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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Found out today my ex is engaged - feel upset

22 replies

Captnip500 · 26/04/2021 18:21

Today I found out my ex is engaged to the woman he left me for. It was 3 years ago now and it’s not that I want him back anymore. The break up was extremely traumatic for me as he cheated and lied repeatedly and generally treated me like shit. For some reason this has really thrown me, I feel so sad. I can’t even out my finger on why.

While he was awful to me at the end, we had some good times and I still miss him sometimes.

I feel like this has sent me right back to the very low place I was at 3 years ago.

OP posts:

Shimmyshimmycocobop · 26/04/2021 18:26

It's been a shock for you but Im sure you'll bounce back more quickly than the last time, 3 years after my exH left I found he was expecting a baby with his girlfriend.
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach but it only lasted a few days and after that I was back to my usual self.

minniemomo · 26/04/2021 18:28

It's always going to touch a nerve but remind yourself you are better off without him and three years isn't exactly quick

seensome · 26/04/2021 18:35

Be glad it isn't you , sadly she's probably put up with his behaviour so far. Are you single? Maybe if your feeling lonely things like this effect you more than if you were in a relationship.

Original poster

Captnip500 · 26/04/2021 18:42

Thanks for the replies people.

Seensome, I’m not single I’m seeing someone but it’s been long distance through lockdown for various reasons that I won’t go into, I have seen very little of him over the last 6 months. It’s kinda on hold but we are hoping to get back to normal soon.

Minniemomo, no it isn’t quick. It’s just that it has made feelings resurface from all of that time back resurface and honestly I feel like shit again.

OP posts:

PicsInRed · 26/04/2021 18:47

I understand how you feel.

In time, you will come to understand that you should pity her - and him also, for being forced to spend a lifetime in his own company.

But for now -

billy1966 · 26/04/2021 18:52

Ah that's very hard OP.

It's ok to be upset.
Give it the evening and shake it off.

Original poster

Captnip500 · 26/04/2021 19:52

PicsinRed I am struggling to pity her to be honest. She wanted him and she got him. It totally broke my heart at the time and it still stings.

OP posts:

CoconutMaracas · 26/04/2021 20:07

She’s got a cheat though - and they always cheat again. You are lucky to be free of him

Sandra15 · 26/04/2021 20:25

Weird isn't it how it drags up old feelings good and bad? My friend dumped her boyfriend after an 18 month relationship. He whacked her after she spoke to a man in a bar (who was a friend of her brother's) and started a jealous argument. I was so proud that she didn't go back to him even though he grovelled. They had a joint savings account, and he wouldn't give his consent for her to get any money out. It all came out about how he was controlling, jealous, sexually demanding etc and she'd not been happy with him but hadn't said anything.

Then about two years later, he got in touch saying he wanted his half of the money to buy an engagement ring for the barmaid in the White Horse! My friend was affronted that he hadn't bought her an engagement ring, even though he'd smacked her one! Funny how it plays havoc with our emotions.

And the White Horse woman eventually dumped him too.

My friend was

DrinkRefilled · 26/04/2021 20:36

I think if this was me.
I’d focus on the fact that if he has cheated on you then he will likely cheat on her at some point in the future.
And I’m sure given his history their can’t be a huge amount of trust in their relationship. Doubts will soon come into play and cracks will show.

I also truly believe in fate. Everything happens for a reason and something bad like that happening will open loads of (better) doors for you. You just don’t know it yet.

You coped without him for all the years up u til you met him. So you can cope for all the years after you’ve left him.
You’re worth a lot more than someone like that.

NioRT · 26/04/2021 20:45

I think when you are the one who didn’t want things to end the way they did, it hurts a lot more.

PicsInRed · 26/04/2021 20:47

@Captnip500

PicsinRed I am struggling to pity her to be honest. She wanted him and she got him. It totally broke my heart at the time and it still stings.

Getting him will be the easy part. It's getting these sticky bastards off again - when you want them off - which is the tricky bit.

Trust me that you'll get there, one day you'll have your "wtf was I thinking" moment, and you'll be thankful you're free.

Twirl96 · 26/04/2021 20:52

Do you think it has upset you because things aren’t going quite how you want it to right now with your current relationship? I am not judging by any means but could explain why you feel the way you do. I think if you were content with how things were then you wouldn’t be bothered at all by him getting engaged.

