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How Can My Ex Move On So Quickly?!
This article below is from my own personal experience dealing with my ex and perspective as a 50 + year old woman who has been through divorce.
Equally, men experience the same acts of betrayal and are left bewildered and confused by their wife’s actions. It is important that they also seek support from men who have been through a traumatic breakup and a Divorce Coach. This article is NOT intended to discriminate against men.
My ex moved on so fast, even before we divorced?
In my coaching practice, the above questions crop up many times. “If my ex moved on quickly before or after divorce, it has caused an enormous level of gut-wrenching pain, I now have to deal with.” The dust hasn’t even settled, the ink has dried on the contract of your relationship, when you feel broken and still want to stay in bed all day. You might think, omy ex acts like his life has taken an invigorating turn for the better… new love, excitement. A new life! For me however, it’s another knife twisted in our gut.
Emotional
It’s even more hurtful when they start parading the other, new person around. We ask ourselves, “What does my ex think they have that I don’t?” Or “What does my ex in common with someone half his age?” They may move into your circle of couple friends, family, and attend all of their functions, while you are left on the outside, trying to hold yourself together every day. And the children, depending on their ages, are often forced to deal with having them there instead of you when they are with their parent or attending family functions. It’s hard on everyone… “except my ex who is getting on great”!
Several of my friends said, “I’m amazed that he has moved on so quickly! It’s like, to him, it’s no big deal. Leaving your family for another woman and moving on like nothing’s happened. How can he do that?!” I felt that I had been replaced. just like you’d replace a mobile phone when it’s no longer working. Tossed aside, no concern. Not an ounce of remorse or thought.
“There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one that you are capable of living.”
– Nelson Mandela
N ow they have contempt in their eyes, where once there had been love and warmth. Well … at least you thought that’s what it was. I’ve felt the same way. How could my partner of 27 years, simply latch onto a new person. Introduce her to family and friends, plan luxury getaways to far-off corners of the globe. Bear in mind, he’d always moan about spending money on a holiday for a family of four. Protesting about his workload, taking time off. I’d like to add, he left me for one woman and within the next three months, he was living with another.
The truth is, after divorce, people do whatever they want and usually, they will not be thinking about us at all. They are focused on moving forward, whether they be on their own or with someone else who is probably tired of waiting in the wings. More often than not, they do whatever they want as soon as they’ve left the marital home. Your ex moving forward quickly, is hard to accept after a long marriage. Especially if you didn’t see the breakup coming.
Signs my ex has moved on:
Here are some of the signs:
- They have a new ‘spring in their step’
- They change their image i.e. different hairstyles, clothes, etc
- Encouraging you to “just move on” yourself
- Re-affirming that “this will be better for everyone”
- They say “I hope you find someone who will make you happy”
- They introduce the new person to friends and family
- They want no contact with you or, even worse …
- They wants to be friends, and call to ask how you’re doing, offer to help with little things
My ex sent a letter to me (a few months after he had moved in with his then and now current partner) in which he wrote that he still loved, cared for me and suggested that he’d like us to have a friendship or relationship. Excuse me? that’s what I thought our marriage was all about?! The fact that he is pretending to be the “good guy” is infuriating. (No I don’t want to be friends with a person who didn’t value our marriage enough to work on it, or who would lie and sneak around. Have sex with someone besides me, while we were still married and not have the guts to tell me that he wasn’t happy.)
Your Life
There are many, many reasons to answer the question, “How can my ex-husband move on so quickly after our divorce … and especially after our long-term marriage?” As women, it seems if we didn’t focus solely on a career, we often have more invested in our marriage partner and our family. In midlife or late-life divorce, women are more likely to have been stay-at-home mums. A decision is usually made by both husband and wife after children start to come along.
But often, men start being dissatisfied with a spouse who they see as less exciting or who wanted to concentrate on making the family and his success the centre of her attention. Women of a certain age, are on the back foot when it comes to finding employment after a divorce if they gave up their career to raise a family. This pours salt into the wound, feelings of abandonment, rejection, and lack of self-worth are only exacerbated.
I had worked in London as a Legal PA for 12 years before falling pregnant with my first child. Before then, I had helped to support my ex financially when he decided to set up his own business as a Chartered Accountant. As the years went by, he gave up his business to become Financial Director to a local company. I was proud of him and our family unit.
Needless to say, pride is definitely not a word that springs to mind when I think of him now!
Some men, having more opportunities to cheat or to explore new relationships, take advantage of the situation. Also, when men have affairs when our children are young, we try to fix things and make our marriage stronger than ever after that experience. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Figures released in 2017 by The Institute for Family Studies revealed that the rates of extramarital sex are significantly higher in those aged 55. However, according to Nicholas H. Wolfinger, a professor of family studies at the University of Utah, just 14% of those under 55 admitted to ever having cheated. Since 2000, increased cheating has been reported by people in their 50s and 60s. Most of those who admitted straying had been married between 20 and 30 years.
Deception of a breakup
When an ex moves on quickly, it’s often because they have left the relationship emotionally long before we even knew anything was wrong. Most affairs have been going on for a considerable time before an unsuspecting wife even knew her husband was unhappy, or that he wanted out of the marriage. So when we are devastated with the news of him loving another woman and wanting to move on. He is feeling a sigh of relief that the “other woman” can finally come out into the open, initiating his new life. Most of us are often disgusted, ashamed, and in despair at the same time.
One woman’s daughter said, “Dad, I don’t want to meet or see her face. She is never coming into my house. If you marry her, I will have to figure out how to deal with it, but for now, I don’t want anything to do with her.” He asked, “Well, what am I supposed to do?” His daughter replied, “That’s your problem, not mine”. My daughter didn’t want to see her father’s new partner or child for several years but money was his way of achieving control. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive.” – Sir Walter Scott
Love yourself
M any men who leave long-term marriages have either been thinking about another or actively pursuing other relationships, long before we find out. This is cowardly. Instead of coming out and saying, “I’m not happy…we need to talk”, “Things have to change for me,” or “We need counselling/lawyer because I’m not happy,” they lie to our faces. For me, that was as hurtful as the fact that he “loved” someone else.
Effects of betrayal include shock, loss, grief and self-doubt. Even if we ask if something is wrong, they often continue to lie, *gaslight, deceive and pretend everything is fine while they are actively involved with someone else or just detached. Often they make us think they just need some time “alone”. These people often do something spectacular for anniversaries, planning a special trip, an expensive gift, a unique way of endearment. Only for a few months later, to reveal they aren’t happy and want out. This is contradictory, cruel and abusive. It complicates the healing process, making things more difficult for closure and put divorce behind us.
It was hard letting go of my ex! The bond of relationship has been broken. It takes time to grieve the life you’ve known. Regardless of causes or how fast my ex may have moved on, our job is to figure out what we need to do to make progress forward ourselves. For one thing, there are ways to move on in a positive way. Often our children struggle, too. We have an amazing opportunity to teach very powerful lessons to our children about how to deal with adversity. For us all to move on after a divorce, we need to keep some important truths in mind:
The more time we spend obsessing, the less time we figure out what to do next. It is important to connect with others who are going through the same divorce journey. I became a Divorce Coach so that I can be the guide to walk with my clients, so that they don’t feel so alone, helpless or lost. I will hold your hand through the storm, leading you back out into the sunshine. Friends, family, and even our ex may be telling us “just move on” but, only others who have been through the same with a Divorce Coach can understand just how difficult that is.
