How did you handle knowing your Ex had start sleeping with another guy?

MonarchistExtreme · 2025-01-03T17:25:46+00:00

I mean I'm pretty sure it bothered us all but this is a very surface feeling. The deeper pain is reflecting on the wasted years of your life, the lying and deceit. I got over the fact my wife was the town bicycle in stage one. It took years to get over how much of myself I sacrificed to please someone who showed me such little regard.

In your situation the best thing you can do is invest emotionally in your kid. Be the best dad you can be. If she's got a new man in her life that's so insecure he won't allow the kid's father to enter the house, that dysfunction will show in other areas. Hopefully it will alienate your child from him and her and you can get your kid 100% of the time. The best revenge is making your kid disfavor the mother, not by being underhanded but by being the best parent you can be.

Fun_Employment_3754 · 2025-01-03T11:37:43+00:00

This would really hurt me. I can completely relate to how you feel. All I can say is stay strong!

Squidgy68 · 2025-01-03T10:53:34+00:00

So to add to the story like I said we stayed friendly but as off the 2nd she has said she wants no contact unless it's to do with our son which is fair enough but boy does that hurt I couldnt pin down what I was feeling as my head was all over the place but after talking to people it's grief at the loss of what was my best friend and also the realisation that it is finally over and time to move on..Am I hurting yes for sure will the pain pass definitely over time I just have to accept that her actions are out of my control and I need to focus on me and my son...One strange this is over last few days when I text her the replies are not from her I've know her for 20yr and the way the texts are worded feel like they have either been wrote my a shrink or AI very strange.

Icerunner45 · 2025-01-03T05:53:08+00:00

Pretty sure she already has been, but I would rather not know.

Coffeguy649 · 2025-01-03T01:23:27+00:00

Gets easier with time, I used to get sick thinking about it.

Try finding someone else to focus on even if it’s little flings. The flings help at first but eventually you will want an actual connection with someone.

2 years later, I couldn’t care less

jkw118 · 2025-01-02T23:34:01+00:00

So 1st time at first I felt angry.. similar to you.

Now I'm just like please fn take her out of state so I barely have to deal with her.. lol

Yes my ex did everything she could to project me as a bad father/dad.. Then everyone realized she's a ridiculously bad person/parent... Kids are mainly with me.

I feel bad for the ex's fiance, I mean damn he should be running.. But not my problem now..

vtpdc · 2025-01-02T23:07:56+00:00

Why do you care? Millions of women sleep with other men every day. Yes, you used to be married to this particular woman, but specifically why do you care? It's certainly okay to be bothered by this, but thinking about why it bothers you may help you address it. Best of luck.

Substantial-Run3367 · 2025-01-02T19:51:34+00:00

I felt bad for him... She is going to use him just like everyone else in her life..

Ok-Guidance6491 · 2025-01-02T18:06:14+00:00

I am right there with you. It still kills me when I see the guys car parked over there, especially when she has the kids. I have asked her not to bring the guy around our boys, but she won’t listen. She is in MLC/affair fog. I am a little pleased to know that my older one just stays in his room and avoids him. I’d say i can’t believe she is so selfish to bring a strange man around our sons, but really she is just recreating the same crap that happened in her childhood.

Long-Review-1861 · 2025-01-02T10:09:25+00:00

Radical acceptance bro, that's all you can do.

Accept that she's trying to impress and lock down another guy. It's all a mating ritual.

So she will pull out all the stops. Be brutal with yourself and accept that another guy will give her pleasure, make her cum, that she will bite her lip when she's riding him.

That she will swallow his cum happily and let him have his way with her.

It's sucks and it hurts like crazy but it's gonna happen so only thing you can do is accept it and move forward.

Btw find yourself a pretty woman and let her impress you

Squidgy68 · 2025-01-02T10:00:02+00:00

Thanks for all the replies guys they have helped alot.

bk2747 · 2025-01-02T06:42:22+00:00

Simple, I stopped giving a shit. I’m sure she’s been bent over plenty, however, I have no idea. I don’t follow her on any social media and she keeps it away from our son because she knows there’s lines not to cross when it comes to that (my wife did not walk over me in divorce, I filed). So there are boundaries established.

Set your own boundaries and don’t react. You shouldn’t be following her on any social media or anything btw.

My ex wife is not allowed in my home either. Continue to work on yourself, keep your eyes on what you can control.

SnooSprouts5398 · 2025-01-02T03:02:55+00:00

Who cares you don’t own that person just let it go before you hurt any longer

probebeta · 2025-01-02T02:36:10+00:00

Just sleep with other women too and it will sting less. Eventually you'll just laugh that the new guy gets to put memory cards in, fix her drawers and take the garbage out. Meanwhile focus on spending quality time with you kid, forget what happens while you do t have him with you.

