All I hope is that when my exes move on, I am no longer in love with them.

Tons of empathy for those in this situation, Dodai.

Except for J Wilbanks.

Didn't the RUnaway Bride pull the standard Susan Smith Alibi by blaming Mexicans or something?

That was awesome. Why he didn't marry her? No clue. Keeper she is.

When this happened to me, I felt awful. I knew that the ex was not the right person for me and knew that I was absolutely better off, but it still hurt.

i love my current boyfriend, but will be very sad when my high school sweetheart/first love gets married. very very sad.

might even cry at work about it.
jk.

I would laugh and laugh and laugh. Because she I call Elephantits would be in for a lifetime of coddling, weeping into her pillow, and spending the rest of of her life out in the middle of Buttfuck, New Jersey, with a cheater and mental abuser. It almost makes me feel sorry for her. Almost.

I broke it off with my to-be husband a couple months before the wedding because of his severe drinking problem. Seven months after that, he was married to someone else and she was pregnant with their first kid. I knew I didn't want him, but I kind of just wanted him to pine over me forever. That's totally selfish, but there will always be that nagging feeling in the back of my mind.

I found out that a guy I had been involved with was getting married - four months after we ended. I celebrated my freedom with a large number of cocktails.

But, I can see how it would be different did you not hate your ex's guts.

I actually have this problem all the time. I, sort of like "Good Luck Chuck," am the last stop on the relationship train before a guy meets the girl he wants to marry. I keep telling my boyfriend that whenever he wants to get married, he should break up with me, and he will immediately meet the woman of his dreams.

Ugh. I don't know. I'm 26, and I already have three ex's who are married to other people. Apparently I do know how to pick the marrying kind...but they all prefer to marry the not-so-sharp but oh-so-sweet (and, 2 of 3, oh-so-emaciated) girl instead.

I try not to think about it.

I'm just glad that Jason was able to move on and trust another person enough to get married after being ditched in such a dramatic, deceptive matter by Wilbanks. I really can't imagine how unsettling and traumatizing that would be.

An ex of mine from several years ago just emailed me out of the blue this week to say hello. He's married now too. His wife has the same name and virtually the same occupation as me. They have a cat just like mine with a name that's almost identical. Weirdness.

Does it hurt less if you're already married?

my ex-boyfriend moved in with this new boyfriend a few months after i broke up with him. they've now been together longer than he and i were together. i've moved on, but i still sometimes wonder why he's not with me.

My ex got engaged right around the time I decided I was still in love with him (I wasn't. It was a lack of anything better in my life). And I found out the day before my birthday. Oh yes, there was booze.

@Lady Skittlehattington, Worsties Guild President: and this is why I adore you so.

i hate being so selfish. i wish that i wished nothing but happiness for everyone i ever dated.

but: i don't. even if i don't want him, i don't want anyone else to have him. especially not forever.

I am one of those really annoying people who wants to know nothing about my boyfriend's romantic past. And, if any of my exes were to get (happily) married, I would be thrilled.

oh man i was dating a guy for a long time (3+ years) and he was always talking about how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me etc. (and i was the same way). he went out of the country to work for a year (the whole time telling me how much he missed me, how i was the only person he ever wanted to talk to, have visit him, etc) and then out of the blue he dumped me and was dating this other chick within 3 months!
i found out from a mutual friend and totally got teh dry heaves. i think if he got married, even though i totally got to send the bitchy closure e mail, i would still completely wig and not leave my house or change out of sweats for three days+.

I stayed friends with my ex and he was at my wedding and I was at his a few month later. They got married, I went into the church bathroom and threw up and then bawled myself silly for the next 20 minutes, cleaned up and went to the reception.
It was a wierd thing. I was happily married, so was he, and it just destroyed me. I wonder how he felt at my wedding.

Okay, to answer your post though, one of my exes I'm still cool with. He is now married, very successful with a gorgeous brownstone in Brooklyn and two beautiful sons...

And you know what? I'm happy for him.

When I heard he was married and then later was in their company, I only felt the best for him. Because that's not what I wanted... with him. Meaning, I say to myself "better her than me" because back then I wasn't the person I am now. And I wasn't ready for that type of relationship but he was. And if we were meant to be with each other, we would have been. So who am I to fault his happiness.

Yes, I have a couple of exes that I wonder about and where our relationships would have been if we continued. But in general if I really did care for them (and even if the breakup was bad) I would want the other person to move on and be happy. Otherwise I never would have learned any lessons from that past.

I dunno if that made sense.

@Scoregasm: I've always felt this way, even when I've been the breaker-upper. Do not want them to ever love again. It's totally evil, but there it is.

