Realizing your former spouse is better off without you...

[Ultralight]

Recently I heard some murmurings about my ex-wife from mutual friends. So I googled her.

I see how happy she is and how so many things in her life are going absolutely splendidly. She is really living her dream.

I can see now that she is so, so much better off without me. I was probably dead weight holding her back.

Anyone else look up an ex-wife or ex-husband and realize they are a lot better off without you?

[SteveinMN]

I've actually had the opposite experience. My XW spiraled down for more than a decade before deciding to take control of her life. I'm not sure how one measures such qualities in life, but MHO is that XW still has not gotten back to where we were (individually) when we separated. BTW I know this because XW and my mother remained friends after our divorce. Your wife liking your mom is great while you're married; it makes things sticky when you're not and both veer wildly into codependence. :(

[Ultralight]

My XW spiraled down for more than a decade before deciding to take control of her life.

What do you mean?

[Tybee]

My experience was more like Steve's, I guess. My ex would not deal with his alcoholism (why I left) and married again and was more abusive and sicker and died. He was estranged from four out of five of his kids at the end. His wife seemed to still like him fine, so in that sense, he was much better off.

[Teacher Terry]

My ex remarried and the 4 of us have developed a friendship. We live in different states but get together for all important things with the kids. They also fly here to see one of our sons and I cook his favorite meal and he does the same for us when we fly out there to see the other 2 kids. My kids are very happy with the situation.

[Tybee]

My ex remarried and the 4 of us have developed a friendship. We live in different states but get together for all important things with the kids. They also fly here to see one of our sons and I cook his favorite meal and he does the same for us when we fly out there to see the other 2 kids. My kids are very happy with the situation.

That's so nice, TT!

[iris lilies]

I often think it is nice that an old boyfriend found a wife who is better suited to his preferred activites than
I was. He is a big outdoors man doing full on hiking and kayaking snd cycling and doing lots of nature observation and photography, into his 70’s.

I wasn't interested in those activities.

While we were fairly well suited in several ways ( shared values about consumerism and spending money, liking similar films, reading, lack of religious interest, simple domesticity, and the ummm chemistry) he found someone even better suited because she goes with him on many of those outdoorsy trips.

And my spouse is interested in the same things I am, gardening, old houses, worldwide travel. The worship of bulldogs is an acquired taste for DH, though. He likes dogs but didn't gravitate toward bulldogs, that is MY obsession.

so while i was ok with ex, we are both better off with life partners.

[Float On]

I've only had the one husband but have an EX-fiance that we got back in touch a few years ago via facebook of course. He's gone through 2 wives and current wife they live in separate states due to work. He went from running marathons to weighing over 400 lb at one point. It was interesting reading his healthy living blog and finding the source of his weight gain and failed marriages was blamed on me abandoning our relationship.

My other EX-almost finance (I broke up with him the night he was asking me, I was way too young and headed to college) passed away 3 years ago from a heart problem. The girl he dated after me, he married. His parents never liked her and always wished he'd married me. That made a strain in their relationship all those years. He had a very rough last 2 years of life due to the heart condition, basically spent the entire 2 years in hospital or rehab center.

One sort-of boyfriend from college, he and his husband just celebrated 30 years. That sort of explains a lot of issues we had! :laff: Christian college and parents where he felt he had to like the opposite sex or it was sin. We are still best of friends. He's from east coast but his husband and I actually went to high school together. They had a great career in real estate in CA before the crash (lost their Malibu mansion) but have rebuilt their lives in NY with an international real estate company and doing wonderful. I still see them, they own his husband's family farm in my hometown so I get to see them at least once a year. In fact we just made plans the other day for a Thanksgiving visit and if I ever get back to NY city or Hawaii I've got a place to stay with them.

[JaneV2.0]

I can't believe anyone would be better off without me. :~) In fact

A co-worker approached me and asked "Isn't this your ex?" And there in the paper was an article reporting that a certain business owner was under arrest for insurance fraud. Seems he secreted stock under the floor of his business, claiming he had been burgled. That night, I got to watch him doing the perp walk. :0!

Later, I briefly dated an attorney. Our relationship didn't last long for reasons of geographical undesirability (mine) and the fact that he was a barely functional alcoholic. A few years went by, I moved, and one night I got a rambling, drunken phone call which ended abruptly when I hung up on him. A few more years went by and I read in the paper that he had died. leaving a multi million dollar estate to his sister, who was refusing to take it for some reason. The details escape me now.*

*"The bank filed the petition after Mrs. Moriarty refused to accept an inheritance that could be as much as $10 million from the estate of her brother, ... a Portland, Ore., attorney who died in May. Bank officials feared that she declined the inheritance in an attempt to block her husband's creditors."

