I just figured out he loved his ex wife

[Argenta13]

So I 38/F am about to marry my partner 42/M When we first got together 2 years ago, he told me he and his ex wife should never have got married, he didn’t have strong feelings, they were too young but felt like he had to etc etc. I kinda framed my feelings about the dynamic of being second wife dynamic round that. He also has really good friend who coincidentally is a life long friend of some of my family and who told them when we met what a bore his ex wife is, which consolidated how I framed the whole thing in my mind. I also don't have much respect for her for a few reasons.

More recently however , I’ve figured out that he really did have strong feelings for his wife, partly from things he tells his kids about their time together and partly cause he kinda now admits it. For example, found out one of his tattoos is actually a tribute to her. I completely accept that the feeling are over now, but is it weird that it makes me feel differently about him? I know he loves me and dotes on me. Thing is I used to feel like I had changed his world, but I guess someone has already done that once before.

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Would this bother you or am I being over sensitive

Well to be fair I would hope if I got together with someone who is previously divorced that they did love their ex and not just married them on a whim as that would worry me more!

I think that you should see the fact he tried to downplay the feelings he had towards someone he was married to and had kids with really weird... why does he think being in love with her would be a negative thing for you to hear... although actually the way you've written it seems like it would have been which is interesting. Don't you think it's better he was in love, especially as they had kids?

Yes, you're being over sensitive and a little ridiculous. Your life is not a Disney film! Of course he has loved before and you didn't sweep in on a magic carpet and 'change his world'.

I'd think more, not less, of him for being honest with his children about loving their mum.

You need to drop the mean girl act re. his ex-wife as well. She may be boring...she was also his wife (I'm guessing for quite a while) and the mother of his children. You don't have to like her, but you do have to be respectful.

To be honest I would lose a bit of respect for someone who got married when they didn't love their partner. It kind of diminishes the meaning of marriage. I can understand why he downplayed his feelings to you, but of course he loved her!

@foxblue I totally know what you mean, I think if I had always known then I would have seen it as positive. It's just finding out now, I feel like I'm doing a lot of work to re frame my whole understanding of how we came to be together.

But you can have loved someonr and still know it was a mistake to marry them.

Or originally loved them and then got married because it was the ‘right thing’ but those feelings had faded by that point. Or you hoped the feelings would come back.

You can even convinced yourself you were in love at that point, but when you look back you weren’t.

It’s really unlikely he had kids and married a woman he never had been in love with.

I think getting with anyone (unless you meet at 15) and expecting them to have never loved someone deeply, is really unrealistic. I think you know that.

I suspect that you needed to feel you more than her. Better than her. That he never loved anyone other than you. That she was simply a mistake. I think you need to look at why you needed to measure yourself against her and his feelings for her to accept it. And do it before you get married. I think this is more about you, rather than him or her.

and for future reference a person slagging off the mother of their mates children and ex wife is a bore themselves. And if hearing that makes you feel better about yourself or your relationship, then that is the time to deal with your issues.

You were happy when you thought you were with someone who previously had no strong feelings but brought children into the world in a relationship he wasn’t bothered about and was too young for?

I think you were incredibly naive to believe this version of events, and also he is a dick to try and paint his ex-wife as someone who railroaded him into everything as if he had no choice over anything. He sounds pretty pathetic to be honest.

Course she was 'boring'. She had to look after the kids and get shit stains off the bog, not entertain his mates.

You'll probably be 'boring' too, soon enough.

He loved her first. He had a wedding, a marriage, his babies with her. It's only right that he tells his children that he loved their Mum.

And now he loves you.

It sounds like he was telling you what he thought you wanted to hear. Who would benefit from that @Argenta13 ?

I think it's common for people to focus on the bad stuff when they look back at a failed relationship.

It is a bit immature though.

It would be more mature and balanced to say "we loved each other at a time but there were lots of issues/problems and the relationship ultimately failed".

Or just say nothing.

I understand totally why you're a bit uncomfortable... Because

a. He's not that mature or balanced, and

b. You built a relationship with him thinking he didn't fully/really love his ex, it was dysfunctional; and in contrast your relationship was very different from theirs. And he led you to think that. So you feel like your investment is based on something that's not true/accurate.

Along with that the feeling that if your relationship with him isn't so different, it could break down like theirs did (even with their kids on the scene).

Well of course he loved her, he married her.

You do realise how marriages work don't you?

If you continue with this soap opera thinking you will be disappointed soon

you can love more than one person in your lifetime! i loved my EXH once but those feelings change.

i'd be more worried if your DH was now married to you and still in love with his ex, now thats a whole different kettle of fish.

when i met my current husband, while dating it became very clear that his EXW was still in love with him, even though they had divorced some 10 years before i met him. I saw it and offered to step back so they could work things out, and he refused stating he didn't share those feelings, and even now, another 11 years have passed and she is very clearly still in love with him but i know my husband loves me dearly.

