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Weep on the day your ex remarries? No, say ‘I do’ to a fabulous new life

July 11, 2012 by  
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By
Bel Mooney


PUBLISHED:

18:18 EST, 10 July 2012

|

UPDATED:

02:28 EST, 11 July 2012

The gathering had all the hallmarks of a girly celebration — smoked salmon bagels, gooey chocolate cakes and a gaggle of women giggling as a party planner showed them ‘sexy lingerie and bedroom toys’.

And no one was having more fun than the guest of honour, a middle-aged woman named Maggie.

Yet this wasn’t a birthday bash or  hen night, but a party held to celebrate — or commiserate over — the fact Maggie’s former husband, to whom she’d been married for 30 years and separated from for ten, would that very day say ‘I do’ to his new wife.

Don't sit at home and think about your ex-husband saying 'I do', occupy your mind and have a party with friends to keep your mind on other things

Don’t sit at home and think about your ex-husband saying ‘I do’, occupy your mind and have a party with friends to keep your mind on other things

While this may seem odd to anyone who knows the sadness and bitterness divorce can bring, Maggie said that as soon as she learned of his impending nuptials, she knew she had to occupy herself, ‘and not sit home alone, thinking about the day we got married’.

Friends suggested many activities, from going on the London Eye with a bottle of champagne to hopping over to Paris for the day, but she plumped for a party at home — and turned what could have been a sad day into a raucously memorable one.

The question of what to do when your ex-spouse re-marries might not be easy to resolve, and yet it’s very important. Because how you choose to spend your ex’s wedding day could set the tone for the next phase of your life.

The question of what to do when your ex-spouse re-marries might not be easy to resolve, and yet it’s very important 

What would you do? Would you get drunk? Methodically cut up all his/her old photographs? Get on a plane to New York to max out your credit cards in Bloomingdale’s? Stick pins in a wax model?

This was the fascinating issue I discussed on Woman’s Hour with Jenni Murray last week, in a programme that generated a huge response from the public.

The item was prompted by a call from Maggie, a regular listener, explaining how she had to come to terms with the dreaded day by holding that risque party.

Equally feisty was Anna, another caller interviewed by the programme. On the day her ex was remarrying, Anna was on holiday with friends in California. She started the day with champagne, took a road trip to Yosemite National Park, drank shots of tequila, watched the sun set behind mountains, enjoyed a terrific dinner, then drove back to San Francisco after three days: ‘Where I then met the man I married a year later . . . and here I am living in the U.S.’

So three cheers for those two terrific women! Instead of going to ground to lick their wounds they burst from their lairs and defied any feelings of being left behind on the shelf.

Of course, this isn’t easy. I know nothing of what happened to end the marriages of Maggie and Anna, but that back-story is surely the key to how hard it is to save yourself from feeling miserable. That is certainly my experience. 

On the day your former spouse make their vows, the bravest, most sublime thing you can do is to should 'I will' to yourself - saying yes to a fresh start, a new life

On the day your former spouse make their vows, the bravest thing you can do is to say ‘I will’ to a fresh new life

The day my former husband (to whom I was married for 35 years) remarried was perfectly ordinary. I worked at my advice column, which was itself a good route to reflecting that he and I were actually lucky, compared with many of those who write to me.

Why so? Because there was no animosity, no bitterness in our relationship — and I certainly find plenty of that in my postbag.

For example, on January 21 this year, I published a letter from a ‘raw and angry’ woman, divorced for nine years, who had chosen to miss her daughter’s wedding because her ex was going to be there with ‘his floozy’.

Seven years later, she has a new
partner, but wrote: ‘I hate [my husband and his new partner] with all my
heart.’ This reminds me of the old Chinese proverb: ‘He who cannot
forgive must dig two graves.’

In
contrast, a man called Andy tweeted Woman’s Hour to say that not only
had he attended his former wife’s wedding, but had given one of the
readings. I find that so uplifting.

If asked, I could also have
performed such an act of reconciliation — though it would have been
hard.

But arguably it’s a step too far — because the wedding day should be not only a new start for your ex, but for you, too. I don’t think I’d really want a walk-on role on someone else’s stage.

But I do believe you should do everything in your power to encourage the children of the marriage (whatever age) to go to the wedding, even if they don’t want to.

In the case of my family, this wasn’t up
for debate. They love their father and so they would obviously go to
his wedding — wishing him as much joy as I did myself. After all, what
else is there to wish? Shakespeare expressed my feelings in the great
line: ‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.’

Of course, the individual case history
is everything. My former husband was marrying a woman who had played no
part whatsoever in the end of our marriage.

If you can, go to another time zone so it’s hard to look at your watch and brood,
thinking: ‘It’s happening now.’  

I,
in turn, was living with someone else, whom I was later to marry, too.
In those circumstances, you may feel nostalgic, confused and wistful (as
I certainly did) on the day your ex remarries — thinking back to your
wedding day, with its shared expectations of a long life together. Yet
you are spared corrosive resentment — or, at least, you should be.

How
different it is when the happy new bride or groom is the very person
who caused the break–up of the marriage. Then the one left alone can be
forgiven for feeling a spurt of savage rage and the sense that the other
person has finally ‘won’.

And the wedding day rubs cruel salt in the wound. The agonising, on-going sense of betrayal and injustice is hard to endure. This is the real test. In these (all-too-common) circumstances I’d counsel the ‘wronged’ one to do anything possible to avoid lurking at home feeling angry and/or miserable.