[SteveinMN]

Originally Posted by SteveinMN
My XW spiraled down for more than a decade before deciding to take control of her life.
What do you mean?
Well, to use the year we separated as a baseline, when we split up both of us had career-type jobs. She was so unsettled by the divorce that her work attendance and performance got pretty bad and, eventually, she was fired. Since she was in a job field that was being automated out of existence anyway, she never could get a foothold back in the business. She wanted to keep the house we owned jointly when we divorced but when she lost her job and didn't get another one, the house ended up in foreclosure. So her credit rating tanked, too. At one point she took on four part-time/non-contract jobs at a time to pay her rent. She's gained a lot of weight, had some age- and weight-related health issues, and chose not to address some significant emotional issues.

She finally got into some housing in which rent was a percentage of income, which freed up the primary $$$ worry. She also got a job that offered medical benefits (including mental health). And she finally acknowledged that I, certainly, had moved on with my life and there was no percentage in hoping that things could be like they were. With a lot of pushing by my mother and by her closest friend, she finally started therapy to address the behaviors that got her where she was. So she's doing better now, but she did herself a lot of damage.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Yea like demonstrated a lot of times people going upward or downward has nothing to do with whether they are still in a relationship with you or not, that's pure egotism speaking (or in the case of thinking everyone is better off without one, an insecure egotism maybe ...).

- I mean first we need to see if they are really better off and since part of this internal feeling states you can't tell from facebook (or whatever). So they seem so happy from all their facebook posts, but are they really?
- But for things like career, it's not all about you and if someone is a relationship with you or not. It's a whole lot of other factors many of them random. In fact with career it's usually 99% other factors.
- The only thing where it is possible to know something and it being possibly due to a relationship is things like they always wanted kids - a lifelong dream, their ex-spouse was against it, they now have two healthy children with a new spouse. Or they always wanted to live by the beach but a spouse prevented moving and now they are (but does it make them happy?). Only things like that are directly about the relationship, most things aren't. ok perhaps their sex life being better or worse may be - but one has to have some pretty insider gossip at that point ... because really how does one know? :laff:

[Ultralight]

Here are some of the reasons I think my ex-wife's life is better now and that she is better without me:

1. She went on to make her living as an artist; this was her career dream (while I work at a mind-numbing zombie job in a cubicle)
2. She moved to South Carolina near the beach/coast (while I live in cold, landlocked, Columbus, OH - -the state I was born in)
3. She goes and does artist-in-residency programs and teaches art workshops throughout the country (no one cares about the work I do, not even me)
4. She got the Vespa scooter she always wanted
5. She is engaged to another artist who made her engagement ring in his studio of metal and set the diamond on it himself; this is something she would gush over, for sure
6. She probably makes more money than me
7. Her fiance is taller, much more handsome, in better shape, and younger than me; I have seen their pictures from The Knot and they look so happy and into each other, like they have that easy, natural love (my relationship is a ton of work and is not easy-feeling or natural).
8. She actually looks younger now than when she was with me, and she is in even better shape than she was when she was with me (I am fatter, tireder, and grayer than when she and I were together; and I have a chronic illness).

[Teacher Terry]

Were you stopping her from being a artist or moving? Having a chronic illness can be no big deal if it is something small like HBP. Now if it’s something like MS than a very big deal.

[Ultralight]

Were you stopping her from being a artist or moving? Having a chronic illness can be no big deal if it is something small like HBP. Now if it’s something like MS than a very big deal.

I was not stopping her from being an artist. I actually supported her. I worked while she was just doing art much of the time. She was upset with me for suggesting that she at least get a part time job until she landed a full time art position.

In a sense I was holding her back from moving around. I wanted to be with her. Whereas she wanted to take 2-3 month long stints as artist-in-residence.

She told me on the day she left me that she had until then put our relationship first. But that she was going to put her art first. Now she gets to have her art and a relationship that are tied for first place.

I don't have MS. But my chronic illness is worse than HBP. I don't want to talk much about the details of my illness though.

[Ultralight]

Don't get me wrong. I am actually very happy for her. I was so in love with her at one time, and I loved her deeply. In a sense I probably still have some love for her. Though I don't want to be with her.

And she still has my other dog, Lilith. So if my ex is living a good life then Lilith is too!

[Teacher Terry]

It does sound like she has the life she wanted now. Only time will tell if it works out in the long run. We only have one life so have to live it the best we can. Sorry about your illness.