Reflog1791 · 2025-01-02T02:22:05+00:00

Putting the memory card in a play station is nothing. Take him fishing, golfing, camping, sporting event, or 1000 other things and have fun doing it.

You cannot be replaced by new guy. The harder they try the worse it will backfire. Welcome their silly games and be dad of the year for 2025 and beyond.

deuceice · 2025-01-02T02:20:44+00:00

For one thing... Don't react... Even if you have to see it. Chuckle, smirk and walk away. She will be crushed when she feels her attempts to anger you fail.

Never let her see you sweat.

Chazilla80 · 2025-01-02T01:14:56+00:00

Goes away over time.

No-Marsupial1823 · 2025-01-01T23:50:35+00:00

There is no handling it. You will be forced to accept it. Period. We don’t have control anymore. They don’t owe us any type of loyalty anymore. It’s a hard pill to swallow. Walk away and mind your own business. Do better for your self

Character-Change-507 · 2025-01-01T22:56:14+00:00

Well we were still together and living under the same roof so I was pretty devastated and handled it probably as poorly as one could. I kicked her ass to the curb

jimsmythee · 2025-01-01T21:52:53+00:00

I laughed my ass off. She likes to play a good game that she’s loving sex all the time. Get married? Switched to a cold fish.

Guy she married after me? Same crap. He was smart though: he left her after 6 months of “wedded bliss”

redwzrd · 2025-01-01T21:44:41+00:00

My divorce ist even final and she hasn't moved out yet. She has plans to meet up with her online lover. Told her she need to be gone before that happens because she's not comming back to my house after her little affair.... talk about kick in the nuts.

No-Degree-4548 · 2025-01-01T21:42:30+00:00

I know its not much of a consolation, but at least your ex waited for the divorce or even waited a year who knows actually. My wife of 12 years told me she was not happy, to walk out and next day into a hotel with a guy who she had been talking to for idk how long. It has now been 7 weeks since she left, she is already living with this guy in another state and I cant even file for divorce for another 3 months since I am new to the state and it requires 6 months residency to even get a divorce.

rsmiley77 · 2025-01-01T21:37:57+00:00

Mine was also in a relationship(s) before the divorce. Oddly enough she had a stronger reaction when I started dating than I had when she started dating. She became violent with threats and intimidation.

I did have a moment when (came home to her and her fling in the bed I was sleeping in every night) I was able to walk out the door and accept the trash that she was. At that moment I understood this wasn’t the person I thought I knew.

You may not have a moment like I had that made it easy to flip the switch… but you need to come to the same conclusion. The only thing you can do no matter what your hope for the future is to move on and live your best life. Don’t look back.

Masiaka · 2025-01-01T21:19:08+00:00

I've unfortunately got some experience in this department. I'm gonna assume some things based on your post; I'm assumintg you were in a very comitted, very monogamous relationship and saw this person as your forever person. That didn't work out.

When she was dating, the concious part of your brain understood what was happening and you started to emotinonally process and move on. Thing is, that isn't a neat, linear process. Subconciously, we hang on to all kinds of thoughts and feelings, and just like the children in a divorce, the fact that she was 'only dating' with little other knowledge means somewhere deep your brain you thought "Well, maybe there's a chance we'll get back together."

And then you find out she's sleeping with someone. Your brain can't hold those two ideas together, so you feel the pain, the sense of loss, and the grief all over again. You 'know' she's moved on, but subconciously, you're closer to *really* knowing.

And she's got her new guy doing "Dad" stuff, so you feel replaced. Your sense of family and your place in it has been upended and you're wondering how special you'll really be if someone else is doing all those same things a Dad should do for their kid. That's incredibly normal to feel and you're okay to feel that way. Take heart, you will always be their biological father. Nothing will ever change that. You want and deserve a relationship with your kid. Fight for that, if you have to. Anyone can walk into a kid's life, spin a few party tricks, hand them a toy and make friends with them instantaneously. That's how kids are. What really matters is how you show up in their life every day and that you work on having the healthiest, happiest relationshp possible with your kid.

Some day, the dust will settle. If Mom and you have your heads on straight, when all the hurt is addressed and you have what I call 'good enough' healing, maybe, just maybe, you guys can coparent together and she won't mind you coming in to do a little thing for your kid. Right now though, you both need boundaries and you can best show how you still care for each other by respecting those boundaries as much as possible. Not having you in her house is absoultely a reasonable boundary and you will need to work around that.

