I’m a 34 year old guy. My ex and I divorced nearly 3 years ago. Our marriage lasted 11 years and we got 2 beautiful children out of it. The marriage started collapsing because I had started working a job that constantly had me out of town and not only was I never home, but I was constantly stressed to fulfill the deadline on multiple projects.

I won’t go into the messy divorce details, but she got primary custody of the kids. We had a good relationship in the year or two following, the kids would come see me every other weekend and on certain holidays. I never ‘missed’ her though. I even got into a relationship, though it was short lived.

Fast forward to just a year ago, I learned that my wife had been seeing somebody. I knew the day would come but what I didn’t know was that she was with another woman, a woman who was just 21 years old. This al took my by huge surprise. I never knew she even had a thing for girls, but regardless, I was happy for her.

Not long after I found out about her relationship, they became engaged. That’s when it started to hit me. I felt like I was being replaced. I saw how happy they were and I began to notice my kids were wanting to spend less time with me and more time with their ‘moms’ (they got married not long after the engagement).

I’ve begun drinking more to mask the pain. It’s like it didn’t hit me that I truly have lost my entire family until my ex was actually remarried. I think about what could have been often. I know it wasn’t all my fault, but I constantly kick myself for ever letting my beautiful wife and our kids get away. Now, I’m letting some 22 year old raise and take care of them.

Perhaps the other thing that has made my pain worse is the fact that the ‘new wife’ doesn’t seem to like me and I don’t really care for her. I feel she tries to keep my ex and my kids away from me so she can have them all to herself. My ex is currently pregnant with their child, so maybe once she has her own, she will get over competing with me? I hope so. All I know is that I’m so sad and I have so many regrets that I’m just now feeling for the first time. I’m also feeling extremely envious of someone for the first time in my adult life.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.