How to move past the ex wife

[Twogorgeousgirls7]

My partner and his ex wife split a little over a year ago.

We’re now in a relationship but his ex can’t move on with her life. They don’t speak often but he hears via his adult kids how she’s not moved on in the past year. They didn’t have an unhappy marriage, it just wasn’t enough, and now the kids are adults he took the brave or foolish step of allowing himself to be put first. They haven’t started divorce proceedings yet though she has said that she wants the house and his pension so I don’t think it’s going to be a smooth process though I stay out of it as it’s nothing to do with me.

she is aware of me and I am not referred to by name by either her or his two kids just “her” and “she”.

Just a couple of days ago one of her friends has Facebook requested me, which obviously I haven’t accepted but just not sure what to do. I want to be supportive, but it’s a lot of pressure and whilst I try to be understanding I’m not sure how to move past this. Do I just wait for them to figure out that their dad and ex now has someone new in his life or wait for them to accept that (or not) and do I accept whatever comments are clearly going to come my way if it allows her to finally start moving on with her life?

Honestly OP the alarm bells are ringing loud here.

You say you’re in it for the long haul and are clearly invested after a really short time. Keep your wits about you, as this is a man barely out of a long, long marriage - I’d have much higher hopes if he’d had the sense and maturity to give himself some breathing space before jumping straight in to a new ‘commitment’ - beware of realising at some point that you’re a rebound and company for someone who must be entirely unused to solitude.

You really really are not his partner. She is. It will be a long time before they are not partners - they are at the start of their next probably fairly long journey along the road to separating an entire family life, with their joint children accompanying them. They’ll be partnered in every nuance as they go through that. He’ll know what she’s thinking and vice versa, as they have done for decades.

Stay sane by NOT thinking of a man in this position as your partner. Have fun but keep your own life going and separate. Hope for the best but expect the worst!

Wise advice to keep your own things going.
You sound like a nice person, OP. So just take care to protect yourself. It is still early days for this relationship so enjoy it, but don't go all out just yet.
Let him sort his divorce out and watch carefully how he does it, how he behaves. I think it will tell you a lot about him.
He may well be a lovely guy who is being given an unnecessarily hard time on here but I would say it's probably too early to be totally certain of that.

I mean even your post title. She’s not his ex wife and won’t be for a long time. It’s not beyond possibility that they’ll get back together! I understand where you’re coming from but please, protect yourself from getting too involved here. Also… don’t take everything he says at face value.

He may indeed be lovely, but honestly, one thing he isn’t is particularly sensible.

The one thing you can say is that if this guy was a definitive ‘catch’, a gem, whatever you want to call it… this relationship wouldn’t be happening. He’d be old enough and wise enough to give himself time to mourn the marriage, work out what he wants, put his kids feelings first through the massive upheaval (yes even as adults). So 🤷‍♀️

Oh yeah, the jury is definitely out on whether he is a "nice guy".
But we don't know the full story - and I would warrant the OP doesn't either yet.
Hence she needs to proceed cautiously here.

A year isn’t a long time at all in the grand scheme of things.

You sound like you think you’ve won some kind of prize tbh and I’m struggling to understand why you’d be drawn to someone so freshly out of a relationship.