Ex wife jealousy

[cadothan]

The jealousy I feel over my husbands ex wife is destroying my marriage.

Been married five years and I still can't get the fact he loved her out of my head.
She left him and he was heartbroken and I think it's the fact I know he'd still be with her now if she hadn't left that bothers me so much .
I'm so insecure over her. They hardly talk as their kids are older so there's no need but it's constantly in my head if he thinks of her or loved her more.
I've tried counselling but didn't find it very helpful .

Have youndiscussed this with him?

You’re being silly. Presumably you’ve loved someone else as well?

He married you. Think about that. After all the hurt he's been through he still fell in love with and married you.

I've often thought that when someone knows and has experienced just how much hurt they can suffer as the result of a relationship, but is still prepared to trust someone new and try again that means more than when they committed the first time without the experience of that hurt.

The fact that he's not just in a relationship with you, but has committed to you for life. Yes, he will have loved her and yes, he might have still been with her if she hadn't left, but the fact she left shows it wasn't all love hearts and roses in their relationship. She was just the one to jump first. It's you he now sees in his future. Be careful not to push him away.

Try a different type of counselling then - CBT?

You need to knock it off as the only person it’s hurting is you.

Just because he my theoretically have still been with her, doesn't mean the relationship was perfect. Often once the dust was settled even after being blindsided initially you can see that there were cracks and flaws. And you can even sometimes say that in hindsight it was the best thing.

My second marriage is just not comparable to the first. I have changed hugely. New partner a totally different personality type. I am almost two decades older. I am in a very different time and place in my life re kids and career. Its a really different life to the one i had planned, but its great and am really happy and wouldn't change anything.

I am also incredibly sad at times that the first one didnt work out. But i dont want him and feel nothing for him except friendship.

Kindly, I think if you still feel like this after 5 years of marriage, then perhaps some therapy would really help.

A little bit of jealousy in the early days is normal, but not this far in and not if it's ruining your relationship.

If therapy isn't an option, then I think you need to work on things that boost your own self-esteem and own self-love. Do you do anything for yourself? And, if you do anything like looking at her social media etc, STOP. Even if that means deleting your own accounts for a while.

You could try something to actively bring your attention to when you are thinking about her. Such as pinging a hair band on your wrist when you catch yourself doing this. And follow it with a positive affirmation - "I am worthy of my husbands love. I am a lovable woman". Make them about you and not her! Because ultimately this is not about her, it's about your feelings about yourself.

Good luck, OP.

Were you never heartbroken before? Most of us have been yet when we think about that person now we feel nothing. Or worse.

If you've loved someone then list them, the subsequent people you love must be even better in your eyes otherwise you wouldn't be with them. Most people don't end up with someone they live less^^ than a previous love

Does he make you feel loved?

Have you not loved anyone before your DH?

Do you think the number of people you can love is limited?

Your DH USED to love his ex. As he should!
That relationship ended. Why/how isn't really important or relevant.

He now loves YOU. He may still CARE about his ex, which is fine, means he's a decent person.

Your insecurity is damaging your relationship so its time you got professional help to find the source of it and fix it, before it destroys your marriage.

Bit weird. Did you want to marry a virgin?

Jealousy is a terrible self destructive thing thats so hard to stop, once it gets in your head its really hard to root it out again , so I really feel for you!

I think to make peace with this you need to change the perspective. Life and shit both happen. One thing you said jumped out at me, ie "She left him and he was heartbroken and I think it's the fact I know he'd still be with her now if she hadn't left that bothers me so much ."

Yes, you may be right and it may be that if she hadnt left him, he would still be with her. But theres a reason she left. Maybe her leaving pulled the scales from his eyes, Im sure he saw a side of her that was ruthless and selfish and very different from the idealised version of her he had in his head. Maybe if theyd stayed together, that disillusionment would have crept in too. You imagine them andhim living in a kind of perfect bliss, but even if they had stayed together, thats not necessarily so. They may have become disenchanted with each other....maybe thie incompatibilities would have become more and more apparent - maybe he would have fallen out of love with her. You just dont know. So dont imagine some kind of endless love scenario.

And secondly, you know that this jealousy is a manifestation of your own deepest fears, and that is not that he lost 'the love of his life', but that you feel on some level that maybe thats not you, or you are not good enough. Darling I implore you to find a really kind and good therapist, and start working through these feelings before they consume you and become a self fulfilling prophecy. It may take time but it will bring you through these fraught emotional waters and give you amazing tools to deal with your feelings, not just in your relationship but in every area of your life! Im in therapy to this day and I would have completely self destructed and destroyed every good thing in my life way before now if I werent, I would literally have MADE all the things I feared and fought against, happen. Good luck xx

I'd suggest more, or different counselling, as it's not like he can change his past, and even if you split with him, then the next relationship is going to have exactly the same issue.

It may help to try and look at it differently. Love isn't a finite resource. You don't love your child less because you have another one. You don't love a parent more when the other one dies.

So why would romantic love be different? Just because he's been married before, it doesn't affect how much he loves you, it's not like she used up all his love before he got a chance to love you.

At the end of the day, there are thousands, if not millions of people on this planet who he could love, who you could love. All love is really is happy chemicals popping off in the brain. Yes, that means you're nothing special, but it means his ex is nothing special either.

What is special is that someone capable of making those happy chemicals pop for him, for you, at the right time, in the right place, in the right circumstances. That's the million to one chance.

One of those things weren't right for him and his ex, so they ended. Who knows if they carry on being right for you two? Stressing out about an old relationship that demonstrably didn't work doesn't sound like recipe for success though.