Feeling second-best to ex wife. How can I help him understand how I feel?
I’ve posted a few times about my insecurities about being back together with my ex-boyfriend of 15 years ago. 2.5 years ago, we reconnected by pure happenstance shortly after his marriage (to the woman he got with after we broke up) ended. I have come to realize that the normal step family insecurities and depression that I feel has been magnified tenfold because of our history together, and because of the fact that, the way I see it, he chose her over me. I have zero doubt that he loves me and is committed to our future, we bought a house tigeger, and our stepfamily seems to have blended with much more ease than most. But I still struggle every day with feeling like his consolation prize, second best... feeling like this has sucked the joy out of so many elements of our relationship and life.
We have had some knockdown drag-out fights over this. He sticks to his guns, telling me it simply isn’t true, that he never chose her OVER me and that he doesn’t/didn’t value her MORE than me, and I get furious because he won’t acknowledge the objective facts that provebit is true. I’m hoping someone might be able to help me reframe this, concisely, to help him understand. I feel like if we could just get over this bullshit, things would be much better.
Facts:
He broke up with me with very little explanation quite suddenly. I never knew why. Then he ghosted me. I was in my physical prime, an attractive and successful coed, and I had no shortage of suitors (90% of which I never have a chance to...). Our relationship has been drama-free and fulfilling. He treated me the best of any boyfriend I’d had so far. The breakup completely blindsided me. I don’t know exactly when he and she started dating (and he says he doesn’t remember exactly either), but it was within 2-3 months of he and I breaking up. She was an objectively average-looking, slightly overweight, kind of trashy/promiscuous/chain-smoking acting college dropout going through a nasty divorce with a toddler-aged kid when he started dating her. Yet he was just smitten with her. He moved her and her kid in with him almost immediately, and they were engaged within a year. It doesn’t sound like she ever really valued him fully or treated him well. It was a reportedly high conflict marriage, and suspected multiple infidelities on her part. Yet he was obviously fully committed to her and never would have left her, I don’t think. It was she who insisted on the divorce. He bent over backwards trying to appease her and begged her to change your mind. She was already seeing someone else when the divorce was filed. He and I didn’t reconnect until the better part of a year later, and in that year of separation, he only had 1 drunken one night stand with a woman, saying that he just hadn’t been even remotely interested in dating or sex until he re-met me.
Well, fast forward to now, and my insecurities. The way I see it, he chose her over me - like how is that even debatable? And the only reason he is with me now is because SHE ended it with HIM, against his wishes. Yet, he insists that this is not true. He says that, because he and I were broken up before he got with her, I was not an option ( even though I was single and we shared a few college classes at the time, and in that way, I feel like I WAS an option if you had wanted to get back with me). And he claims to be completely over her, to feel so much better in our relationship than he ever did with her, and claims to have learned a lot, claims to be wanting to live in the present and dream of the future with me, but that my insecurities prevent that. He feels that if I could just “get over it” that it would be smooth sailing for us.
We just have a fundamental gridlocked disagreement. I say he chose her over me, he denies it. How can I help him to understand where I am coming from?
Sorry about the typos
Sorry about the typos. I was using my phone, and now I can’t find the edit function for the original post
He didn't choose her over you
Your college relationship had run its course and he met someone else. You were not an option for him at the time for whatever reason and he had moved on from that young relationship. Maybe it was bad timing, maybe he was interested in other things at the time, etc but he had completely ended things with you and was free to date others. You make it seem as if he cheated on you or something when he didn't.
This is your issue. Quit trying to make him see things your way when he knows it wasn't that way. He didn't meet her at the movies and suddenly fall in love while dating you. You were no longer together. You were not in the equation at the time. He probably moved too fast with his ex wife and she was a rebound relationship but that is a different issue.
I think there’s an article
I think there’s an article about why men ideally want a smart, successful, beautiful woman, yet when given the opportunity, they choose mediocre women that IMO make themselves look good instead. My DH always tells me he wished he met me before BM. I keep telling him he wouldn’t have picked me, he had to do some growing up first.