If you can, go to another time zone (like Anna in California), so it’s hard to look at your watch and brood, thinking: ‘It’s happening now.’

Taking off with a good friend, joining a singles holiday, doing something out of character such as joining a Ramblers Association day out . . . such things can be essential methods of self-preservation.

This will sound bizarre, I know (especially to those who are very angry), but I believe the most liberating thing you can do, just before your ex marries someone else, is to post a wedding day card. While this may sound mad — or at best impossibly idealistic — such an action enables you to take some small measure of control.

Going to a different time zone could help, or do something out of the ordinary like take a holiday with a good friend so you don't brood

Going to a different time zone could help, or do something out of the ordinary like take a holiday with a good friend so you don’t brood

Even if you don’t really mean it, even if you want to stab your pen through the card and spit angrily on the stamp, you’re saying ‘No’ to being a victim.

The very act of taking a deep breath and writing ‘good luck today’, then posting the card, enables you to take a giant step out of the mire that’s imprisoning your feet. It says: ‘Whatever you did to me, I am damn well bigger than what happened.’

Because you have to be — for the sake of your own survival. If you reject all such suggestions, choosing instead to clutch pain to your chest for ever, you’re taking yourself down.

It’s you, not your ex, who is responsible for misery. Yes, you may have been wronged, but in making bitterness a way of life you are compounding that wrong. Confetti will rain down on the happy pair of newly-weds while you are drowning in your own tears.

Why should you? I don’t think any of us owe our identity to being one half of a couple. You were your own self before you said ‘I do’ all that time ago — and you are still that person, with one precious life to live.

On the day your former spouse makes their vows, the bravest, most sublime thing you can do is to shout ‘I will’ to yourself — saying yes to a fresh start, a new life.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.



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Anthony, No Longer in Sheffield,said “Most divorces are initiated by women. Yet they are furious when their ex-husband eventually finds happiness and remarries. How twisted can a woman be to want the man they betrayed to be eternally miserable?”
Yes I initiated my divorce; however I just got really tired of sharing my husband with a bevy of women. What broke the camel’s back is when he told me that he loved her and wouldn’t give her up. Well, then … I was happy when the ex remarried last year as his stalking finally stopped (stalked for 8 years after divorce) . He now has someone he can control totally (supposedly she loves being controlled- o.k.) and focus on. I never wished the ex harm, I just wanted him to go away, far away. Do I pity his new wife? Nope, she is a big girl.

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Why would anyone even care what their ex is doing? Very strange.

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Most divorces are initiated by women. Yet they are furious when their ex-husband eventually finds happiness and remarries. How twisted can a woman be to want the man they betrayed to be eternally miserable?
- Anthony, No Longer in Sheffield, 11/7/2012 Because although 65% of divorces are initiated by women, the person who is the reason for the divorce being initiated is often the man. For example, often the husband strays once or twice – he may not want a divorce, but the wife will initiate it. Who “betrayed” who? Obviously the husband!

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The best revenge is to live well, get on with life and make your own choices, who is to say their new marriage will last anyway best to concentrate on your own life and choices, I did and now I have everything and he is left with nothing after second marriage failed, ha ha

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Whistling in the Dark.

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“How twisted can a woman be to want the man they betrayed to be eternally miserable?- Anthony, No Longer in Sheffield, 11/7/2012 13:50 ” Anthony, you post on here regularly, usually the same things. This is the first time I have read a post of yours that really seems to reveal the pain that you are in. I don’t know if you truly believe that 50% of the worlds population is evil, or if that is something you are just telling yourself to deal with your own hurt; but I have to say: please get some help. I’m sure you can be happy again, but not if you wallow in bitterness forever.

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Never marry someone you wouldn’t want to be divorced from

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@Carrie White, Chamberlain, ‘Thanks! I don’t get it either! perhaps you’re right that people just don’t like happiness love – sad conclusion, isn’t it? I’m glad to know that at least one person out there agrees with me!
And to the anonymous “Shirley” in Bristol, “Jeez, Helen, I’d hope you’d move on!” I would like to suggest that you Have to move on if you want to remain friends with an ex. It can’t be done if you are either bitter or yearning for the past. I loved my ex-boyfriend very much but we both accepted that it couldn’t work out for us. When I met my husband, my ex-bf said “It warms my heart to see you so happy” – and he gave a reading at our wedding. He’s my best friend and a good friend of my husband’s, too. Since we both moved on, we are able to have this wonderful friendship which All of us value. It takes emotional maturity, but it is possible. Staying in touch Doesn’t have to mean trying to cling to the relationship!

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I totally agree with many of the comments here… I am friends with all my exes because the reasons I liked them in the first place are all still there, I just don’t feel romantically inclined towards them! My long-term ex is one of my best friends – he and his fiancee are invited to my wedding, and my fiance and I to theirs! And the boys have become firm friends. What’s the point of being bitter and angry if both parties have moved on?

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My ex used to say ” I earn the money i’ll spend the money” so what’s to miss other than GOOD RIDENCE. The next wife didn’t last the 16yr’s that I did. If I had done a murder I wouldn’t have been treated as badly as being married to that man, Her could not even remember his kids birthdays, YES ALL 4 WERE HIS. No thanks to him but I am so proud as they have never caused me 1 minute of grief . I love them all THEY have brought me joy happiness the grandkids are a bonus . LONG LIVE DIVORCE.

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