If your ex-husband moved on quickly after divorce, that usually causes an additional level of gut-wrenching pain you have to deal with. After the divorce is final, while we still want to stay in bed all day and pull the covers over our head, our ex acts like his life has taken an invigorating turn for the better … new love, new excitement, new life! For us, it’s another knife in our heart!
And it’s even more hurtful when they start parading the other woman around. We ask ourselves, “What does she have that I don’t have?” Or “What does he have in common with someone half his age?” She may move into your circle of couple friends, attending all of their functions, while you are left on the outside trying to hold yourself together every day.
And the children, depending on their ages, are often forced to deal with having her there instead of you, when they are with their dad or attending family functions. It’s hard on everyone … except your ex who feels like this is a new lease on life!
One of my close friends said, “I’m amazed that he has moved on so quickly! It’s like, to him, it’s no big deal to leave your family for another woman and just move on like nothing’s happened! How can he do that?!”
I felt the same way. How could my husband of 33 years simply latch on to his new woman, introduce her to family and friends, plan excursions with her, invite her boys to the football game or to dinner or whatever, and not think a thing about what he was doing to me or our children?
The truth is, they can do whatever they want after our divorce is final, and they are usually not thinking about us at all. They are focused on moving forward on their own or with someone who is probably tired of waiting in the wings.
Your ex moving forward quickly is hard to accept after a long marriage, especially if you didn’t see the breakup coming. It’s not easy to watch your ex-husband get remarried either.
Signs Your Ex-husband Has Moved On
Some of the signs that your wasband (my term for ex-husband) has moved on:
- He has a new spring in his step.
- He keeps encouraging you to “just move on” yourself.
- He says, “This will be better for everyone.”
- He introduces the new woman to friends and family.
- He either wants no contact with you, or, even worse …
- He wants to be friends, and calls to ask how you’re doing or offers to help with little things around the house.
The fact that he is pretending to be the rational “good guy” is infuriating! (No I don’t want to be friends with a person who didn’t value our marriage enough to work on it, or who would lie and sneak around and have sex with someone besides me while we were still married and not have the guts to tell me that you weren’t happy!)
Why Your Ex-husband Moved On
There are many, many reasons to answer the question, “How can my ex-husband move on so quickly after our divorce … and especially after our long-term marriage?” As women, it seems if we didn’t focus solely on a career, we often have more invested in our marriage partner and our family.
In midlife or late-life divorce, women are more likely to have been stay-at-home moms. That was usually a decision made by both husband and wife after children started coming along. But often, men start being dissatisfied with a spouse who who they see as less exciting or who wanted to concentrate on making the family (and usually his success) the center of her attention.
In my case, my wasband was accepted to medical school after we were married. I even dropped out of college and worked until our children came along. Child care was expensive, and we both thought it would be better to have a solid home base for the kids since we would be moving around with medical school, internship, the military, and residency. I was fully invested in that as well, and loved that role.
But some men, having more opportunity to cheat or to explore new relationships, take advantage of the situation. Also, when men have affairs when our children are young, we try to fix things and make our marriage stronger than ever after that experience. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
The reality is, according to a study titled America’s Generation Gap in Extramarital Affairs, “Most people who cheat have been married 20 to 30 years and are between the ages of 50 and 60. People born between 1940 and 1956 show the highest rate of infidelity.”
He Was Seeing Her Already
When an ex-husband moves on quickly, it’s often because he had usually left our relationship emotionally long before we even knew anything was wrong. Most affairs had been going on for a considerable time before unsuspecting wives even knew he was unhappy, or that he wanted out of the marriage.
So when we are devastated with the news of him loving another woman and wanting to move on, he is usually feeling a sigh of relief that the “other woman” can finally come out into the open, and he can start his new life. And they often think everyone else is as excited about his new found love as he is.
Most of us (and some of our children) are disgusted and in despair at the same time. One RADiCAL woman,’s daughter said, “Dad, I don’t want to meet her. I don’t want to see her face. She is never coming into my house! If you marry her, I will have to figure out how to deal with it, but for now, I don’t want anything to do with her.” He asked, “Well, what am I supposed to do?” His daughter replied, “You figure it out.”
