His Rebound Marriage Fell Apart, Which He Says Shouldn’t Be Surprising
He thought if he moved fast enough, maybe the pain wouldn’t catch up. So he got remarried. Bought land. Built a life that looked good on paper.
And for a while, he convinced himself it was working. But now, sitting in a house he never really wanted, thinking about the marriage he tried so hard to save, he’s starting to realize he wasn’t building something new; he was just trying to cover up what he lost.
What hurts most isn’t that it ended. It’s that deep down, he kind of always knew it would. And now, sitting in the silence, he’s finally asking the question he’s been avoiding: What would it look like to stop chasing the story and start choosing peace?
It was three years ago that this man got divorced from his first wife, who truly was the love of his life. After that, he spiraled out of control.
He walked away from all the habits that were keeping him healthy. He began drinking, even though he had spent quite some time sober.
But then he reconnected with a former fling, and he admits she was nothing more than a rebound girl, yet he went for it.
“Rebounded with an old flame, had a lavish wedding in Vegas, settled into a new life with her and her 13-year-old son, who I grew to love dearly,” he explained.
“But I ignored a…ton of red flags (mental instability, raging and blaming and lashing out, emotional and verbal abuse toward me and the kid) for the promise of one day being happy, to making a happy end to ‘the story.'”
“Bought a parcel of land. Now I’m midway through building a ridiculously expensive custom home. Last week, after months of sleeping on the couch, after at least two years of couples therapy, I could not ignore the red flags anymore and asked her to move out. I’m devastated. Mostly about my son and about the hopes and dreams I’d foolishly pinned on all this.”
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He can’t help but hate himself for creating something he never wanted, and he feels completely alone. He says he has a lot of privilege, which is embarrassing.
He has a gorgeous house on a lake, so he can sit there and think about what he should do next. But he has lost himself along the way.
He’s done everything in his power to save his rebound marriage, and he thinks the best thing to do is to take time to figure out who he is and how he can finally be happy.
At the end of the day, he can’t actually say that he’s shocked his happily ever after didn’t pan out for him.
What advice do you have for him?
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