An update (though I doubt anyone remembers me)

[somanymistakes]

I first came here so long ago I can't even find my original topic about the ridiculous angst I was going through with my married ex-boyfriend and his crazy wife. But it occurred to me that I don't think I ever said here that yes, it did all work out. The divorce took years and she pulled an increasing number of insane shenanigans (one of the best parts was when she tried to accuse him of having cheated on her with a bunch of women she made up, while deciding to leave me out of the legal case entirely because she didn't want to face me! You'd think she'd want to go after the person who was actually guilty, but no! Instead she wasted everyone's time trying to find people who did not exist!) but by now it is all done and dusted.

If I have any advice for the world it's to be very, very careful when breaking up with your college sweetheart, because you may be making a terrible mistake that will cost you years and half the price of a house to fix. Also a reminder that even being the "winner" as the other woman comes at a big price. It's my responsibility now for the rest of our lives to be worth it. 

[BrinnM]

4 hours ago, somanymistakes said:

Also a reminder that even being the "winner" as the other woman comes at a big price. It's my responsibility now for the rest of our lives to be worth it. 

Glad it worked out for you. 

As far as the above statement: Please get rid of this way of thinking. It’s not your responsibility at all. You both made the choice. This sounds unhealthily submissive, like everything is in his hands and you have no say, like you’re at his mercy or something. Makes me uncomfortable reading, TBH. 
 

But otherwise, congrats - sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Glad you’ve arrived where you wanted to be all along. People marry, get divorced, have affairs, break up, get married again ….. happens all the time, and the process isn’t always easy. 

[ExpatInItaly]

16 hours ago, somanymistakes said:

Also a reminder that even being the "winner" as the other woman comes at a big price. It's my responsibility now for the rest of our lives to be worth it.

What do you mean by this? 

Are you still with him and feel the need to prove yourself to him, so that continues to think he made the right choice? 

[somanymistakes]

Of course I'm still with him! 

Sorry, this probably makes more sense if you've read the whole saga. I feel responsible for the situation because I'm the one who dumped him and broke his heart in the first place when we were in college, because I was a mess and didn't feel capable of having a healthy relationship, so rather than fix myself I ran off and told myself I was protecting him. We stayed in touch as friends while I went through chaotic flings and he eventually married the woman who told him he could never get anything better. That went badly. I finally decided to stop dating people who were bad for me and wanted my ex back, but he was married. That's how I ended up on LS in, like, 2016 or something.

He will point out that his marriage was not my fault, that it was his bad choice to marry someone he knew was unstable. He also insists that the divorce isn't really my 'fault' either because the marriage was horribly messed-up and his family had been begging him to leave her anyway, even if I hadn't come back. He's certainly not trying to lord anything over me. But I do and always will feel responsible for the situation as a whole. I'm protective of him (and he's protective of me). 

Also, while I wanted to set the record straight here that yes everything did work out exactly as I expected it would (despite many posters here in the past trying to claim that I was delusional) I didn't want to come across as promoting homewrecking as a virtue, especially to people who don't know the whole story. And I do still have overly dramatic tendencies. So I guess I was just trying to think of some sweeping way to sum it all up without trying to make it sound too much like a thing to aspire to. 

[bbronte]

I think that if you didn't feel capable of a healthy relationship back in college, you made the right choice then to dump him. It wouldn't have been fair on him to continue, and you obviously had some stuff you needed to work through and to do that with others rather than him. Who knows what would have happened if you stayed together, you could have destroyed each other. Don't ever think it was a waste, you both learned a lot and grew over those years, and look at you now.

And please don't think it's your responsibility alone to be worth it. You have been through something that was very painful and stressful; he needs to be worth it too. You have chosen each other and you are happy. Now you can build a beautiful life together :)