He Moved On, Why Can’t I?
Many men who leave long-term marriages have either been thinking about other relationships or actively pursuing other relationships long before we find out. Often they are cowards. Instead of coming to us and saying, “I’m not happy … we need to talk,” or saying, “Things have to change for me,” or “We need to see a marriage counselor or a divorce attorney because I’m not happy,” they lie to our faces. For me, that was as hurtful as the fact that he “loved” another woman.
Even if we ask if something is wrong, they often continue to lie, and they sneak around and pretend everything is fine while they are actively involved with someone else. Often they make us think they just need some time “alone.” (That usually is code for “alone with someone else!”)
Also, in more than 12 years of doing Midlife Divorce Recovery work, more and more I see these gutless men doing something spectacular for a family holiday or an anniversary, or planning a special trip or buying a really expensive gift, only to, a few months later, reveal that they aren’t happy and want out of the marriage. Not only is that behavior bizarre, but it’s cruel and abusive as well. It also complicates the healing process and makes it even more difficult to get closure and put the divorce behind us and look forward.
Another reality is that even with all of the destruction our ex-husband’s affair and our divorce causes, they often don’t marry the “other woman.” Dr. Jan Halper, in her book on successful men, noted that only three percent of men who engaged in extra-marital affairs actually married their mistress. Also, according to Dr. Halper, “Men who married their paramour have a divorce rate as high as 75 percent.”
However, once our ex-husband goes down that road and the divorce has happened, it doesn’t do one bit of good to know those statistics or to continually keep ruminating about what he did or why he did it. The reality is he did it, and now you have to figure out your new life.
Steps We Can Take To Move On After Divorce
For a lot of women, it’s normal to miss your ex-husband, but once our divorce has happened. Regardless of what caused it or how fast our ex-husband has moved on, our job is to figure out what we need to do to make progress forward ourselves. For one thing, if we can’t move on in a positive way, often our children struggle, too.
We have an amazing opportunity to teach very powerful lessons to our children about how to deal with adversity. They are going to face tough stuff in life, and we need to be good role models and give them concrete, effective tools to deal with the challenges of life.
To move on after divorce, we need to keep some important truths in mind:
- We are in charge of our own future.
- No one else can define us or destroy our happiness.
- The more time we spend obsessing about him (or them), the less time we have to spend on figuring out what WE need to do next.
That’s where programs like the Midlife Divorce Recovery can help.
We provide a practical roadmap called the MasterPlan to help you do the grieving and healing you have to do after your divorce. Then we guide you on to figuring out who you are now and what you want moving forward.
Maybe most important in the beginning, we connect you with a whole community of women going through this same thing. Our friends and our family and even our ex are all telling us to “Just move on.” But only other women on the divorce recovery road truly understand how difficult that is. They don’t get tired of listening like our friends and family do. They don’t tell us to “Just get over it!”
The women in the MDRcommunity share successes. They ask advice. They give encouragement. They let you vent without judging. All in a safe, secure, anonymous environment where you don’t have to worry about anything getting back to your ex or your children or anyone else.
Our first job after divorce is to grieve the losses (which our culture usually wants us to just hurry along). We also have to do the healing work. Only then can we start concentrating on the rebuilding of a truly amazing life for ourselves.
Some men move on before the divorce is even final!
Yes they do. I think it’s because they decided long before they mention anything they aren’t happy. So they use the wife as a scapegoat and take all the time they need to verify their unhappiness. Then when they spring it on us, we get to go through the process alone, looking like emotional wrecks. Which we are. Meanwhile, they stay calm because they did the leaving while no one suspected. Make sense?
Wow. So unbelievably amazing they turn into complete strangers. All the while they’re grieving before we have the first clue!
How can they live with themselves? Perhaps the end reveals who they truly were all along!
Right!! My divorce is not even final and my soon to be ex already has his new lover all over facebook
Same here. My divorce was finalized Monday. We separated in May. He moved in with her today. Whaaaaat?