Original poster

Captnip500 · 26/04/2021 21:23

Thanks everyone, you are so kind. There were many bad things about the relationship, I know that and she is welcome to him. He was totally crap in bed for a start! At least I don’t have to have rubbish sex anymore, she can have it instead!

DrinkRefilled I know what you mean, I couldn’t trust someone if it started off like that. I would always be expecting it to happen again.

OP posts:

HollowTalk · 26/04/2021 21:25

She's got a real prize, hasn't she, and vice versa. Neither of them will ever be able to trust the other. Chances are very high that the engagement is a bit of hysterical bonding after one of them has strayed.

mrshonda · 26/04/2021 21:32

PPs are right. Yes, she wanted him and she got him - but she'll never be able to trust him, because what she really got was a liar and a cheat. It stings now, but in the long run, you've dodged a bullet.

seriouslystressedoutmama · 26/04/2021 21:40

I know exactly how your feeling, my ex left me while pregnant for OW, and a week after we finished year long court battle (whole pregnancy and birth) he whisked her abroad and he proposed to her. He made my life an absolute misery all through the pregnancy. I now raise the kids on my own, I've got chronic health issues from stress and he's getting his happy ever after. It's 3 years for me too. I don't think I'll ever heal from the lying and cheating. The upside is you don't have kids with him.

Original poster

Captnip500 · 26/04/2021 22:26

@seriouslystressedoutmama I am
sorry that happened to you. That’s really awful and I honestly don’t know how people can be so cruel. Yes, I don’t have kids with him which I am thankful for. We were planning a baby before broke up and I kind of felt like I had lost that opportunity too at the time.

@Twirl96 I do think not seeing my boyfriend for all of this time hasn’t helped. It’s not that there is anything wrong with him, but the pandemic has unavoidably kept us apart and I suppose slowed things down.

OP posts:

Sandra15 · 26/04/2021 23:14

You know, there is always the 'one that got away' thought too. I have one of those. I thought I lost the love of my life when I was 20. When he didn't call me the following day after I slept with him I wouldn't even entertain him or speak to him again. I then went on to avoid him totally and have a lot of dates with a lot of unsuitable guys to keep myself from thinking about him. He asked me to go back to him five years later but I refused because he had always blown hot and cold and I never felt good enough for him. I still wonder what might have been.

He went out with someone else for two years after me, and then got married when he was 31. I always wonder what was so good about those two, that they managed to make him commit whereas I couldn't. But the truth is he has probably been as flaky with them, and rumour has it he messed his wife around a lot. He has also aged terribly and if I had met him, sight unseen, now I wouldn't have given him a second look.

But still that thought - would it have been different if we had stayed together? Oh well!

MarshmallowAra · 27/04/2021 07:24

I always wonder what was so good about those two, that they managed to make him commit whereas I couldn't.

Timing.

A lot of us women believe all the romantic stuff about soul mates etc. A lot of men do not take such a romantic view - as posters in here term it, many men see women as interchangeable domestic appliances and as a role filler ... So which woman it is doesn't actually matter all the much. But timing; when they feel compelled to settle, for one reason or another, is important.

I left a dysfunctional relationship for and briefly dated a guy I was crazy about who'd told me he was not long out of a long relationship and not really wanting to get into another (and also emphasised how important his life long close friendship group, who were both single at the time was to him). He dumped me after four increasingly crap dates (crap because he didn't really want to get involved and had twigged I wanted a relationship) ...... He contacted me nearly a year later with talking fucking up and regret and a chance etc etc My first suspicion was that one or both of his "peas in a pod", like glue trio was now in a relationship and so it suited him to be (plus he'd done his time out from serious relationships and was seeing 30 looming in the distance. I occasionally chatted to his mate's dad through a hobby and he, unprompted, confirmed that his son was now in a serious relationship. I almost laughed.

Timing is pretty much everything for some men.

I feel like he'd have settled with any non objectionable candidate on the scene at the "right" time. I think an amazingly high number of men have that aspect. Their view of the opposite sex and relationships can be very different from ours.

MarshmallowAra · 27/04/2021 07:28

30 is also an age which rings the bell for a lot of people re settling down, getting married, thinking about children ... Whereas 20s lots of people still see as relationship experience/hopping time. Sounds like timing more than anything.

MarshmallowAra · 27/04/2021 07:33

The break up was extremely traumatic for me as he cheated and lied repeatedly and generally treated me like shit.

People rarely change that much - he's low integrity, cowardly,dishonest etc. He'll continue to be and anyone he's with is in danger of suffering from that.

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