Your Ex Is Getting Married

OK, this is a sappy relationship question and not a disgusting sex question, but please help a girl out.

n.b. my ex is not getting married, but a close friend is in a similar situation, which brought it all back. I've been in the situation, and even if you think you're totally fine with it, suddenly you feel like you've been stabbed in the gut.

Your stories/experiences please.

yes i have to attend this soon. she's getting married to an old housemate of mine and they're very happy so more power to them. it will feel weird being at the ceremony though, especially since i'm bringing along my new SO, but they really wanted me to come down.

I guess it's less weird if you have a new SO. Odd rather than painful, in that case, I'd imagine.

no i don't think it would be painful. we split up and that was about 18-20 months ago, she started seeing matey boy soon after but it was clear they were well suited. I feel it's a bit strange bringing my new girly along though to see my ex get married, but she's not the type to get irked so it should be ok.

what's more sad is that his mother was recently found hanged, dead and her mother (one of the loveliest people i've ever met) is critically ill and may not be able to make the wedding. they're on very low incomes and have had to adopt his 14 year old sister.

I'm not saying that your situation is painful.

But the situation I was in was definitely painful - and the situation my friend is in very obviously so.

I wonder if that pain would be diffused or mitigated by presence of new partner.

x-post oh man that sounds rough.

Situation 1a: Friend #1 gets dumped and his ex immediately starts going out with Friend #2. Friend #2 asked me for advice about what he should do if Friend #1 wanted to pick a fight or start some other kind of trouble. My advice was that Friend #1 would probably be OK about it. Friend #1 was OK about it, although he drifted away from our immediate circle and started hanging out more with a different group of people he knew.

Situation 1b: Friend #2 is going with the woman from Situation 1a, but he starts acting like a dick. Basically male ego jealousy stuff - think Koop from "Human Traffic". Anyway, he gets dumped. A few months later, the woman is living with Guy #1 (whom none of us know), and they are having a baby. Friend #2 quits university (for a number of reasons) with only a month to go on his course, and moves back to his home town.

Situation 2: Friend #3 (a foreign exchange student) finds out that her ex from back home is getting married. This was the guy that she vaguely thought that she might hook up with again when she returned home. Friend #3's sister did most of the support on this one, long distance over the phone. I (and a couple of other friends) did most of the "hang out and get drunk" type of support.

Basically what I'm saying is: a) avoid making impulsive decisions, b) watch out for ego driven anger, c) avoid abusing alcohol/drugs, d) watch out for symptoms of depression (which includes a-c).
That all probably comes off as a bit sanctimonious. Boiled down further, it's "act don't react". Something bad happens and you want to do something about it right way = reacting = greatly increased possibility of doing something rash and making things worse. Taking a step back and thinking = acting = better decisions and outcomes.

BTW I'm not claiming to be an authority on this, and I'm certainly not claiming to be perfect. I've had problems with c) and d) in the past, and still have problems with a) and b) (as recently as this morning!)

In May two of my exes got married. One had been a long-term live-in. He married the daughter of one of our neighbors, 18 years his junior, who he used to call his "best friend".

I don't think "painful" is right. I have someone now who has made me realize what a truly awful person he was and how lucky I am not be with him. But it was an odd feeling. Fear for the young girl and anger that such an abusive, hateful person should be finding "happiness".

I invited an ex to my wedding, but I doubt she was bothered by it in this way - she had finished with me rather than vice versa, and was with someone else at the time. We only went out a few months anyway, and managed to stay friends afterwards.

FWIW Snoball, the Ex in situation 1 sounds like a piece of work!

Friend who is in this situation right now has been experiencing symptoms of depression for some time now, and I'm afraid this may make them worse. I hope not, but...

I just wish there were something I could do for them. Apart from just try to be there for gin and sympathy.

my ex (girl i always thought i'd marry) dumped me after 6 years of going out through college/humdrum jobs to become a very successful financial accountant/motorcycle chick within about a month. obviously i was holding her back somewhat. good luck to her, was a couple of years ago now.

concentrating on yourself rather than the ex is probably the best way to avoid craziness. i wouldn't be invited to any prospective weddings, but i'd probably have a twinge or two if i heard of one.

