Let Go of What You Throw Out.

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A situation has been bothering me most of my adult life. It goes something like this:

1. A man and a woman get married.
2. They have 2 kids and raise them.
3. The kids grow up and leave home.
4. The woman grows unhappy with her husband.
5. The woman divorces her husband.
6. A year or two goes by.
7. The ex-husband remarries.
8. The ex-husband and his 2nd wife have a child.
9. The new family seems to be happy.
10. The ex-wife expresses outrage at her ex-husband.

(I've seen this played out since high school, too. A girl gets mad at her boyfriend, dumps him, and then goes into a rage when he takes someone else to the prom.)

I don't get it. Wife #1 divorced him, so why is she upset that he's remarried, started a new family, and seems happy? What's going on? If you want to hold on to someone, don't throw them out; and if you do throw them out, then you should let go! Right?

There is not enough information to go on so I'll guess and fill in gaps.

The woman grew unhappy with her husband due to his behaviour / attitude etc otherwise there would be no divorce.

The woman then witnesses behaviour of her ex towards 1st wife that she remembers he did to her before his behaviour /attitude changed.

But I agree with you , she divorced him , she should move on and forget the past but as there are children in the relationship it can make it difficult to move on.

That's my guess

I have seen this, but I don't understand either. Unless she told herself he would fail/be a pathetic useless blob

without her, so his moving on is proving her wrong. If you've convinced yourself it's the other person who's the

problem it's probably a nasty surprise when when they are happy and someone else is happy with them.

In some cases, growing unhappy with the husband and divorcing him are meant as a dramatic gesture, not a rational choice as to a new direction in life.

It was SUPPOSED to teach the ex-husband a lesson, or something. Or maybe, she was just unhappy, he was the obvious scapegoat, but she really didn't mean to lose him... she just wanted no longer to be unhappy.

Anyway, this is truly wacky behavior, whether the divorce was just posturing or just confusion. Not recommended to play big-stakes games like this!

This makes the most sense, sorta. She blamed him for her unhappiness, she thought divorce was the only solution to her unhappiness, and that it would "teach him a lesson" as well. I still don't understand why anyone would think that way, though. It just isn't rational!

Drama ... pft!

Logically it is likely that he learned the first time and avoided making the same mistakes twice!

Fnord, are you thinking of someone in particular? Such as a psycho ex of yours?

A variation on this theme is playing out with my inlaws at the moment.
She cheated on him and wanted to be free to see other people - and that was fine - but when he started dating again she went totally psycho.
I don't understand it either.
She didn't want him but he can't have anyone else.

she wanted things to be different but she didn't know how to make them different. so she figured giving up and hoping the man would fix things was the answer, and it wasn't

my grandparents did it, my mother did it, it's a cycle

Not this time. I was at a Thai restaurant where someone at the next table was streaming Wendy William's talk show. The segment was on some celebrity woman who wanted to sabotage her ex's marriage. From what I could hear, the woman was angry that her ex-husband's new family was happy while she was still miserable years after the divorce.

Weird.

The common denominator in this story is this silly man.

He picks crazy women; he has been doing it since high school apparently.

No, the "Silly Man" picked ONE "Crazy Woman", and SHE divorced HIM.

Where did you get the idea that he has been doing it since high school?

I had the impression that the Silly man was the same boyfriend in HS, both mentioned in the OP.

different scenario , same theme

If it happens too soon after the relationship ends she might think he didn't love her and get upset because of that.

Or it's simply jealousy because he is treating the new wife better due to that marriage being new, or insecurity that the new wife is a better wife than she was and she subconciously fears she might've been the problem and why it didn't work out. Could be many reasons really... I'm just guessing. I think that people divorce too much, they're too lazy to fight through hard times and might still love their ex deep down and therefore feel jealous but in that case they should've fought harder to stay together.

How soon is “too soon”?

Really.

My cousin went into a rage, and then a depressive funk when she spotted her ex-boyfriend with another woman 8 months after they broke up. Another woman I know married her second husband just a few weeks after divorcing her first husband.

I mean, it’s not like the tradition of waiting a year after the death of a spouse before starting to date again — that seems respectful, to me.

Is this “waiting period” after a breakup/divorce written down somewhere, or is it an entirely subjective thing based on the whims of the person initiating the breakup/divorce?