I want you to know that all this is coming from a place of love and compassion, and that I deeply feel for what you're going though. I have cried myself blind and been pulled down into absolute pits of despair, where I felt like nothing would ever be right again and that everything in my life was broken beyond repair. I've felt threatened by StepDad and felt so angry and betrayed by Mom that it was all I could to do pick up the kids politely without flying into an indignant rage. I was cheated on, I got hurt, and it was not fair at all.

But it gets better. Hang in there and take care of yourself. If I can get through it, you can.

Any-Dare-7261 · 2025-01-01T20:37:07+00:00

Mine already was BEFORE she “didnt want to be married to me anymore!” How did I handle it? I told the coward, “Thanks for taking out my trash man.”

CharlesDanceFan · 2025-01-01T20:34:27+00:00

I caught mines cheating so I had to deal with that stuff from the start.

Always better to get it out the way asap I suppose

It’s a stinger mate but we’re only human. You’ll forget about it and move on quickly.

Objective-Bug-9205 · 2025-01-01T20:33:40+00:00

I still feel shit about it, even after a year of seperation and finding out about her cheating. It eats away at me that I get to be the one alone.

RevolutionaryLaw8854 · 2025-01-01T20:22:58+00:00

I put “who my ex fucks” on the list of things that I don’t give a flying fuck about. I don’t give it 1 single thought.

Don’t let her live rent free. Move the fuck on - she’s not your worry anymore

Unusual_University14 · 2025-01-01T19:56:44+00:00

The only reason to care if she's involved with someone is if you pay alimony or he's a convicted child sex offender.

For the first part, alimony ends when she cohabitates.

For the second (assuming you have kids), it's a significant change of circumstances because of child safety.

Wingnut8888 · 2025-01-01T19:54:01+00:00

Mine is dating again even though we’re still living in the same house for now. Accidentally ran into them while on a run — that was awkward. Tried to ask her about it and she started throwing up all the legalese of separation etc — clearly she had researched it all — and said she didn’t owe me to tell me anything. Which I suppose is true. But it hurt for a long time. Still stings now, but I’m more of a mindset of whatever , IDGAF anymore. Like someone else said above, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Would have liked a courtesy chat maybe that that’s what she was going to do, but clearly she and I don’t act the same. She also lied that she was out with friends that day. Anyway, again, IDGAF! And neither should you, in time. Take care.

NothingIsEverEnough · 2025-01-01T19:44:58+00:00

You’re asking all the right questions of yourself.

I can confirm that your feelings are valid in the context of your own wounds (childhood and adult)

It would take some more effort to dig further in and work through it to get to a place of understanding and acceptance.

Maybe journal about it. Maybe document what triggers you and start creating a map of these triggers to better understand.

Your ex has healthy boundaries. Yet you want to justify to yourself that crossing them is valid because it would only take 10 minutes.

Find out what you want from life and stop searching in the past for it.

Atom_____ · 2025-01-01T19:39:11+00:00

I don’t give a shit

broakie212 · 2025-01-01T19:21:56+00:00

Didn’t give af, I knew it was bound to happen eventually so I stopped checking up on what her life was up to. Clown ass got pregnant within months of separating not even officially divorce. By this point she was no longer my problem, some idiot knocked her up and has to deal with that illogical human. All in all she’s her own person and I had no ownership over her, she’s just one out of billions. Stop putting them on a pedestal. Don’t worry about finding someone right away, give your self the time to properly heal and learn to enjoy time alone. Once you master the craft of enjoying your own company, nothing can replace the peace of alone time. They tend to jump into relationships right away and they usually are short lived.

HalfTheMan611 · 2025-01-01T19:09:38+00:00

I remember feeling a sense of helplessness and panic thinking about this early on in our separation/divorce. Two years later, I genuinely hope for this to happen: I hope for her happiness and to find a partner that makes her happy. This is despite her being the walkaway wife. Certainly helps that I've found love, but in summary bro, it takes time to get here, but you will. I never thought I would, but I have!

ideastoconsider · 2025-01-01T19:09:14+00:00

Start dating, and when/if comfortable sleeping with other women. You will be surprised how these women will slowly change your perspective.

Title	How did you handle knowing your Ex had start sleeping with another guy?
Author	Squidgy68
Upvotes	29
Comments	53
Date	January 1, 2025 7:04 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1hr9shw/how_did_you_handle_knowing_your_ex_had_start/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/how-did-you-handle-knowing-your-ex-had-start.1540109 https://theredarchive.com/post/1540109

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