“Whatever you do, please don’t waste time comparing yourself to others.  There is enough room for us all to be beautiful and successful in our own way.

 

Moving on after a divorce can be difficult.  If you are brave enough to look for and find true love a second (or third) time, consider yourself lucky.

When you decide to give marriage another go, it is normal for the ghosts of relationships past to creep into your new-found joy.  

The key is not allowing them to stick around.  

Call an exorcist, the ghostbusters, or Tom Cruise and his witchcraft.  Burn some sage, say twelve Hail Mary’s, and rebuke those demons.

There is no room in your life for past worries.  Fear not; your new relationship will have plenty of excitement to keep you busy!

It is easy to begin comparing your new relationship with an old one.  However, all that does is breed doubt.  That is not fair to you or your new love to harbor old feelings and resentment for things he or she had no part in.  You deserve another chance to find true love and happiness, and your partner does not deserve to pay for someone else’s mistakes.  

It’s up to you to choose happiness and allow yourself to move on and start fresh.

 

“I would be lying if I said I haven’t felt envious from time to time, especially right after my ex-husband got remarried.  Why was he allowed to be happy, while I got left with heartbreak and picking up the pieces of my shattered life and dreams? 

There is something I have learned over the years, and from having a front row view to my ex-husband falling and being in love. 

First, he deserves it.  Plain and simple. 

He deserves true love, no matter how angry I am towards him, or what my feelings are towards him. 

Second, maybe - just maybe - he is capable of filling someone else’s love tank more than he ever could mine.  Let’s be honest, if he wasn’t a good husband in my eyes, that doesn’t mean he is not husband material to someone else.  It means he wasn’t MY husband material.  So, it is time to release him back into the pond to find his fish and let me find mine. 

Lastly, just because he is not giving me all he is giving to another woman, does not mean I don’t get anything from him.  Weird?  Yes!  

I get a happier co-parent, a better dad to our sons, an additional bonus mom, a best freaking friend, and essentially an overall healthier, happier, better functioning family. I’d say I am actually getting the best of him falling in love with someone else. 

Now, I do want to point out, that I am aware not everyone may find it as easy to just compartmentalize things the way I do now.  Disclaimer: it was not always this way for me. I felt insecure, and jealous.  I acted petty, spoke negative things about him, cried over him, hated him and also wanted him back - once upon a time. 

It took a lot of self-evaluation and reminding myself that we were better people without one another, and him moving on had nothing to do with my worth.”  -Loren

 

Your ex is not a reflection of your worth! 

It is important for you to believe that.  Repeat it over and over until it sinks in.  Remind yourself that the future holds so many new opportunities.

It is equally important to keep in mind that you are not your spouse’s ex.  You should not compare yourself to that person, and you should not try to become that person.  If your spouse wanted their ex, they would likely still be married to them.

Comparison really is the thief of joy.

Also, it can be easy to let yourself get caught up in trying to analyze your spouse’s previous relationships.  Whether it be to figure out what they liked about their ex so you can imitate those habits or learning all the things they disliked about their ex, so you are sure not to repeat the pattern.

 

“Being the third wife is not a hat I ever thought I would wear.  Of course, neither was being married three times.  Naturally it has brought with it some insecurities.  On top of the ones I have already been carrying around for years, you can imagine it makes for a very interesting mindset.

It was obvious when I looked at Loren to wonder what in the world John was thinking when he chose me.  Bless his heart, he took a step down in the looks department.  Not only was Loren considerably younger than me, she was certainly more attractive than me.

She had also given John something that I would never be able to give him, one of the greatest gifts of all time – children.  

It was so easy for me to get sucked into the rabbit hole of doom.  Being a numbers person, I already figured that the odds were against us – statistically speaking.  Add to that the stress of a bitter custody battle, and we may as well have had a divorce attorney on speed dial.

However, that is the exact mindset that would have destroyed our marriage before we even gave it a fighting chance.  To say it was easy would be a terrible lie.  

Were there days that I wished I could have asked Loren for the “John Handbook”?  Certainly.  After all, she had known him longer, therefore she must have all the secrets.

Were there times that I wished I could have had a glimpse into what their marriage was like?  Absolutely!  I wanted to make sure we didn’t make the same mistakes in our marriage that they had.

It took time, but I realized that I needed to stop tormenting myself by trying to compare my love with John to the love he and Loren had.  Those were two very different facets.

Once I was able to focus on our relationship and the life we were trying to build, that’s when our happily ever after truly began.  I could no longer consume myself with the fact that I would never be his first love or his first kiss.  We had to be creative in finding things that we could experience for the first time together.

I knew that our love had the potential to be amazing in its own way, as long as I stopped living in the past and began focusing on the present.”  -April

 

Each relationship is different and unique in its own way.  

Accepting that is the first step in living a happy and healthy life with your new spouse.

A negative mindset is only setting the stage for a negative outcome.  

This is a new beginning and you should do everything in your power to give your new love a fighting chance.

You are not doing yourself, nor your spouse, any favors by continuing to dwell on the past.  And you are certainly not helping your situation by comparing yourself to or being jealous of a past relationship.

Moving on does not mean that you never loved your ex.  

It also doesn’t mean that you should forget them or the relationship you had with them all together.

Moving on simply means that you are no longer willing to live with the pain from the past because you know that you are worth far more.  

You have the strength to love again…you just have to dig deep and find it.