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Original poster

Ex has met the love of his life

39 replies

Frizzbeol · 19/08/2018 20:42

I'd be so grateful for some help sorting my head out re my ex and his new girlfriend.
We split up 2 years ago but he has been coming to the house to see the kids and we have been away on holiday together during that time. Over those 2 years he has been consistently telling me that he could never be with anyone else, that he loves me. This has (i now realise) kept me obligated to him and given me that sense of still belonging to someone.

I ended it and asked him to leave the family home after an unforgivable event on top of years of crap behaviour, verbal abuse, some physical violence, selfishness - you get the idea.

He has recently told me that he has met an amazing woman that he is planning to marry - feels like he has known her for years.

I'm finding it really difficult to get my head round for some reason. We were together for 19 years. It doesnt help that she is younger, thinner, more attractive and childless with a good job - meaning they can live a good life together without any of the constraints that I have. I'm also so angry about the way he treated me - he was a total fucking arsehole frankly. Was that treatment just for me? Does she now get the best version of him and all those years of misery were somehow my fault? Any wisdom you can impart to help me process why I am feeling so crap would be so gratefully received.

OP posts:
welshmist · 19/08/2018 20:44

He is her problem now. Dont beat yourself up. He was not good to you and you deserve better.

MozzieMagnet · 19/08/2018 20:45

Not your fault. Leopards rarely change their spots. She has it all to come. He's played you along the last 2 years, presumably for the sex and because you broke it off. Now you have the chance to meet someone who respects and deserves you Flowers

Bineverywhere · 19/08/2018 20:48

I'm in the midst of something similar. Last week I snapped and essentially told him I'd spent 10 years being the "better person" and being forgiving. I then blocked him on everything and you know what? I finally feel like I've reclaimed a little(a lot!) power.

I'm such a bloody people pleaser and like I say - I just snapped and had a "fuck this shit" moment.

My best friend had told me she was in awe of how well we got on... Then I told her of the latest bombshells and she told me to toughen up, bin him off and lower my expectations in that he would probably ALWAYS do the worst/most annoying thing always.

It clicked.

I've had enough of being bloody nice and accommodating - he can be a wanker in his own life but I'm not going to be the diplomat who supports his decisions.

Don't want him back. Fucking livid he's going all out to impress someone else. Although I tell myself it's all a house of cards and she'll see him for what he is soon enough.

stormymcstormface · 19/08/2018 20:49

I bet he was charming in the beginning of your relationship?

It was obviously not the relationship you wanted and you ended it.

This will progress in the same way. At least now any residual guilt you may feel can be gone.

MinaPaws · 19/08/2018 20:52

He'll be playing her too. Telling her that you were the one, that as the mother of his children, you will always be special in his heart etc. Some men need to keep women under their thumb with this kind of manipulative shit. You are done with it.

sunshiney78 · 19/08/2018 20:54

Frizzbeol my EXH has also let the love of his life and I kept thinking how unfair it was, and how horrible he was to me. But you’ll reach a point when you don’t care anymore. It is all an act and the “nice” him is what she’s getting now, but it’s inevitable that the real him will come out eventually.

Namethecat · 19/08/2018 20:56

She has what you know is not a great prize. She has what you no longer want. She has what you know is not good husband material. Who's the lucky one now ?

Original poster
Frizzbeol · 19/08/2018 21:03

I've got to be honest, I just can't reconcile the man he is with being desirable to anyone. He was awful to live with. But then he has been over the last 2 years (in the most part) the man I wish he had been when we were together. We have not been intimate in that time, I definitely didn't want him bacķ. For those going through it too, it's crap isn't it. He ha clearly moved on and I have wasted even more years putting myself last for him and the kids. What a mug.

OP posts:
mummmy2017 · 19/08/2018 21:05

Oh the love of their life... Too funny, he just means a new warm body In his bed.

My ex did this, and the day you face him and tell him how glad and please you are for him and mean it is very empowering.

Pity mine got annoyed with his new love, he really did trade down...

Original poster
Frizzbeol · 19/08/2018 21:07

Namethecat - that's a brilliant perspective! I'll keep telling myself that. Thank you Smile

OP posts:
Bineverywhere · 19/08/2018 21:08

Yep. There's that and the added revulsion at the thought of meeting someone else!

Just a crying shame they continue to be pitiful excuses of human beings and it's the kids that suffer. Although mine already have the measure of him and the eldest is only 8!

