This may be a little long-winded so I’ll apologise in advance, I have NC for this. I’m just seeking a bit of perspective and possibly reassurance that I’m just over-thinking things. I will also add a caveat that I’m struggling with PND (having weekly counselling sessions so trying to get better) and I’d fully appreciate it if you’d go easy on me because I’m finding things quite difficult atm
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I have been with DH for 10 years and married for 6. We have a 2.5 year old and 10 month old. We met in our early 20s and both of us had only had one serious relationship before which ended a good 3/4 years before we met so plenty of time to move on. I definitely didn’t harbour any feelings for my ex at that point, I didn’t even think about him tbh and I figured DH would be the same. Possibly him more so than me because their relationship wasn’t great, she cheated on him throughout with various men including a couple of his friends. His best friend and sister had pleaded with him to end things because she just wasn’t very good for him but it took him a while to feel able to and he found the whole thing rather difficult. He went travelling for a year after they split to try moving on but had a breakdown when he returned and needed counselling. He said it was both the split and the fact his parents went through a nasty divorce around the same time. We’re obviously both far past those relationships now, we’ve been married for years and have 2 small children ffs.
I’ve seen photos of his ex and if it’s relevant, she’s totally opposite to me. I know some people tend to go for the same sort of look but she looks completely different to me. She wears fake tan, false nails, hair extensions, lots of make up etc whereas I’m a bit more natural with short-ish dark hair, olive skin, not very much make up. If you were to compare, she looks like a TOWIE cast member and I’ve been likened to a young Helena Bonham Carter or Vanessa Paradis. I’m just trying to point out the fact we possibly couldn’t be more opposite both in appearance but also in general style, interests etc. Plus the fact I’m as loyal as a dog and definitely wouldn’t cheat.
Anyhoo to the overall story. On Saturday DH was in another room and he’d left his phone on the sofa so I decided to send the photos from that day to my phone in a text. We had visited a museum and I remembered looking at one of the photos that we’d wanted to Google something so I decided to just do it on his phone since it was in my hand. One of the tabs open on his phone was a woman who started at his work a couple of months ago. I decided to look at his search history because I didn’t really understand why her Facebook page would be open as a tab. He’d deleted almost all of his history but obviously forgotten to delete that mornings. He’d been looking at photos of her when I was downstairs getting our DC dressed for the day. I just couldn’t grasp why tbh, my first thought was a wank which made me feel a bit sick. She’s younger than us and a lot like his ex style wise so nothing like me.
Anyway, I asked him why and he told me initially he’d had a weird dream about her talking to him about golf and he decided to Google her when he first woke up. He wasn’t sure why he chose to do this, he was still a bit sleepy and likened it to when I might Google ‘dreams about wasps’ or whatever
. I honestly thought it was a shite excuse so pushed a bit more. He then told me he’d seen her at work the day before for the first time properly since she started because she works in a totally different department to him, he’d had to take a birthday card around to everyone to be signed so it was the first time he’d seen her fully. He said she looked remarkably like his ex and he was a bit taken aback by it so having had the dream, he decided to Facebook search her. He apologised profusely, said he wasn’t really sure why he did it and he didn’t mean anything by it.
I think the reason it upset me most of all is the idea that this meant he found her attractive and in turn, still found his ex attractive? With me currently struggling mentally, with my self confidence and so forth it just knocked me a lot. He didn’t deny finding either her or his ex still attractive which made things much worse. Both women look nothing like me so then my thoughts further started to spiral into- so does he wish I looked like them? Is he even attracted to me at all? Should I try to look more like that? Etc. I haven’t really been able to stop thinking negatively about it ever since. We had a couple of lengthy discussions not just about this but also about how difficult we’ve been finding things recently and ways we are struggling in general. It was good to clear the air and get things out in the open. He accepted he should support me more and listen to me more and I accepted we should both make more of a concerted effort to give each other time. We’ve agreed to try couples counselling and also reinstate date night monthly if we can. Not really because of this issue but mostly because we’ve let things slide and go a bit stale recently just with how busy we are in day to day life so we need to reconnect.
It’s just really got me down. I asked a friend and she said maybe I’m just not his usual type and women who look like his ex/the woman are work are his usual type so it’s a bit of a fantasy thing like when people have celebrity crushes. She didn’t make me feel any better, much worse if anything. I just then started thinking great, so I’m not even his type! I’m just seeking some reassurance that I’m majorly overthinking things tbh because rightly or wrongly, I’m struggling to move on from it. I obviously know he hasn’t cheated or anything terrible like that! It‘s still just hurt my feelings. I don’t still find my ex attractive at all, I thought people’s tastes just naturally changed as they got older and that’s why he now found me attractive as opposed to someone like his ex? I’d never look at someone like my ex and find them attractive, I just don’t have the same ‘type’ as I did in my teens.