People ask me all the time how do you get over an ex? How do you know you are over them? How long does it take for that hurting to go away? When will you be ready to try again?
I guess having been married so many times I should be pretty knowledgeable in this area. I think “getting over” is not the appropriate term because it’s not like you were under the person. That person was a significant part of your life and instead of growing together you grew apart.
That’s the biggest reason I know my current husband and I are forever. We are growing alongside each other like vines. Our marriage started long before either one of us even knew. As best friends who had kids that we raised together from other people we were dating and not even knowing it. I was in an abusive toxic marriage but he was gone all the time and he actually introduced me to my husband and at the end my husband and the roommate he sent to live with me are the only two people he’d allow around me without their being some major conflict.
I’ve spent many hours wondering why my husband and roommate EX were allowed alone with me, allowed to get drunk with me, trusted with me. Now I realize my ex husband who I truly believe is closeted gay based on many things but he assumed that both my now husband and roommate X were like him, closeted gay men working in an industry that doesn’t really accommodate gay men ( which no one really cares actually) my current husband isn’t gay at all he’s just very comfortable with who he is. He also had been deeply damaged by his baby’s mother so as much as part of him wanted a relationship, marriage and children he was still dealing with his child’s mother and mentally he couldn’t handle another women like that.
We found friends in each other. I didn’t even realize how much we leaned on each other, how much we looked after each other and cared about each others kids until we actually crossed the line and started dating. Which November 16th is 4 years!!! For 12 years we had a dating nine sexual relationship that we didn’t even realize we were having. So all the good and bad and dirt we already knew. We KNEW who we were getting into a relationship with and we knew the pros and cons of us dating. I’ll never forget the first time we kissed. I’ve never been a big kisser just hugger with some people but that first kiss was like the universe exploded and I wish that feeling could have lasted forever. It lasted for some weeks we couldn’t stop kissing and it felt just as good those first two weeks. We waited and discussed us dating and what people would say and if it was worth our friendship before we had sex . As much as we both wanted to just do it we also knew that one night of lust could destroy years of friendship. So we waited but like a couple of giddy kids we made out, held hands and literally couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It was beautiful and I do miss the why that time before we combined our lives felt. If it was a drug I’d bottle it and sell it.
In our journey we go throw everything in tandem and as we age, grow as a couple we intertwine and become more one person instead of pushing part. His job limits our time together but that doesn’t change anything it probably helps we have space . That’s how this marriage is different. Our goals are the same, our growth is the same, our pain and damage is the same and our love for each other is the same.
In my previous relationships that wasn’t the case.
Husband number 1 or baby daddy was never meant to be anything more than someone to kill the time until I graduated High school and went off to my very promising future with a touch of pissing off my father. I had JUST turned 17 and he was 21 with 3 drug felonies fresh out of county and on probation for 7 years. Dating in our beach community was slim pickings, I was always too old for my age and the boys my age were morons. My dad never minded me dating older but drug dealer wasn’t on his list of approved thing’s especially since I had so much going for me.
Had my dad not been a raging drunk #1 would have bored me in short order but nope not my dad he had to meddle and control me, play god with my life. Due to his need to control me instead of me going out to accomplish great things through the hard work so had invested and the accomplishments I earned that would have pathed the way for a successful career, I ran away from home with a drug dealer.
#1 was more than just a drug dealer he was actually extremely talented and intelligent but being that he was the Star quarterback and Mr popular in the school, he graduated a year before I started high school . He came from the perfect Leave it to Beaver home ( so it seemed) but he loved drugs. Nothing I said or did could change that. We ended up in New Orleans making inane amounts of money very young, we loved the each other but more like friends because we didn’t any the same things. He wanted marriage and children and a do over of where his parents fucked up but he was too high to make that happen. I wanted none of that. I wanted to focus on my career and to feel single even if I was in a relationship. By that I mean I wouldn’t have to answer to anyone when it came to my accomplishments, I never cared much about the sex part or emotions. I knew early on we would our grow each other it was just a matter of time .
One day time caught me off guard and he got what I wanted, I got pregnant with our son. I was on birth control but no one told me that antibiotics would render them ineffective and I had chronic bronchitis of course the little we had sex I happened to be on antibiotics, and I found myself pregnant. He was over the moon, I was furious. I didn’t want to be stuck with him I wanted a clean break. I knew that no matter what I was forever tethered to that man, I also knew he wasn’t going to grow up and help me but I had to have the baby because I had no excuse not to. Today that baby is a man and my kindered sprit and we raised each other. I’d never want to know a world without him and his sister who followed.
He was born and so we got married and he was in our wedding. I tried to move to be close to his family and do the barefoot pregnant housewife thing that didn’t work especially when your husband is running the streets getting high all night while you are asleep thinking you don’t know. I felt I had to marry him and try for our son. Our daughter came along after a series of us moving to get him away from the people he did drugs with but no matter where we went he was there and he could find drugs like a starving animal.
I finally had enough and shut him out completely. I found friends to stay with and I’d come home so he could leave for work. I never cheated but I wish I had. Suddenly he wanted sex all the time because our relationship he was always too fucked up we never had much of a sex life and he was my first sexual example. I could not even stomach the thought and of his touch, that was enough to get him to leave me and I was so relieved he just told me he was going and left me alone with two kids.
There was nothing to get over because I was long over it. The only thing that hurt was the two kids we drug into our toxic relationship. Two kids who never knew their dad because when he left and I wouldn’t take him back he didn’t any that family nor those kids if he could not have me. He abruptly died at 31 when they were very young. On Mother’s Day no less.
There were a couple men between # 1 and # 2 but they were just fun and me acting like a women in their 20s who had no idea about sex but I looked like all I did all day was have sex.