I would unfollow on social media if I were you! That’s my only advice. Only thing I have done right so far. All the other crap I am failing at big time and I am emotional wreck going from furious to feeling like someone has died and I am mourning.
That makes total sense!! It is so hard to endure the loss alone and in the public eye 🙁
Sorry, but more WOMEN are doing this too their husbands now-a-days than the other way around. Speaking from experience and from friends’ experiences and from statistics. You can blame the men all you want, but the women are having affairs while in their marriages and leaving their husbands in the lurch. The men have spent their entire adult lives taking care of their wife and family, while their wife is out cheating on them. Your article is pathetic. Your nasty attacks on men is old news by you liberal, women’s rights thugs! This is NOT a woman’s plight any longer! Men are being treated this way more than women now. I guess your women’s rights have taken hold, but you still want to blame men for everything. Stop your projecting upon men for what you and other women are doing to men more than the other way around in today’s world. Playing the victim card doesn’t work any more.
Greg,
The US national statistics are that men have extramarital affairs 22% of the time, women have extramarital affairs 14% of the time (https://www.divorcestatistics.info/latest-infidelity-statistics-of-usa.html) so your information is incorrect.
The article also goes on to say that men primarily have an affair for sex, women primarily have an affair for the emotional connection. Affairs are wrong for whatever reason. Honesty is a better policy all the way around.
But judging others as you did in your response above is not helpful. When your partner has an affair, be it a man or a woman, it causes the other spouse pain. Period. There is no “women’s rights” or anything going on here. This site although called Midlife Divorce Recovery, is obviously from the female point of view and is here to help women grieve and process their divorces. The site was developed by a woman. I am sure if you feel you need the male perspective, there are other sites exclusively for men.
Attacking people who are going through the grief of divorce is not constructive. You obviously have strong feelings and should take them elsewhere.
U must be my husband or soon to be ex husband. His name is Greg. Sounds just like him.
One thing does not cancel the other…let’s be reasonable here, men have been doing it for much longer and with few consequences. Now, I agree with you that women are increasingly doing that as well and it sickens me the same way. My best friend just left her long time husband and is behaving like an idiot making the most incongruent excuses to justify it and I don’t even know what to say anymore, she is slowly drifting away from me because she doesn’t want to hear the truth. Sad.
It’s been 6 years since he left still have bad days he’s getting married can’t believe it happend he really rubed my noise in it and she did she’s years younger than me and has lots of money will I ever get over it need advice please
Not all men are as you portray. For years I kept asking my wife that they were problems and we needed counseling but she kept refusing insisting that she doesn’t want to discuss her problems with others. So after four years of a loveless sexless marriage I had to move on because she had already
My husband & I are going through divorce proceedings at the moment. He was dating another woman a month & half later. Two month after that they’ve bought a house together. He’s hurt me in every way possible emotionally, financially & he doesn’t seem to care one little bit
Hiya, my husband has done the exact same as your husband. My daughter has only seen and spoken to his new girlfriend 2 on FaceTime and they are moving in together on Friday and my daughter will be staying there.
I am absolutely heartbroken how can anyone be so cold heartless and selfish.
I have only just filed for divorce last week as he only left me in October and I can’t still get my head around it all.x
I totally understand Yes my husband ex did the same 20 years of marriage I was quiet young when I got married had three kids we split up just 4 weeks later he started dating someone else shocked me really did the hurt and pain he lied about it didn’t care because really deep down I knew he was very selfish in our marriage they were red flags all the time i choose to ignore it lessons learned
he is still with her a year now even tryed to rip me of with the house no support no respect but he won’t get away with it I was all sad depressed feeling shit but I’m learning everyday ladies just remember we are the strong ones in this and they are weak I look back a year ago it still hurts and yes very hard to get your head around it but I know my worth now and my strength while he is the fool the weak one that needs a women we will get there ladies keep strong someone better for you out there
I went through the same thing as you ladies. My husband cheated on me for over 8 years with multiple women. When he came clean, we tried to work on the marriage but he decided in May 2019 (after 8 months) that he wanted a divorce instead. Within 3.5 months of that decision, he found himself a girlfriend. We were only divorced for 2 weeks at the most when he posted on Social Media that he is in a new relationship. He is now engaged to that girlfriend after only knowing her for 5 months and they have decided to get married in December 2020. My ex and I met when we were 19 and were together for 8 years before we got married, and were married for 7 years before we divorced. That is nearly 16 years of my life that I committed to him. I don’t have any kids and my biggest worry is that I may have wasted my child-bearing years being married to a cheater, liar and an addict. I agree with you Sophie, that we are the stronger gender and that men rush into their next relationship without even bothering to work on themselves. I know that even though I didn’t not want this divorce, I am so much more stronger and better and wiser than I was when I was with him. I know now how much more I’m worth. Being married to an emotionally unavailable man and a pathological liar sucked all the energy out of me. Though intellectually I know that I am so much more better off without him, I am still heartbroken at the speed in which I was rejected and replaced. That deep hurt will take a while to heal, and I will keep putting my wellbeing first and working pushing through this pain. So should you ladies, Hang in there. God is with us.