This is so interesting.
This is so interesting.
DH always said how BM pestered him into dating her back in high school. He said he found her mediocre but he was too shy to approach prettier, more interesting girls and BM was constantly asking him to hangout, leaving notes in his locker, etc. Not to be conceited, but the difference between BM and I is insane. She is fairly overweight, dyes her hair green, tends to have bleeding acne on her face, etc.
This relationship sounds
This relationship sounds exhausting - for both sides.
If he admits you are right - then what?
If he admits you are right - then what? How is that going to make you feel? If he looks you in the eye and says, "Yes, you were my second choice," how is that going to make anything better?
You need to either figure out a way to accept and believe him or leave him. Otherwise, you are going to continue to be unhappy and if you keep after him about it he may end up leaving you. Has it been this way since you got together - or did something happen to trigger your feelings?
It is pretty clear you are not able to process this on your own - I think you should try therapy to help yourself get some clarity on why you can't let it go.
Even if he understands
Even if he understands exactly how you feel, how is that going to change anything? He can't go back and change the past. Maybe there was something about her that the young him found appealing. That doesn't mean the current him doesn't find you more appealing. Does he go out of his way to make you feel loved, secure and appreciated? I'm going to guess the answer is no, because he won't remove the ex-wife's pictures from FB that you've asked him to remove. THAT is the problem. If he made you feel loved, secure and appreciated today, what he did in the past wouldn't be the big deal that you're making it. Address that rather than the past. The past can't be changed; what he does today can be.
It's not him who need to
It's not him who need to understand, it's you!
Go get some therapy and deal with your insecurities. You are your own worst enemy right now and you will lose him again if you don't deal with your issues.
Op you say you have no doubt he loves you
unconditionally but you haven’t gotten over he fact this man dumped you before, ended up with another woman and then divorced her
whenever you are dumped and you find out he moved on, its easy and common to fault the new partner and compare her to yourself. She fat, ugly, trashy etc not like you
if you don’t wanna feel like a consolation prize then don’t date or get into a relationship with any man who had previous girlfriends and wives.
My husband was married 14-15 years to an extremely toxic, narcissistic, pas, manipulative woman whom he stupidly had 3 kids with. Hubby knows she was a poor choice in wife and mother for his kids. If he could do it again he’d rather be single till his 40s and marry me happily to avoid all this chaos and drama but whats done is done. Hubby also had 2 girlfriends before me; all 3 of these women were master manipulators, liars, cheaters and users. They wanted him because he was and is financially well off. They never wanted a relationship and there was never any chemistry.
I don’t feel 2nd or rather 4th to any of these hoes. In the 4.5 yrs i have been married to hubby, the thought of me leaving and divorcing him hurts him more than the hell any of these women put him through. It hurts him more than the hell he dealt with exwife and trauma of divorce and her kidnapping the 2 sd’s and alienating all their kids from hubby and his family. The reason why me leaving hubby hurts him the most is because we have chemistry, we have a genuine relationship, one where there is no cheating, one where i have done my very best to support him as a sahm and wife.
Focus on yourself and your relationship with your partner. If you constantly compare yourself to the ex you never truly give your heart and soul to this relationship because you are telling your man he is a liar and you do not trust him... thats just not a healthy way to live..
Exit the situation.
Leave the situation and if it’s meant to be, you two will find your way back to each other after your pride has healed. Regardless of who does or doesn’t think he chose her over you; your pride is wounded and needs to recover. First, he punctured your pride years ago with rejection and a cold, cowardly breakup method. Now he’s punctured your pride as a lover by default of the situation. For the simple fact that he returned only when she was no longer an option for him. As of current, it’s a cycle of emotional excruciation and you need to exit.