#2 is my favorite ex as ironic as that is. We were 23 when we met. We liked Budweiser, motorcycles and sex. Considering neither one of us had a lot of experience with the ladder we had A LOT OF IT. He was a nice guy, gentle giant, never harmed me or even yelled at me ( maybe twice in 6 years) . We had a lot of fun together. Like I told him if I didn’t have two kids and he didn’t need to be stuck up his families ass we would have had the best marriage ever. Just fun enjoying each other. Unfortunately for our relationship I did have kids and he’s still stuck up his families ass. I’m fairness to him he wasn’t smart to begin with and he went to college for football, the blows to his head didn’t help.
Breaking up with him as hard. We had been stuck on stupid for 6 years and I needed change, he would have followed me but resented me so I choose for him and pushed him far away. The saddest thing I’ve ever seen is a 6ft 3in 300 lb biker get on his knees and cry. He still can’t move on past me and it’s been a lot of years and that makes me feel guilty. Getting over him was just getting over my guilt and knowing I made the hard but right choice for everyone even if it cost me a lot to get out and hurt him deeply.
Almost #3 . That one was the shortest but most emotionally painful thing I’ve ever put myself through. It was just a long con and I think that’s why it drove me nuts for so long. I was in a very dark lonely place and I wanted nothing to do with anyone let alone men. He pushed and pursued and forced himself into my life like a white knight, pretending to be my savior. At first I pushed him away told him to leave me alone. Told him to fuck off. He persisted. Finally I showed up at his house demanded he take his clothes off and have sex with me. I figured once he got what he wanted we’d be done and he would move on and leave me alone.
That’s not what happened. I shocked him by my demand and instead we sat and talked for hours and shared so many deep pains till the early morning. I told him my entire situation. I slept with him that morning before I left and it was nothing special just me ending it . I assumed I’d never hear from him again. Instead I got a call from my roommate that he showed up and took all my stuff and moved me into his spare room into his apartment, without asking me.
I was so angry but at the time I wasn’t able to see my kids at the place I lived so he “fixed it” that was the first love bomb. He happened to be close to some judges so he got me visits with my kids at his apartment. I fell so deep and hard for him because NO ONE had ever done anything like that for me, never cared that much for me. That first few months we were living in a haze . Like we were high on each other . He loved me and everything about me. He showed me off everywhere we went and made me meet his fucked up family. He went and got us a marriage certificate in Oklahoma so we could elope. Thank god this I said no. He had two kids too and he forced them on me and they loved me and my kids. For a brief time I thought that’s what love was.
Well, it was all a con and a lie and him using me and trying to get money from me. He helped me get my house back in order and we all spent thanksgiving together with plans for him to move him with me and us have all 4 kids. He stayed all weekend and left for work as a conductor on the railroad that tuesday AM, by Tuesday afternoon my phone was going off asking me what happened? Apparently he had changed his status from engaged to widowed on Facebook and blocked me. I tried calling him, went by his house begged him to tell me hat what happened for months to this day I never have gotten a real answer. Meanwhile he has our a tracking application on my phone and was following me. I found out later he was would sleep in my back yard to make sure I was safe. Again another one who was in drugs I just didn’t even know.
When I moved home he promised he’d come. I waited for him for a long time and he never came I ended up marrying actual #3. I didn’t want to marry him, I wasn’t in love with him but I cared about him. He just was so forceful and demanding it made me feel bad. One of the stipulations to our marriage was of almost #3 ever showed up it was understood I was leaving him and in return if he needed to her back with his daughters mom at any time he could leave me. He manipulated me into marrying him claiming his company wouldn’t put me and my kids on his health insurance unless we got married.
That was a horrible 10 years. If anyone nearly broke me #3 gets all the credit for that. He almost did it what no one could do before him. I tried everything but cheating to get him to leave me but nothing worked. Nearly drank myself and to death but he hung on. Ten long years of abuse being a prisoner without bars. Almost #3 did show up during this time and I almost walked away with my kids and said fuck it. I had a signed agreement that if he ever showed up I would and could leave . Unfortunately it was more of the same after the sweet talking white knight nonsense his intentions were made clear, he asked me for money.
If there ever was a time that I had to “get over someone” it was in that moment . I was so done and sickened by him I wanted to hurt him. I’ve never heard from him since nor do I plan to because that would be one very injured jerk.
#3 is just more of the sameS except I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him, didn’t want it marry him, he was just a nice guy at the time and I was alone struggling to get my life together and he was a good friend and provider until he became my worst nightmare and I went through hell and torture along with my kids for a decade plus. I was too scared of him hurting me and my kids to leave. I just shut down, we were separated but living together for two years no one knew, he stayed at work most the time anyway. I tried to get us help for our marriage because I cared for him plus I figured I could handle it if he was gone all the time . He blew all the money he could, ran up credit cards I’d pay off and make it impossible to have a job, friends or family. Slowly he killed my soul, and he told me he did that because he was jealous of me.
The last time we had sex he basically attacked me. It was consensual but he was mean and violent and it was so rape like I cried in the closet afterwards. I never let him touch me again or slept in the same bed with him. To this day I’m scared of him. My personal life fell apart around me which finally got him to abandon me because he always was a coward . It sucked but the best thing he ever did for me was leave me at the worst time in my life . Yes, my husband now caught me when I was falling and has nursed me back to myself a little at a time but I’ve helped him heal through his traumas and like vines we grow together together.
So “getting over someone”’ is subjective. We just have to learn our own worth, realize everyone is a blessing and a lesson in our lives. We have to know when to let go and move on to the next best thing for us . It may not even be a purpose it could be a pet or job opportunity, just move on.
