Man's ex-wife reappears after 6 years; 'You RUINED me. Why are you back?' UPDATED
When this man is shocked by his ex-wife's sudden return, he asks the internet:
"My Ex Wife dropped back into my life after 6 years? I'm shocked. "
My ex and I met in college and were madly in love all 4 years in school. Got married after graduation in 2010. In 2013 I caught her in a year plus affair with a coworker. I was crushed. She said they loved each other, soulmates, didn’t mean to hurt anyone, blah blah blah.
We divorced only 3 months later. I was crushed. Worst time in my life. I mourned for over a year. I heard they got married. One day I decided I was tired of being sad so I completely let go of her in my heart, got off my butt and truly moved on.
I’m a programmer by profession and decided to take a pre-sales solutions consultant gig with one of the biggest software companies on the planet. That job has been amazing. I’ve traveled the entire world.
Every continent and all the major cities. Life has been a great adventure. I never did date seriously or remarry. I’m not opposed to casual dating and have dated beautiful women all over the globe.
After my experience with marriage I decided that wasn’t my path and have been happy. Sometimes lonely, especially during holidays, but overall happy.
I had decided enough traveling for a while so I switched roles and am based in a major city in the U.S. I’m sitting in a diner on a Saturday morning eating breakfast and reading the news, Facebook, Reddit, etc. and somebody says “
?
Oh my God.” The voice sounded like one of my women friends at work so I looked up to say hi and my jaw dropped. It’s my ex wife.
Here I am 2000+ miles away from our old hometown, haven’t seen her in almost 6 years and there she is. I was dumbstruck. All I could manage was “hi.” I hate to say it but she looked beautiful. She said I looked amazing.
She asked if I was busy and that she didn’t want to bother me but that she’d love to talk. I said sure. We ended up talking for over two hours and continued for another couple of hours when we went for a walk in a close by park.
We were making small talk about mutual acquaintances, my stories of traveling the globe. Everything but the elephant in the room. She finally asks me if I had gotten remarried at any point. I said no, once was enough. She seemed sad by that.
We walked in silence for maybe a minute and she said “I have to say that I’m so so sorry for what I did to you. You didn’t deserve it. It was incredibly shitty and has haunted me since it happened. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I said you fell in love with someone else and married them. I couldn’t stop you from doing that. I wanted you to be happy. Then I asked are you happy? She laughed one of those joke laughs “Ha!” She told me the OM and her fought constantly and he ended up cheating on her and leaving her two years into marriage.
I said I’m sorry that happened to you. I know how bad that can hurt. She said she knew. That when her heart was broken all she could think of was that she had done the same thing to me and that tortured her.
She said she fell apart for almost a year, engaged in very self-destructive behavior, and then went to therapy to figure out why she’s so screwed up. She said that was extremely helpful and several years ago she finally grew up and holds herself accountable for her own actions now.
She had ended up moving to this city because she has an aunt that she loves that lives there and after her second divorce before age 30 she needed to make big changes in her life. The changes were noticeable.
She’s definitely more mature. I had to go and get ready for the evening with friends so we said our goodbyes. We exchanged contact info and agreed to go have coffee and talk more.
We have been doing that. We’re both single. I guess there’s no harm. I can tell she wants more from me. She wants me to want her back. She drops hints as big as the Pacific Ocean. I’m not dumb.
I have to admit she still has that certain something that just makes my heart skip a beat. Something I can’t describe. Something I hadn’t found in anyone else since her. I guess it’s chemistry between us.
To be honest I want to be more than friends. I want to hold her and kiss her. She wants that too but as of yet I’ve made zero moves.
What holds me back? Fear. I’m afraid of getting hurt again. If she had been a casual girlfriend that dumped me I would have shook it off and moved on quickly. She wasn’t though. She was my wife and the love of my life. I used to dream of her somehow coming back into my life.
Well here it is and I’m scared shitless. I don’t know if I can give her that much of myself again. I’m way more protective of my heart now. We’ve both grown a lot and the past seems like a hundred years ago. If she wasn’t who she is I’d already be head over heels in love.
I struggle with do I pursue love with her again or do I leave the past in the past? It sounds cliche but it just had to be her. Of all the people I could have met here it had to be her. I don't know what to do. I need advice.
Before we give you OP's major update, let's take a look at some of the top responses:
hotcheetos writes:
That’s an amazing story. I had always imagine if my husband and I broke off and somehow met again years later, perhaps it would be meant to be. I had someone ask me not too long ago if I felt like I married the wrong person.
My answer was, I don’t think I did, but I may have married at the wrong time. Maybe you two are meant to be together, but then again things do not work out the first time for a reason.
Sounds like you have never stopped loving her, which is normal for most people who genuinely love a person, but be careful because what you are feeling now may be the idea or old feelings of how it use to be before things fell apart.
Whatever you decide, I wish you the best! No one deserves to go through that kind of pain, especially not twice... and true love would never have you doubting.
ppalistina writes:
I think it’s cool that you ran into each other and talked things out. That she apologized and felt genuine remorse. That she learned something from her past mistakes and wants to do better.
All of that is actually cool. If you say she seems more mature then good for her. Some people never learn. But maybe you ran into each other to have some closure and peace. It doesn’t mean that it was ~meant to be~ or a ~sign from the universe.~ In the end, she still gave up on you.
And the only reason her relationship ended was because it was very dysfunctional and he was a cheater. She thought about you because she made a huge mistake. But that’s her mistake to live with.
