My Ex Is Engaged Before Me & It’s Bothering Me Even More Than Our Breakup Did

When my relationship ended with my ex, I was upset but knew it was for the best. There was no leftover bitterness or resentment—that’s only come recently when I found out he was engaged. I don’t care that he’s getting married, I just hate that he’s doing it before me.

1. I didn’t think I’d react this way. When you break up with someone, no one ever tells you how you’re supposed to deal the inevitability of them finding a new relationship and then getting engaged. Sure, I anticipated that he would start dating someone else at some point, but I didn’t even consider that he would be engaged, and I certainly never anticipated my viscerally emotional reaction to finding out about it! Some women feel sadness or a sense of loss when they find out that their ex is engaged to someone else but all I felt was resentment. I was shocked at myself!
2. I don’t think he deserves his happily ever after just yet. My ex-boyfriend treated me like crap. When we broke up, I focused on the fact that now I had an opportunity to take care of myself and hopefully fall in love with someone who treated me really well. I’m pretty sure I’m well on the way with a wonderful guy, but I don’t think my ex has earned that just yet. Call me petty if you want, but I don’t want to live in a world where someone gets to treat someone really poorly, leaves them, finds someone new, and gets to live happily ever after before the person they hurt finds their own light.
3. He got engaged in half the time that he was with me. We were together for about two-and-a-half years. He got engaged about a year after we broke up. Sure, it’s completely possible to find someone, fall in love, and realize that you want to marry someone within 12 months, but when we were together, he always emphasized the fact that he wanted to be with someone for a long time before he made that kind of commitment. He told me that really wanted to make sure he was ready. Now he’s gone and popped the question in a year? I’m not feeling it.
4. I actually never saw him as the marrying type. He was a serial dater who’d been in multiple long-term relationships with four women including me. It’s quite obvious that I’m not the one for him and never was, but he displayed so much conviction when it came to the idea of engagement and marriage that I never believed he’d be ready with anyone. It’s like he’s a completely different person now.
5. My friends are on my case about it but I don’t want to talk about it. My friends mean well and I love them so much and appreciate their dedication to and concern for my feelings, but it’s super annoying. I don’t want to talk to them about how I feel, especially since I’m in a wonderful relationship now. Having them think I’m so bothered about my ex getting married is making me more bothered by it, if that makes sense.
6. His fiancee hasn’t had enough time to evaluate his shortcomings. It took me about a year for my ex’s shortcomings to finally come to light. Of course, she’s a completely different woman than I am and perhaps she’s witnessed his darker side and come to terms with it already. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if they got engaged before all of those horrible things actually became obvious and the facade he used to cover up his stains wore off not soon after they exchanged vows.
7. It makes me feel like he beat me at finding everlasting love. I know there isn’t actually a competition, but I feel like as soon as we broke up, we entered this competition to see who could find everlasting love the fastest. Even though it’s not clear that they’ll make it to the wedding day or even past a year of marriage, announcing an engagement is still a pretty big thing. It has the promise of everlasting love attached to it. He beat me to it and it makes me so mad.
8. At one point in time, I thought that I was going to be in her shoes. At the risk of sounding super dramatic/pathetic, I have to admit that beneath the resentment is the part of me that mourns ever having the chance to be his fiancee and then his wife. Yes, our relationship was toxic. Yes, he treated me horribly and I’m grateful that our relationship ended because he didn’t deserve me. But once upon a time, I loved him enough to seriously contemplate building a life with him. Seeing him take steps towards that with another woman devastates the tiny part of me that recalls the good memories that weren’t stained by his behavior at the end.
9. This just shows that getting over something comes in stages sometimes. I definitely don’t have current romantic feelings for my ex-boyfriend and for the most part, I didn’t really think about him at all before I found out that he was engaged. In fact, I used to describe myself as pretty indifferent toward him… until I found out that he was engaged. News of his impending nuptials has caused my apparently repressed feelings of resentment toward him to bubble to the surface making me feel like what I thought I’d resolved wasn’t actually resolved at all.