My D has now been final over 2 and a half years, and I've now been remarried almost a year and a half. As a bit of background, I was separated almost 3 years before my D was final. The D was my ex-W's idea. In the end, DB did not work on someone who really just did not want to be M to me. We have two young boy's together. At the end of my M, I found a really wonderful woman, who was also recently divorced. My biggest worry and fear at the time was wondering if we were both "over" our previous failed M's. We talked a lot about it and in the end we were both comfortable that we loved each other dearly and it was what we wanted.
What I have found is that the second time around is really better. My new W and I really connect, and we are so in tune with each other. My fears have not materialized. Thank God.
Where we have had issues have been in (un)expected areas, that were only concepts but are now reality.
I now have a step D 16 who is a lot more difficult to handle than I imagined. A few years years ago she was sweet and easy. Today she is a teenager with natural rebellion. As a step F, the guidance I receive is to love her and treat her just like my own, but the reality is that I cannot manage her the same way I manage my own two B's. If you're a step parent, you know what I mean and that it is a lot more challenging than expected.
The finances have been a challenge. I have alimony and child support which I am now fully used to and comfortable in making. I don't even think about it anymore. But as I have recovered financially, my spending has increased. She resents the money I give my ex, and hates the fact that it's not all mine to spend on us. I've also realized that my new W wants all the things that a first time W wants - new house, new car, vacations, etc etc. As my income has increased, so have my expenses. Keeping a budget as a D person is nearly impossible and I can see how a lot of second M can get into a LOT of financial trouble easily.
I also found that my Ex-W has been a lot more difficult than I expected. She wanted the D and I honestly thought it would bring her unlimited happines. The day of my D, I walked out of the court house with a great sense of relief. I had been so emotionally battered by the separation, fighting, uncertainty, and legal battles, that the actual D brought a lot of closure for me. That day did not bring my ex the relief she was hoping for, so she continued to try to get it through agression for a long time afterwards.
I have also found, happily, that I want and like being more romantic, loving, and supportive of my new W. I'm glad to see that I am not the same person I was in my previous M. Well, I am the same person, just not the same H. Maybe it's the love I now receive. Anyway, I bring a lot more to the M.
In summary, finding the RIGHT person has been really helpful in moving on, finding happiness, rebuilding my life, raising and managing my joint custody of my kids, and getting my life back. I am blessed and lucky. At the same time, the books I read on remarriage have been spot on - step parenting is really really hard, finances are tough, ex spouses do not stabilize for years, and you have to work hard on your M to make it work.
Great post! Hopefully we have all learned a thing or 2. I think a lot about what I want and don't want out of a relationship. I figure that the first time is a learning experience. Great if you are both on the same page and want to learn together, but not so great when 1 person gives up.
You're right marriage, no matter how happy is hard work, but if you love someone, and you married for the right reasons, it makes that work a lot more rewarding.
The step child thing, well she won't be under your roof forever, but it is a package deal. I don't remember ever hearing that raising someone else's kids would be easy but from reading what you've written, I think that you can do it and do it well!
Thanks for this post. It has been very difficult over the past year and a half to visualize anything positive coming out of this. Posts like this help a lot.
If that is you? Then I so look forward to when you post.
So pleased to hear that you are doing well and that life is treating you well.
My story is nearly a carbon copy of yours except you are 2 years ahead of me. Glad to see you getting the love that you give in return. Sure is a better way to live.
God Bless
Suit
"It's better to have no spouse than have a bad spouse"
Great post- we don't get that insight to often around here. Yes we hear about people getting healhty and then getting into relationships and that's about it. Appreciate you candidness, helps us to prepare and handle discussions about such topics before getting remarried.
Hey Suit- good to see ya. I'm doing far better than when you posted to me back on 11/22/06. You advice then was helpful and it made mor sense after some time had passed- thanks again!
Committed2Him- "C2H" All Things (Back from Spain!)...18
I sometimes still come back to DB.com, although I rarely post anymore. I spent so much time here a few years ago posting and reading. I actually started a few years before 2003 under a different name which I forgot and had to re-register. From the date my M really spiralled out of control to the actual D date was 5 years. I meet so many people whose D "process" takes that long, and at the time I thought I was the exception. Sometimes I'll envy people whose D only took them "a year", and then I find out they were in a completely miserable angry M for decade(s).
The hardest thing about coming back to DB.com is seeing all the pain and despair. All the people who think they can't live without that person who doesn't care about hurting them (I was that person too). I really want to reach out and tell everyone how I've been there, and how difficult it is to either work it out or to let go, but that there is a real light at the end of the tunnel if you can just move on. I am so happy and healthy now since I've moved on. And I guess that is really the only advice I would have for anyone - move on for the sanity of your kids, for yourselves, and for everyone around you. I drove my family and friends nuts for years whining about my failed M and my ex. My business bankrupted because my mind was tied up in my emotions. I still have regrets and saddness over my failed M, and I think it's healthy that maybe I always will. Oddly enough I sometimes miss my ex-W even though she treated me like hell for 7 years. This too, I've come to grips with and will one day move from (I tend to only remember the good).
Out of the DB techniques, what I have found really useful is that I refer to the methods in my new M. I am not going to make the same mistakes I made in my first M, so I am applying the "save your marriage" techniques before I actually need them.
I've been keeping up with your postings and man, you've done so much hard work and the results are showing. I've been so glad to see the Lord smiling down on you.
Hey, I'm so glad it is you.
You are so absolutely right about the pain and despair that goes on here. We both went through it and it just takes time.