I was married 33 years to my husband was with him two years prior to our marriage.. over the 35 yrs there were multiple red flags.. He called sex hot lines the first couple of years of our marriage he lied about it but had to come clean later because our children where 3 and 4 years old and didn’t know how to use a phone and the calls were made when I was working at nights waitressing after doing daycare all day long only coming home exhausted with my husband jumping my bones .. we were young I was thinking that my husband wanted to love me not knowing it was the phone calls getting him heated up from some other women. I was devastated when I found out. He called me crazy at first. He often badgered me for sex two to three times a day he said it was my obligation that is what wife’s do they take care of their husbands even when they don’t want too.. I was young and didn’t know any better.. I found out at therapy 12 months ago it’s called marital rape.. no is no!! I didn’t know a husband could do that but learned about it with my psychologist..The second ordeal came the time phone call came in the middle of the night 1:00 in the morning waking me up out of a sound sleep while he slept soundly when our children where in junior high.. I answered and it was the other women’s best friend she said her friend was in trouble but would take care of it…Two days later were where off to Hawaii as a family… He lied and said it was a prank phone call there where tens of thousands of names in a phone book no computers back then.. Just star 69 which I did use.. But yet out of the blue she picked our name and number.. It was like hitting the lotto and she asked me by name when I answered are you so and so’s wife. She asked if I was his wife and he was my husband she also knew the name of our company we had started and just opening months earlier?? He convinced me he loved me that night while I vomited in the toilet and had a anxiety attack I thought I was going to pass out I remember feeling weak in the knees..it haunts me still…. He could never do anything like that.. it was a prank phone call he shook me and yelled in my face…. He was so convincing at the time I didn’t want to loose him..even though I struggled with believing him for years after and that family vacation was a nightmare for me I put on my happy face while inside I was crying in the bathroom and in bed while he slept soundly next to me.. Being intimate was horrible I cried while I laid on my side of the bed in the middle of the night..My kids never knew what happened..The trust in our marriage was out the window at that point.. I stood for the kids.. The third time was his secretary who he came home crying about because she needed her gallbladder out.. I was sick to my stomach when my 17 year old daughter asked why is dad crying over the lady in the office.. isn’t that weird mom? I had had my gallbladder taken out a few years earlier and he never cried over me?? Again I was sick to my stomach in my walk in closet crying and throwing up….This time he said I was nuts just like every time in the past… I confronted him about what he was up too.. He lied to my face it took almost 13 years later to catch him in a Hugh lie about his secretary that was in 2005.. Bring it forward to 2018 after a fight in our car coming home from a restaurant where he was checking out girls butts and I called him out on it… He said I was always blaming him for thing he never did just like his affair with the secretary how ever his story had changed drastically and I heard and knew he could remember his own lies…He said again I was nuts..it was his way of shutting me up.. I few weeks later he came home I kissed him and he tasted like some women’s crotch.. again I was nuts… A month later he booked a big vacation to Europe for the two of us we were going for two months …I was so excited to go but he finally pulled a stunt a bout a month later of accusing me of wanting to have sex with younger men out of no where??? He held me down by my wrist in bed and sat on top of me and yelled and screamed in my face.. He finally released my wrist which where in pain red and irritated I thought they were going to brake and cocked his arm back like he was going to hit me…then got up and went into the bathroom yelling.. I walked out on him the next day… that was 23 months ago.. I did try to go to marriage counseling to get us help after he begged me but while in the counselors office I received a text from the FRAUD department from match.com… it was his credit card number with his name and the alert coming across my phone.. The counselor said it was not a good sign.. I told the counselor a week later