My ex’s new partner stole the life I thought was mine

DEAR BEL, HOW to move on from a broken love affair?

I thought he was ‘the one’ — even though he could be withdrawn and not contact me for days. This hurt, because the rest of the time he was wonderful company.

I made allowances for his moods because he’d recently come out of a long relationship which broke his heart (as had I, years earlier).

My patience seemed to pay off as his mood swings became less frequent and he moved to live nearby. He often said he loved me and that I was the best thing to happen to him in years.

But there was always a part I couldn’t reach. Problems were swept aside with irritation.

Two years after we met I asked if we could get married, but he refused. This made me very sad. I felt not good enough, not worthy of being his wife.

We agreed a compromise: he’d finally get a divorce (something he’d previously refused to do); we’d choose a house; he’d buy me a symbolic ring.

After another year I found the perfect home in our part of town. He bought it — wanting nothing from me other than some carpets and furnishings.

We spent a year making this house our dream home, while living in

Acouple of years ago I printed a letter ( from a woman I called ‘Jane’) rather similar to yours — except that her despair seemed deeper and darker.

Ditched by her man, she thought of suicide and was even making plans to do it. In both your cases, the heartbreak caused by a selfish man was intensified by his physical proximity with a new girlfriend.

I wrote to her: ‘It surely makes matters worse that you live nearby; better never to see him again.’

I also reminded her — as I do you right now — that ‘this relationship was very far from perfect . . . few our respective houses. I was so looking forward to our shared future. However he was still cold and unfeeling at times, and did several things I found hard to forgive, so resentments accumulated.

The final straw came when he spent Christmas with his ex-wife and daughter. Left alone, I was devastated, and briefly considered taking my own life.

After another petty row I reluctantly ended our relationship.

When we parted, I said: ‘Please don’t move your next woman into “our” house.’

He put it on the market but it failed to sell. Within two weeks of our split, he’d met the ‘woman of his dreams’ and after six months they moved into that house.

Even though we’re in a big city a lot of people in the neighbourhood know me. My ex and his partner are making friends with many of them and I’m feeling isolated.

Now they’ve retired and living the life I wanted. Meanwhile, I’m in a dead-end job I hate, but it’s all I can get. I still live alone, having not found anyone else despite a busy social life.

I’m so jealous. How do I get over my bitterness and resentment towards them and their happiness? GAIL

people could put up with his lack of commitment and carelessness’.

You see how the same problems come up again and again? I want you to realise you are not alone. But individual unhappiness is experienced freshly, as each heart cracks like a brand-new bird’s egg.

I feel so sorry for your plight and understand why you’re sad and angry. Yet I’ve been reading readers’ emails in response to ‘pearl’ last week (addicted to a serial cheat and liar), and love this suggestion from SW:

‘pearl wants to take as her signature tune the Gloria Gaynor song, I Will Survive — “Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side/But then I spent so many nights

thinking how you did me wrong/ And i grew strong/And i learned

how to get along.” ’ SW is sending this message to you too, Gail! Listen to that anthem to bravery and make it your own. Dance around your handbag, waving your arms and yelling (even if it’s just in your head): ‘ Did you think i’d crumble/ Did you think i’d lay down and die?/oh no, not i, i will survive…’

Defiance is so much more productive than bitterness. You’re licking your wounds in miserable isolation (just like ‘Jane’ did), jealously imagining the life you feel should have been yours. In this way, you’ve turned yourself into the victim of a man not worthy of you.

Why do so many women do this? Is it because we’re conditioned to believe (like women in previous times) that life is worthless without A Man?

Of course, love and companionship are wonderful, but did you genuinely have them with your ex? He was difficult, uncommunicative and neglectful, yet you loved him with all his faults.

I ask you this — don’t all the signs proclaim that this man was never going to commit to you or make you happy?

Your longer letter says you cured him from being ‘an emotional wreck’, but now this other woman has ‘ his better self ’, and that thought makes you so jealous.

But how do you know it’s true? How do you know he isn’t tormenting her with his mood swings? How do you know she doesn’t yell at him, begging to know what the hell is wrong and why doesn’t he talk to her?

You have no idea what’s going on behind those lovely curtains you purchased, so I urge you to reflect that the ‘dream home’ may be for her what it was for you: a wistful fantasy.

At this point, with (God willing) many years of life ahead of you, you need to flip your resentful jealousy and tell yourself you had a lucky escape.

So I’m not going to suggest you go to counselling, but that you tell yourself you can rebuild — and you will. Choose not to allow those people to squat within your mind.

‘Jane’ started going on exciting and challenging trips with groups of people, and presenting an impeccably made-up face to the world. eighteen months after her letter was published, she told me: ‘Life will never be the same, but I guess one day there will be a new normal.’

Keeping busy and trying not to dwell on one’s self is a large part of the solution.’