Yes this. Relationships have a life span - sometimes long and sometimes not so long. But hopefully yes he did not fuck some woman over by marrying her and having precious children with her while not actually loving her. If he loved her, that is a good thing.

But the marriage did not last and now he loves you. That's what is key now.

Dissing his wife, and his friends dissing his wife is not a good look.

I'm a second wife. They were married 5 years and the marriage was a bright flame that burnt out fast. Ours is longer (20 years). I had relationships where i loved and it did not last. I loved them - not always advisedly, but with true faith. I expect that is the same with DH as well.

Nobody has to respect anyone.

you don’t know the ex, whether she deserves respect or not. Being married and having kids does not automatically command respect.

i do not respect dh’s ex. She had an affair, emptied their joint accounts, and alienated his kids when it suited her.

Op not only did he love her, he had children with her, and they had happy years together. Please try to respect that and not compete. Your relationship is different. Theirs ended, it no longer worked.

do you suffer from jealousy? Is this it?

I didn't say she had to respect her. I said she had to be respectful (in her behaviour). There is no value in coming into a family and being disrespectful and unpleasant to someone.

My ex wasn’t very nice to me by the end of our relationship but tells our kids how great I am and I think it’s because he thinks that will keep them happy. They remember what he was like towards me so they found it very awkward and reinforces their view that he is full of 💩

It is a cliche for men who don’t do their share of housework and childcare to find their partner boring because the woman is too knackered to shag them as much as when they were child free. Plus a friend wouldn’t be complimentary about an ex in front of you.

How soon is the wedding? 2 years isn't that long to be together as it's often the honeymoon period where you do overlook some amber/red flags.

It is not an easy life being a step mum/2nd wife so make sure you know exactly what you are signing up to and if you can tolerate the life. Now (pre marriage) is probably as good as it gets, especially if children are young and not yet ay teen stage. Also are you confident you know why he fell out of love with his ex? Did he get bored, which absolutely can happen if young children come along

He and his mates slagging off his ex & mother of his kids seem a bit immature.

Anyway, they clearly loved each other at one point but it didn't work long term, it broke down, end of.

You're together now and unfortunately your view of the relationship as being totally different to his marriage and something he hasn't experienced before (which he led you to believe) has been proven to be a fallacy. So you either adjust to the revised (and more balanced) position that your relationship, like everyone else's, may work out long-term or it may not. (Maybe you're better suited as long-term partners, maybe he won't want two broken major relationships esp. after having kids involved with another partner, maybe he'll have matured ... Then there's your side. No-one knows how things will go.

Or you don't adjust to the revised view and toh end it.

Did you say it's only been 2 years? I'd give it a bit longer before major commitments involving finances and kids.

Op of course he loved his ex wife, but he's with you now. We all gather baggage through life, it's how it works

I think it was foolish to ever believe that he didn’t love someone that he married and had children with- there was obviously love there.

I also don’t think it’s massively uncommon that he framed it the way he did, I can’t imagine he’d have had much luck starting something with you if he was telling you how much he loved his ex wife, their marriage etc. People do downplay past relationships, and once they are out of them the feelings do feel different, hindsight is 20/20 and your friends are hardly going to comment on how amazing your ex was.

If you are otherwise happy with him this wouldn’t bother me, if anything I’d never have believed he didn’t love her to begin with and the thought he’d married and had kids with someone that he had no feelings for would have been a bigger red flag to me.

Your approach sounds a bit rose tinted and naive. As others say, surely marrying and having kids with someone you don't love would make him seem like a psycho?!
Of course he probably fell out of love with her, hence the split. But I don't know why he needs to bring her up so much. It seems weird to talk to you about his past marriage in such detail, good or bad. To the point that you say you don't have respect for her. Well, there's two sides to every story isn't there.
So you are being unreasonable, but so is he in many ways by the looks of it.

Okay your second response has me wondering if you had an affair or if you started seeing him very soon after the end of the marriage, was that the case?

Another factor occurred to me for his narrative - which is a lack of personal responsibility.

It's easier for him to say he/they were too young, she fell pregnant (?), he was rail roaded into commitment and marriage, he never truly chose it or had the right feelings, she's a bitch or not his type or whatever; and that's why it failed.

Because that removes any responsibility on his part for the failure of his marriage (and break down of his kids' original family)

And you can bet he had some responsibility. (Not saying she didn't have any).

But he's not taking responsibility for his part in the failure. He's just saying he got rail roaded into it, it was never right and she's a bitch.

That means he's not big on responsibility, reflection and perhaps not capable of changing things about his behaviour (any behaviour that would impact negatively on a relationship).
I'd therefore advise caution re. throwing your lot in with him.

All the second wives on here get very angry when I say this but, imho many divorced and separated men - even more so with kids - are divorced and separated for a reason. And the reason is not just that their ex wives are all crazy, nasty bitches.

Are you expediting this to try to have kids of your own asap or do you already have them?