The structure of your current union with him is not sturdy and any future relationship doesn’t seem to be being built on strong, impenetrable framework. It doesn’t help that he wants to ignore the layers of hurtful complexity he added to the current situation. Had he simply shown you a modicum of dignity during the breakup, you probably would have been able to humbly move on in a healthy way and authentically heal thanks to proper closure. The relationship was damaged before it began. It’s not a healthy situation. Remove and release yourself.
Maybe your man just likes
Maybe your man just likes women that treat him like crap. I couldn't fathom how my DH could love and even remotely keeping sleeping with some women that he met in a strip club and put him in jail but he stayed with the POS for 13 years because of his kids supposedly. Some people just like to be treated like doormats I guess. OP do not drive yourself crazy asking yourself why his guy left you for a POS it really cannot be explained and you will never be able to make any sense out of it. If you truly want to be with his guy then you need to move forward and try to move on from what happened in the past.
At the end of the day, does
At the end of the day, does it matter? Do you just want him to tell you you are right? This was 15 years ago...
My DH and I dated in high school too, before he got with BM. They obviously didn't last, and we got back together. Shit happens. As long as he's with you NOW, and there are no issues as far as cheating or him obsessing over BM and the past, I honestly don't see the issue.
You obsessing over this is
You obsessing over this is going to turn your bf away. Men don’t like insecure women, so just stop. You have to control your thoughts. I do this by writing them down in a journal. Don’t let bf or BM know that you are feeling insecure because this just makes you look weak and pathetic. He is with you now and you need to hold on to that, not that he was with someone else a long time ago.
Let me tell you how this
Let me tell you how this feels from the other side.
DH is sure I’m going to leave him for someone richer, taller, better looking, whatever random thing he’s feeling insecure about. This doesn’t come up often, but when it does it hangs on for a while.
It is completely maddening. Our marriage, like all marriages, has had its ups and pretty serious downs. But it’s a solid marriage that we tend. He gets into his insecure funk and he just looks ridiculous to me. So unattractive.
I generally shoo him off to his therapist so he can work on whatever needs to be worked on. I have so little patience for his unfounded drama. Could be your DH is feeling like I do—no matter what I say to convince him that he is forever The One, it’s not enough.
I finally recognized it as HIS problem to deal with and he wasn’t going to make it mine.
Stop it. End of issues. She
Stop it. End of issues. She has his past. You are his present and future. Quit sabotaging this marriage and your own happiness.
If you don't. The failure of this relationship is on you.
Own it and fix it.
As for choosing her over you. He most definately did not do that. You said he started dating her 2-3mos after you broke up.
" I don’t know exactly when he and she started dating (and he says he doesn’t remember exactly either), but it was within 2-3 months of he and I breaking up."
If you can't get out of your own head over all of this then give this guy a reprieve and move on. He does not deserve your crap... and frankly..... neither do you.
He is no more the same person he was while you were dating in the past than you are. Quit ascribing your fears and what might or might not have possibly happened in what amounts to ancient history onto him, you and the reinvigorated relationship that you have together.
You re-met nearly a year after his divorce. You have engaged in the relationship as much as he has. He seemingly has no anxieties over his X. He may have fought for his marriage to XWBM. I did the same when my XW was first indicating she was considering divorce. That is what people in commited marriages do. Even when their spouse may not be as commited.
Are you going to let your toxic anxiety end this? If so, please do it soon.
And now I have a historical question for you. Did you suffer from this toxic level of anxiety when you and he first dated years ago? If so, you may have some insight into part of what may have influenced the end of that version of this relationship.
Please don't sabotage this. I actually respect your SO for not going down the rathole of enabling your anxieties. His staunch refusal to agree with your anxiety driven supposed " objective facts" rather than an actual current fact based position is worthy of respect IMHO. I completely understand that anxiety can be a deblilitating emotional and psychological disorder. Both my mother (severly) and my bride (moderately) have experienced it. However, anxiety does not legitimize or make things associated with it factual.
You are going to have to fix this if it is to last.
Good luck.