My ex got married.

I thought I'd feel strange. I was invited; it would have been odd if I hadn't as they'd been family friends for a long time. And, it wasn't an issue anyway.

If I ever thought 'that could have been me' it was more a sense of "whew that was close" although it was a long way from close.

I was happy for her. The only drama was when I went to take pictures, I found that my dad had taken the batteries out of the camera to prevent 'leakage' so I could not.

What's this "Name" box? I fill it in, nothing gets used.

hmmm. i don't think any of my ex-es are married, but i wouldn't be upset if they did get married. life goes on!

i went to an ex's wedding a while ago, and it was a weird experience. not because i was still longing after her or anything, but because i had actually had sex with her while she was together with her future husband. they had a semi-open relationship, and she told him she'd had sex with someone, but not that it was me. i still remained good friends with her, so i thought it'd be okay to go to the wedding since her husband didn't know about us. but then at the ceremony, when their friends and relatives were giving speeches about how deep their love is and so on, i felt like a snake. i had to get really drunk to make through the wedding.

my ex (not the one i was engaged to) broke off her engagement a couple weeks before the wedding :D

I am probably getting engaged again soon only about a year after having been disengaged. I'm definitely worried about the first woman learning about the new engagement, if that situation arises, since I still care for and respect her and don't want to see her feelings hurt.

Yep. That sucks.

concentrating on yourself rather than the ex is probably the best way to avoid craziness.

OTM

concentrating on yourself rather than the ex is probably the best way to avoid craziness.

Unfortunately not if one doesn't have much else going on in one's life.

And yeah, I speak from experience there. Concentrating on yourself can make you realise what a gaping black hole yr own life is. (This does not automatically lead to one doing something about it.)

Well, read a book or do some sit-ups and shit. Start waking up at 5 and only drinking water.

...reminds me that there's room to grow/hey, yeah...

Hang on, this isn't going on in my life right now, so that advice is several years too late!

(This is an actual friend I'm talking about, not an "I have this friend..." thinly veiled metaphor for myself, I would never both with anything so transparent.)

I think this is hitting this person so hard because they are having a hard time with the rest of their life at the moment.

every relationship is a competition

this shit is like 100% what the fuck ever, come on

^^^ cash sitta

i attended both of one ex's weddings. the first one (a long time ago) was pretty damned harsh. the second one (a few years ago) was no worries.

three of my exes (and one of my wife's) attended our wedding.

PP invited his most significant ex to our wedding but she was smart enough to decline.

Just like I knew she would.

Hey were was your invitation? You could have picked up Beats afterwards. Convenient!

I dunno. Not enough barstools to accommodate all of her exes?

this shit is like 100% what the fuck ever, come on

I think your feelings about it depend on the situation and how the relationship ended. My first ex, my ex-husband, remarried about four years after our divorce. I had no issues with it and was happy for him. Although we are still friends to this day I was not invited and wouldn't have wanted to attend mostly to avoid making his new wife uncomfortable.

This is reason 487,636 why I try to know nothing about my exes after they have attained ex status, let alone contact them.

They're not even bad people, at all, I just don't like having emotions.

I went to my ex's wedding last summer -- actually I was IN it, and it was wonderful! I don't think I'm just speaking for myself, either, because the bride actually asked me to stand on HER side and I think the world of her so... Kind of the best possible outcome, we're all really lucky on that count. Pretty unusual though.

This year me and my bf went to his ex's wedding. We're all very good friends now - she was a friend of mine even before my bf met her, and Ive known them both thru their 3 years together, break up, and on to friendship. I didnt start going out with him til a lonnnng time after they'd broken up and both had several other partners (for one thing I was with Nick most of that time anyway).

The only weird bit I guess was when my bf walked up to his ex's mum and said "hi Joan!". She gave him a rather suprised and weird "wtf are you doing here?" look which was a bit unexpected.

We also still hang out with *my* ex all the time, but he (nor I) are not likely to get married in any hurry.