Maybe take things slow. I’m not one to believe that people can change. I think messy people are always messy and if you lose faith in someone it’s because of something they did. Doesn’t mean you have to give them a second chance. I feel like that’s a bit risky because she already blindsided you once.
frenlimonas writes:
I'm worried she's dropping such huge hints for you to reciprocate her feelings considering what she has done to you while you were married. She was the one who hurt you in the first place and should at least be more mindful of your feelings.
If anything, taking it slow and getting to know each other again is a better road to go on. Especially since her relationship with her previous husband blew up in her face the same way it was done to you.
Honestly, it's not until it happened to her did she actually realize and feel what she did to you. If the relationship worked out, would she have given you a second thought?
Please please dont romanticize you two meting again as fate for it to show you two are meant to be. Maybe it's to put your feelings and fears to rest. One can never know.
But dont let your old feelings get in the way at the moment because it can blind you to any red signs that might pop up. People can change, but you know, some people gloss up to show they changed when they really havent.
But if you want to make it work OP, then go to a marriage counselor at least if you start dating. The last thing you want is for you to be in constant fear of her hurting you again and that's not a good thing to feel in your relationship.
You need to talk to each other and find out what happened to your relationship. Maybe sign a prenup in case cause you never know if you decide to get married again...
Good luck and hope it all works out for you.
toawat% writes:
It's quite the story and hard to believe, no offense if this is true. The chance of you meeting your ex wife ever again like this is extremely rare. To give you the benefit of the doubt, let's say your story is true. Its not too hard to track people down with the right tools and connections. She could very well set this up.
Aside from the skepticism. People do get remarried to each other. This is of course if both parties are capable of learning from the past, willing to take the necessary steps and help to work on a new relationship as the old relationship is in the dead.
People can and do change, and this can be seen from the actions given enough time. Reconciliation is possible, just whether both of you are willing to do what's necessary. Ask yourself deep down if it could really work again after all you've experienced from her. If she is worth it to you.
Many on here will say no, not worth the risk and you're already happy. You can take advice from anyone stranger or professional which is good but hopefully it doesn't create bias. It comes down to whether you think it's right for you. Take it slow since time is on your side.
preach writes:
There are a lot of expected comments on here about moving on, never going back, don’t trust her again etc and they are certainly credible viewpoints. But only you are living your life and only you can decide how to proceed.
Knee jerk reactions are often our first response but not necessarily our best response.
From what you have written you can tell that she has changed, grown up, is carrying guilt for the way she treated you. She is likely looking at your reunion as the second chance she never expected to get. And maybe she really is a better version of herself, it can happen.
If people are intent on learning about themselves and curbing their bad decision making and poor life choices then yes, people can change. It takes effort and it takes commitment, and the ability to see yourself for who you really are rather than who you want to believe you are.
Most individuals lack that ability which is why the vast majority of persons, especially cheaters who are self-absorbed and narcissistic, never really do change in any sense that isn’t just cosmetic.
Your ex-wife cheated on you for a year. 365-ish days of lies and betrayal. That’s a long time and a lot of hurtful decisions and choices made by her to hurt you. And then she left having fallen in love with another man.
That is a lot of pain. You’ve recovered well, but not completely. My own personal experience was this: my ex-wife cheated with my best friend for a prolonged period after we had been together for ten years. I divorced her and haven’t spoken to her since. She’s as good as dead to me.
After my divorce I guarded my heart so thoroughly that I knew for a fact that no other person would gain access to it. I healed as best I could, I attended therapy and dealt with a lot of issues dating back to my childhood, and I left like I was changing and maturing as a person.
But still I thought I was going to be alone. And then I met a woman through some friends who I just knew I could spend the rest of my life with. She was kind and beautiful and when she smiled it was as if the sun had emerged from behind a cloud, and I could feel her slowly melting away my defences and climbing into my battered heart.
Today we are very happily married with two wonderful daughters and I am the man I always wanted to be, with the life I never expected to have.
I took a chance, that’s my point. I could’ve have chosen to never love again. I could have existed alone. But that would be no way to live. Your story is different to mine but still it is within your power to make the best choices for the best version of yourself.
Only you can really know how you feel about your ex-wife, and only you can choose to let go of the past if you see any possibility of making a new future with her. Of course you’re afraid, fear tells us that we’re doing something important and that we really need to pay attention to what we are doing.
So choose what you want. For now I see no problem with continuing to see her, speak to her, learn about her and thus about yourself and your feelings.
It’s okay to have the tough conversations. Tell her how much she hurt you, she deserves to hear it. If she tries to turn any of it back onto you then you know her changes are not as deep as she might want you to believe.
But it’s also okay to maybe tentatively take a chance on her again. Everybody’s love story is different, unique, and none of us know how they will end when we embark upon them. We all take a risk and sometimes it doesn’t pay off.
But when it does it is truly worth the risk. Take a step at a time, keep an open mind but don’t be naive or gullible. Let her earn her time with you. Who knows what will happen, but that is true of everything we do. Good luck.
And now, OP's major update:
I’ve gotten so many requests for an update. I have one but was hesitant to post because in this sub I’d take a lot of grief.
The update is we got re-married over the Christmas holidays and we’re now pregnant. She has grown a lot as a person. So have I. We’re not kids anymore. We’re in an adult relationship and it’s much better than before.
Throw in the chemistry we’ve always had and it’s wonderful. I couldn’t be happier.
I do want to address the accusations that she tracked me down. She didn’t. She had moved to our current city before I did. She really had moved on, went to therapy, and had grown a lot as a person. I just happened to be in that diner. We think it had to be fate or some type of intervening force.
Neither of us are religious but the astronomical odds of us running into each other, both single, and in a city neither of us had ever lived in, are hard to ignore. Obviously the universe had a plan for us.
I wish all of you good luck! My only advice is don’t close your heart. You never know who will stroll into your life.