7 months ago, I met my perfect match in all regards. We dated and had the greatest times however, hard to explain but I just wasn't into it like I should have been. She'd miss me after a few days and I'd be like, "oh okay", not having spared her a moments thought in that time. She deserves way better than what I offered her. If we'd met in our early 20's, I'm sure we would have eventually been buried next to each other and I would have never had a WAW. Maybe one day when the time is right, we'll pick back up again but not now. An R just isn't on my life's radar and it is nowhere as important as I once believed it to be.
It saddens me that I couldn't feel the same way because I feel a great loss for letting her go but I just can't at the moment. I so enjoy being on my own and being busy building a solid foundation for my future.
Allan, you allude to your ex being aggressive? Is she still that way? How does she demonstrate it? How often do you see her? How do you behave towards her?
The reason that I ask is that I have nothing to do with my ex. My kids are old enough and have cell phones. We tee everything up between us and the ex is out of the loop.
Up until 6 months ago, the ex would interfere constantly, whatever me and kids would agree on, she would through the kids, come up with a different arrangement. The last time, we had a text message exchange she got nasty and I told her to f#ck off and not contact me again. Not only haven't we been in contact, she doesn't seem to be interfering anymore and last week didn't show for our sons' parent/teacher interview. Her loss and obviously not the good mother I once knew.
I think she is super pissed that I bought and fixed up a house in an exclusive area that she always wanted to live in and she lives in a neighborhood that's questionable, that my businesses have become successful and even with child support, she had no money left at the end of month because of financial overcommitment and insistence on hanging onto a free spending lifestyle like the one that I used to provide for.
It seems to me as far as ex's are concerned, the better you do, the greater their unhappiness because they hope that you fall flat on your face when they leave you because you were the loser that was making them miserable. So in their theory, you should have shriveled up and died. Man, that must be hard to take.
I read here somewhere that WAS's see themselves as the victim and not as the problem. Never truer words spoken.
God Bless
Suit
"It's better to have no spouse than have a bad spouse"
Allan, you allude to your ex being aggressive? Is she still that way? How does she demonstrate it? How often do you see her? How do you behave towards her?
I see my ex regularly. I bought a house less than a mile away from my old home, in which she still lives. When she has custody of the boys, I am out doing my own thing. When I have custody, she unfortunately shows up at most every sporting and school event that I take them to. They are in baseball and soccer, and she shows up for most of the practices and games. Drives me completely insane, but there is nothing I can do to stop her from showing up to the public events. I guess she wants to be mother of the year. We also go to the same Church (different services), and our village is relatively small. It probably also doesn't help that I live on the main road in and out of town, so that everytime she drives by she remembers something else she hates about me. I attributte it to her not having her own life. I've also thought that she is jealous that the boys love their step mother, and how happy my family is compared to her life. Maybe she shows up trying to up my W.
Yes, she is still aggressive. The best way I can describe it is that I never know what ex I am going to get on the phone or in person. She goes off into lectures of why I'm a bad person, why we got D, etc. Definitely she sees herself as the victim, and me as the problem. Like if she could just fix me or get me to do what she wants, then her life would be great. She's rarely nice on the phone. My wife hates it and has said a few things to her, but luckily it has not impacted my new M. I think my-Ex wants to somehow still control me. Sad and pathetic is what it is.
How do I handle it? I used to ignore it as best as I could. Make excuses for her behaviour. But last year I became really firm with her. She had her attorney send me a letter asking for assets a few years early. I told them no, and as part of my legal response I laid it on her. She was so angry that I don't think she spoke to me for about 2 months. I also recently asked her if she realizes how hypocritical she is pretending to be a Christian and treating me, the father of her kids and her meal ticket, with such disdain instead of some level of courtesy. This was when on Easter Sunday she called me to tell me how I had done something or other which I can no longer remember ... She had to call on the most Holy of days to rag on me. I used to think she'd come around, that I could be the better person, and that someday we could be friends. I now know differently. Most days I wish she didn't exist. I guess I've lost all patience, I no longer miss or care for her the way I did even right after the D, and now I have a short fuse with her. Frankly, it's helped me a lot to be firm - and her too, as a lot of what I've said has sunk in.
Frankly, I don't know how anyone can be "really" friends with their ex. I know it exists, but I just don't see how all the water under the bridge didn't ruin it for everyone permanently.
BTW, you are doing the right thing not rushing into a relationship. If you are not ready, then why push it? I think one lesson to be learned from D is that we can love and be loved by many persons. But the most important one to love is ourselves.
If you think about it, the pace of your sitch was a bit quicker than most. Maybe XW is still processing some of the loss/adjustment to singlehood.
One of the major benefits of DBing is the push for GAL work. A person not fully invested in that sort of work likely will struggle a bit in terms of personal pursuits. At times I wonder if we on this board are too quick to label pursuit of new hobbies, interests, etc... as MLC stuff, when in fact it may merely be the same self work that we have benefited from. Maybe a bit more extreme or less planned, but if it works in the long run, is it really such a wrong thing?
I would actually applaud her commitment to your boys. It makes things awkward, I'm sure, but from the perspective of your boys, they've been robbed of the wonderful experience of being supported by BOTH of their parents simultaneously. Artificially keeping things halved - only one parent per function, would rob them further. I'd suggest keeping an eye on what's best for them, and letting the discomfort slide, if you can.
Is your new W uncomfortable with the XW's presence, or are you? Or both? I wonder why this is so.
Regardless, your timeline has been quick. My experience has been that there no shortcuts. The personal and R work must be done, or things suffer. LL you're still doing the early R work (e.g., budget agreement)with the addit'l complexity of this being the 2nd time around (e.g., alimony, child support). Is she receiving child support or alimony from her XH? Hopefully, this would help to make things more financially comfortable and less stressful on your new R.