I wanted a divorce.. I did find out he was projecting onto me what he had been doing behind my back…the month after our split while I crying and was numb at my dad’s house… grieving our split he was traveling , golfing, flying to Vegas, Rodeo Drive every other weekend massages and expensive dinners with this women and hotel stays having sex.. I found out by the CREDIT CARD RECEIPTS.. I did find out she was married and leaving her husband for him from my son a few months back … I found out he had been seeing this younger women a months before he left me and after he had moved in with her about October two months after our split… Yes he was cheating and all the lies have since then started to come out….He is a narcissist that’s what I’ve been told by three different counselor… He left me drained emotionally and abused, verbally, physically, and mentally, and sexually.. My advice to thoughs that are reading this… BE SMART!! Get the phone records, credit card statements and know how much money is in your bank account …They have a way of stealing everything and wiping it clean like they are just nice guys.. They have everyone fooled even the judge at court can be fooled…talk to a attorney before hand and do not leave your home.. Do not tell a soul what is happening get a counselor in advance with out him knowing..call the police and have him removed but don’t ever give up your home like I did… it’s easy to be so hurt and just leave but if you do you will never get it your home back and the contents of it.back …the California court system sucks… There is no justice when dealing with a narcissist.. they pre plan everything down to there fake Broadway show of pretending that you did something to cause them to leave you.. They take no responsibility for there actions they blame everyone else.. they lay low for a short time like there insistent then all the lies and secrets start to come out.. by then they already could care if your alive or dead.. Since the day I walked out on him he has said he would make my life a living hell and he has…. He is still in control of everything money, homes and is dragging out the divorcee to run me out of money… He is not the man I married… I don’t know him..but he is vengeful, cruel and acts if I died and carried on with his life with on remorse or regret immediately….like I said he lives with this home wrecking harlot between our home and apartment he pays for for her in another town she is not longer working he supports her and we are only separated.. and the court system can care less.. I’m shit out of luck!! I beg you if I can help one person this is not in vain….You have to be smart or else you will be the victim like myself of not only the narcissist but that of a bad lawyer and unfair judicial system
I’m so sorry for you. I’m 20 months from finding out, 8 months from final on the divorce. 21 years of marriage, I was completely blind sided. Now of course I can look back at signs I should have picked up on. No matter how, when, where or who – it’s devastating. It’s been hard, but please work on getting rid of the anger. I know it’s a stage of grief we have to go through, but it honestly serves no purpose, except hurting you. It will never hurt him, only give him some weird justification for why he did it. I’m not at the forgiving stage yet, but I am a good – no, great person. I would never have hurt him like he hurt me. The best revenge is being happy and I am very happy now. He did me a big favor that at the time I didn’t see. Make yourself smile, make yourself laugh! it will come back to you with practice! You will have a good life with out him! Wake up every day and say – I love Me! Instead of I hate him! It will take a while, but I promise it will get better! I’m connecting with old friends, relatives, even old boyfriends – lol! He’s a bad partner and will be a bad partner to the next victim! Just be glad you are rid of him! Please, please, please don’t dwell on him, but dwell on you! Forgive yourself for putting up with him and falling for his lies. Then take the advise you would give a friend in your situation – his loss! Your gain! You can do this!
After been married for 20 + and 3 beautiful children; to have him tell you he is not in love with you and files divorce!? Not only he is been having a relationship (has moved on) for the last 3 weeks; and we still married.
Spending time with her, but what about my kids!? Only keeping me strong it’s my kids, but the honest true it hurts, how someone can just moved to quick! Definitely came to realize that it was never meant to be. I’m still young, but I dedicated my life and soul to this relationship, how do I start over!?