This kind of story is exactly why I couldn't stay broken up with my truly great boyfriend. He's wonderful, I know I'll end up with him, but I felt/feel so young! Gah. Dilemma.

I watched as my ex moved on, became engaged, pregnant, purchased a new SUV, etc. Me? I didn't care. After having been married to her I learned to define what was really important to me...and showing that I was moving on faster than she was just didn't matter.

The last time I saw my ex wife the only thought that ran through my head was, "Wow, you're really not aging well are you?"

Are the bad feelings because you haven't found the right person for you and moved on yourself, or because you lost something important to you? Wish them well, and go on with living your life, not theirs.

I'm 20 years old, and my high school sweetheart was a few years older than me. He got married about two years, and they have two kids now. I did not feel one pang of emotion, and was happy that he found someone who he wanted to spend his life with.

The second love, however: I'll probably lose my shit.

It didn't bother me at all when my ex married. I felt scorned when my husband's ex got married immediately after she learned we were married. Bitch trying to steal my spotlight.

@spinlizzy: To quote my ex, "Aw, that's sweet. You're sweet."

My exes will forever and ever be in love with me and they marry to only mask the pain of losing me. The end.

Dude - dated a guy for 8 years, and now he is dating a 23 year old (I turn 30 tomorrow, no joke) and I cannot imagine what sort of anger-related sludge my brain will turn into when these two douches finally tie the knot. And I don't even care! It's just that now, one more possibility is roadblocked. I think.

I just recently found out that the boy I lost my virginity to is married with a 3 year old. It really weirded me out. Also, I saw photos of her and she kinda looks like me.
And another ex, who's a dear friend, just got engaged. I'm trying to be happy for him, but I SOOOO don't want him to marry her. I can't tell if it's because he's supposed to pine after ME forever, or if it's really a bad relationship.

@nolongerinacubiclebutstillawhore:

I'm adopting this.

I have to admit while I thought John Mason was kindof nutty himself for saying he'd stick by her side, that it was also really sweet and showed true love and the whole 'good times and bad' thingy. Not judging him for moving on, but it still is a sad ending to the whole thing.

@The Real JR: It makes sense. My boyfriend is similarly positioned about his past. Every experience, including relationships, has shaped him and make him who he is today.

I think you can be happy for a person if they didn't hurt you terribly and you really cared about them. Time helps, too.

My first real boyfriend dumped me for the school ho (to get his ride on). I have hated him ever since but was surprised last year when I heard he was getting married that I actually cared. Now I'm getting married and all is grand.

He was a fucking tool anyway. She was skank and fuck I'm glad I didn't lose my verginity to him.

My ex got married to a girl who was soo much more perfect for him than me and honestly, I couldn't be happier for him. I also thank my lucky stars that I had the courage to end it when I did. We both would have been miserable and now we each have a shot at happiness.

Oh who am I kidding??? I can't believe he's married and I'm not!

@DorothyZbornak: Oh he was so looking to hook up.

My ex cheated on, then left me for your average "hot girl". Six months later, they were engaged to be married. Six months after that, the wedding was called off. Two weeks after that, she found out she was pregnant. Two days after that, the shotgun wedding -back on! Me: drunk and cackling through all of it.

i was invited to my exes wedding but we had only broken up 6 months before after four years and being engaged towards the end of it. i didnt go. he had begun with her before he ended it with me and they moved in less than a month after the break up.

i went to work that day, bought new shoes and some jewelry and a nice wine. less than a year later he was filing for divorce and i still love those shoes.

My first love broke up with me to marry his old girlfriend. I reminded him of his mother. My second great love finally asked me to marry him after 5 years of dating (while telling coworkers the "just friends" lie) and I said "no." He asked because he had another job and was moving... He was married to someone else within the year. Has 2 kids. Hope he's happy. I think he sleeps in the basement.

depends on the circumstances and the situation. i manage to find myself dumped rather than doing the dumping in my two big relationships. if it was my ex from over 7 years ago, i'd be fine with it. if it was my ex from last august, i would be bitter, jaded and cynical, but ultimately happy because he is someone else's problem.

It depends on which ex and how long you've been separated and if you have been married yourself. I don't put it past my ex husband to get remarried, but I would definitely will be surprised if my first bf got married, as I consider him to have major commitment issues. I guess it doesn't bother me as much. I say, good for them!

The guy I dated before I met my husband is still single and searching and I kinda love that. It's really wrong but it's an ego boost. I have never admitted that before.

i think it's more of a competitive instinct for me (and others probably)...

such as: i'm not with this person anymore, i think i'm better without them and thus came out ahead in the whole situation, but they found someone who wants to spend their life with them, so wait a minute, what if they won?