But yea... It's bloody infuriating to think of her cooing into his ear "bin must've been mad to leave you". Hmm

Original poster
Frizzbeol · 19/08/2018 21:11

He's only known her 6 weeks or so. Isn't that typical abuser behaviour - to go in full on so fast? He was abusive - I have to keep telling myself that. I didn't bring it on myself and it won't be any different for her. I just hope she doesn't put up with it for as long as I did.

OP posts:
Bineverywhere · 19/08/2018 21:15

Mine was abusive too. I think it's sent him demented I've set him free last week and cut off his avenues of contact. He's lost control of me... I'm sure he's lashing out at someone else.

Lookatyourwatchnow · 19/08/2018 21:16

OP, when I was in a relationship with my XP, he had split up with his XW about a year before and they had a child together.

He was amazing and charming and romantic for a few months, and he then became the man that you describe your XH as when he was still married to you. He was horrendous.

I read his messages once, not long before the end of the relationship. I saw a number of messages from him to his XW which basically were meant to goad and demean her. He wrote about how amazingly happy me and him were together and how he wished that she could one day stop being bitter and be happy herself like him Hmm

Except that at the times he had written these messages, he had been sulking, crying, shouting, swearing and being generally emotionally abusive towards me. It was a mockery of a relationship and nobody was happy.

He sounds like your XH. He will treat her the same, don't believe his propaganda.

MadamBatty · 19/08/2018 21:17

I had this with an ex. We were together 8 years when he told me he had something wonderful to tell me. He had met the love of his life, he told me with shining eyes. It helped me so much to day good bye. He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t be friends

Original poster
Frizzbeol · 19/08/2018 21:35

I'm glad several if you have cut off avenues of contact and blocked him. I can't be his friend - no chance - and have asked him to only contact me re the kids via my work email. He can't understand it either - even after telling me at the same time that we should have splut up years ago and - even better - that hes been working his way up through all the women he's been with to the most attractive one!! 19 fucking years

OP posts:
Jsku · 19/08/2018 22:26

OP - in all fairness - he didn’t leave you for someone younger and thinner, etc.
He moved on after two years after you asked him to leave.
If you wanted him back - there was plenty of time for the two of you to get back together.

It’s not entirely fair to expect someone you don’t want - to hang around for ever. Won’t make you happy anyway.

So - I do think you need to try to let go of the anger you still clearly have about the past. It stops you from lookigk into the future and moving on yourself.

welshmist · 19/08/2018 22:33

My friend whose OH left her in debt wondered about sending his new victim a bunch of flowers to thank her.

Original poster
Frizzbeol · 19/08/2018 22:35

Jksu - that's perfectly reasonable. I just don't understand why I feel so rubbish. I don't want him but it hurts all the same.

OP posts:
Original poster
Frizzbeol · 19/08/2018 22:38

Lookatyourwatch - well.done for getting rid and sorry it turned out like that for you. Why are there so many of these areseholes out there? It seems mist women have suffered their prescence in their lives at some point or other.

OP posts:
OutPinked · 19/08/2018 23:02

Agreed with PP that he isn't a prize and even if he were, he isn’t one worth winning. He is her burden now, be glad you are free of his shackles.

Giraffey1 · 19/08/2018 23:09

You feel like you do, I suspect, because I think we all grieve a little for what might have been, what could have been. And you hadn’t, until now, severed the ties and given yourself permission to properly move on.

Musti · 19/08/2018 23:14

My last two exes were as bad with my as with their exes but obviously didn't show it until they'd trapped me.

I'd feel sorry for her if I were you op.

Shambu · 19/08/2018 23:15

Well of course he told you that, he would wouldn't he.

I have no doubt he will be just as much of a cunt to her eventually as he was to you.

Jsku · 19/08/2018 23:17

@Frizzbeol
You are feeling rubbish possibly because you got used to the idea of him hanging around. Like a permanent back up plan.
Also - possibly - after years of a bad relationship - maybe it felt like a payback a bit. Like it was your turn to be the top dog, etc...

And that’s why I am saying - him moving on is a good thing for both of you. It wasn’t healthy for either.
It definitely made you dwell in the past and prolonged some sort of a limbo.

(I was also going to tell you somthjf you won’t like....
Your reaction - blocking him, etc. - shows that something else is going on with you, that you aren’t ready to admit to yourself. Or don’t yet understand....
I don’t know what it is. It’s too simplistic to say that it may be that you do, somehow want him back; or at least you want the relationship you had before it turned bad...)

Have you been to any sort of couselling after you broke up?
It could really help with making sense of things

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