but those I don't mind. It was the last time he saw his grandmother and I don't see anything wrong with having pictures of him with his sister and parents. He didn't save any of her. Even after he proposed to me, I had my moments during the wedding planning...like why should I go through all this trouble to have the perfect dress? It's not like he's never stood at the end of the aisle and waited for his future wife to meet him there. I tried to pick things that he would love, and then it'd pop into my mind that he'd already been there and done that so why should I try so hard to please him?

 

But you know what? People make mistakes. Our guys had lives before we met them and it was those experiences that made them the people they are today. You can't really hold that against them. In fact, if my fiance had never been married, chances are we never would have met. My fiance was super cautious picking a wife this time around and I'm glad, because now I know for sure that this isn't some puppy love and it isn't something that's decided on in the heat of a moment. Yes, we put in our time, but that makes it more real to me and to him. And you know what? His first wedding hasn't taken away any of the excitement of planning our wedding and honeymoon. In fact, his first marriage doesn't have anything to do with US. Our relationship is what we make it to be and has nothing to do with either one of our pasts. It's not a quick realization to come to and accept, but for me anyway, it has come with time.