Mother’s still angry at daughter’s ex-husband

Dear Carolyn:

My daughter is doing very well post-divorce. I can’t seem to shake the anger I have for her ex, though. He left the marriage for a co-worker. He never owned up to her being a part of his decision. One month after the divorce was final, out he comes dating her. One year out, engaged. Bought a house with her eight months after that, and in four months they are getting married. It’s her third or fourth marriage.

I realize these events are bound to unfold. My granddaughters, 4 and 9, are happy Daddy’s getting married. Now they’ll have a big sister. I just can’t act like we are all so happy happy.

I feel like he got a free pass because my daughter has made it all so easy for him, even though that has been hard for her. She does it for the girls. She even has to be around the other woman for the girls’ activities as if they are friends, which I know she is not comfortable doing, and watch the other woman with my granddaughters because they have split custody. The idea of her spending time with them while my daughter doesn’t makes me sick.

I hate him for what he did to my daughter and our family. I remember the devastated state she was in. She has grown a lot since then, between yoga and counseling. I feel like I am harboring anger out of loyalty to her, which doesn’t do us any good, I know. I’ve had some counseling but feel very stuck.

Everyone keeps telling me to move on, get over it. None of these people has ever had a daughter go through what I saw her go through. Thoughts?

— Stuck in Time

None of them has, but your daughter herself has gone through what you saw her go through. By your calculation, shouldn’t she be angrier than you are, versus “very well”?

And not only that, but your granddaughters also have come through this with their optimism intact — so important.

So I wonder. What do you want here? Have you said to yourself, openly, “When X happens, I will no longer be angry”?

I feel near-certain how you will define X: that you just want the ex-husband to apologize or admit he had your daughter’s replacement lined up before he left. You want him to pay somehow because you can say, with certainty near to mine, that he (1) hasn’t paid, and (2) should.

If I’m right about this, then welcome to the dark and angry tar pit that will hold you until archaeologists clean you off and mark you with acid-free tags.

To get out, you have to want out, so I offer these possible motivators:

Sometimes the way to be “happy happy” is to act like it till it sticks. Exhibit A: Your daughter.

If he is in fact as bad as you suggest, then I can argue he didn’t wreck your daughter’s happy marriage so much as he liberated her from a doomed one. If it weren’t this woman, it would have been someone or something else.

You don’t know what goes on in any marriage except your own.