This is the luxury of getting married relatively young, at 24. I beat everyone to the altar.

Although I am pretty sure that some exes of mine were pretty broken up. Which is sad, even if you are the married one. You feel bad for them feeling bad, because odds are, unless you hate each other, there will always be a little piece of you that loves them. And even though you love your awesome husband who pronounces your stew delicious and eats two bowls before rolling into bed all full of stew, you still love them a little bit too.

An ex-boyfriend (of the overwrought middle/high school relationship variety) from a loooooooooooong while back found out I was recently wed. The convo went something like this:

douchebagmcgee: you're married!?!
baa: yes. you knew i was engaged.
dbmg: i don't know what to say.
baa: how about congratulations?

Oh god...a guy I dated briefly in London is getting married in two months. We weren't together that long, since I had to leave the country, but I guess I always secretly hoped we'd get a second chance. I was a little bit of a mess when he told me they were engaged--I'm wondering how I'll take it when it's final.

Oh, and about the ex's new man?

Well, apparently he was arrested in front of her for violation of a no contact order and plead guilty to 3rd degree harassment?

All of our mutual friends have stated that the guy is a shifty asshole.

And my ex father-in-law (who still thinks of me as the son he never had) told her while walking down the isle, "It's still not too late to change your mind."

@CorporateTool: ha! i'm the prepper girlfriend, too. i'm the one that the exes always say in retrospect "you were soooooooooo cooooooooool". yeah, and you dumped me, you fuckwit! i boarded the 'moving on' train a long time ago.

Both of my high school boyfriends are married. I think both were married by the time I was 25. I also think I was more amused than anything else. At one of the weddings, the bride wore a red dress and had a visible "69" tattoo (well, it was the scorpio sign, but it's still a damn 69). So, like, I'm not that upset that I missed out on that. I'm all for untraditional, but red dress + 69 = please don't.

@NoInheritance: When my best friend's boyfriend died and she told me she'd do anything and forgive him anything just for one more day with him. It has shaped my own relatioship which I've been in since a teenager. I feel thankful that I'll get to spend so many years with him and that many people don't get that choice.

When I saw my ex-husband's wedding announcement in the newspaper, I was a little shocked. Though I had left him and I never regretted the decision to split, I was taken aback...

@Susan B.: oooh yea, situational breakups are the WORST for this, because it's not like there was some underlying RELATIONSHIP ISSUE that caused the split. a part of me will always wonder if i was meant to be with my Russian bf forever...

I've been happy for all of my exes when they got married, especially the one I really thought was kind of a douchebag. (You know, in the "glad I dodged that bullet" sense.) Actually, I invited three of my exes and their partners to my upcoming wedding, and two accepted, both coming from out of state. So... are we weird? Because there's no jealousy or bad feelings in either direction.

@olivia2.0: I'm in a similar situation--we certainly didn't date for eight years, but he's now engaged to a 19 year old superreligious girl (he's 29) whose parents are basically making them get married because they had premarital sex. Considering her started dating her immediately after me, part of me is like 'Why wasn't I good enough?' and then I remember he broke up with me on my voicemail and feel so much pity for that poor teenager.

My first very serious BF broke up with me after 2 1/2 years. He played the "not ready and don't know if I'll ever be ready for marriage" card. We lost touch completely a few months later. Then, one evening I was having drinks with a business acquaintance who mentioned that a woman she knew was engaged. As she went on to describe the fiance, I realized it was my ex-BF. When I said his name, she said, "That's him!"

I cried myself to sleep. Later on, I realized that they are right: timing is everything.

When I called off my wedding 11 months before the ceremony I wasn't sad, I was relieved. But people treated me with kid gloves, as if I should have been in mourning or something. When you know that a person is not right for you, you can't help but celebrate the end. So yeah, I felt disappointed that I wasn't married, but did I want to be miserable for the sake of being having a ring on my finger?

He got married a few years ago, and again people asked me how I felt, was I sad, etc. And agian, I had to remind them, how can I be nothing but happy that he's not married to me?

It's simple, really: Whether or not you want your ex now, and whether or not you still love him or her, and despite the fact that you broke it off, THE EX SHOULD STILL LOVE YOU THE MOST, AND FOREVER, AND NEVER GET OVER YOU.

I wonder what the new wife thinks. I mean at one point John here thought he was going to marry someone else - and that someone else happened to be the craziest bitch on the planet. (Well, that astronaut lady who drove across the country to kidnap her rival might have her beat there, but you get the point.)

@rocknrollunicorn: The Scorpio sign looks like the number 69? Man, fuck astrology. Everyone already thinks I'm scary enough.