I'm married and i miss my ex-boyfriend.

View Quoted Comment Agreed.


AInother perspective: I have an ex that I'm still cordial/friends with....every now and again we talk, the one time we hungout recently (with my FH, no less) I was unexpectedly awash in feelings I in NO way expected to come up - it had been so long since we hung out that I had forgotten all the qualities that made me fall for him and it brought back SO many memories and gave my heart a flutter that I did not see coming. And then I remembered why we broke up and why we never got back together...and most importantly that the reasons I liked him were almost the same as why I liked my FH, but the reasons/qualities I love in my FH are things that my ex never had.

It is ok to think fondly, it is okay to Have a memory that you laugh at or makes you smile.....it is not ok to pine or want them back or be wanting to be with them/see them etc. And if in any way you are feeling "what if" you need to talk to a counselor or therapist or one really good friend who will help you talk it out of your system before it ruins your relationship.

It sounds like you are seeing the past through rose colored glasses - nothing wrong about that but I would get into counseling before you attempt to contact him. It is easy to see the past through a romantic fog - we have all done it but you are married now. It sounds like you want closure with this guy.

Good luck!!! Your feelings are not wrong, you need some professional help to deal with them.

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I think this is a little extreme at this point in time.

Seek counseling because she occasionally thinks about/ feels longing for an ex boyfriend? Have you never fantasized about any other person during the entirety of your relationship? Replayed any other relationship scenario in your mind - especially the overly romantic ones?

OP- I think while this is somewhat normal, if you feel like it is affecting your day to day relationship with your husband, it might be something to talk to a trusted friend or maybe your mom (if you are close) about. Sometimes we over romanticize lost relationships and they seem really attractive to us in contrast to what often we see as our mundane, everyday married lives once you settle in. Paying bills, doing house chores/ yard work, worrying about home repairs, food shopping- those things kind of pale in comparison to what sounds like an exciting time in your life (and I am guessing maybe this was at least partly a long distance relationship? Those kind of relationships usually tend to be the most romantic because of all of the longing and missing you do).

While I don't think you need to seek counseling now, I do think you need to understand that married life won't always be fun and romantic and days spent lounging in bed. It get considerably more mundane and stressful if/ when you decide to have children, so I would try to work through your feelings sooner than later. Any feelings of missing out or resentment you may have will exponentially multiply once children are involved and you feel like you "have" to make it work.

*I know it says that I have only been married 3 weeks, but this is my second marriage and I was married previously for 7 years. So please take my advice FWIW.

Wow. ok... you should not have gotten married with feelings like this!!

Many times after a relationship ends, especially if the ending wasn’t our idea, we start to idealize the other person which results in unresolved feelings. After my ex and I broke up, I was sad for nearly 2 years! However, I finally came to realize that I was only remembering the good things about him. I forced myself to think about The real things that happened… The times it when he disrespected me, or treated me poorly, or just flat out ignored me, or the time when he used his kid as an excuse to lie to me. As time went on, I began to realize that we would’ve been very unhappy had we continued together. Now, he’s married to someone else and I am too. I smile and say hello when I see him on the street, and I always think to myself how I dodged a bullet!


Marriage is hard work, and you don’t always like the person you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life with. But you will only get out of your marriage what you put into it, so you need to be 100% “in“ with your husband now. Thinking about your ex and missing him is a natural thing, but you aren’t doing your marriage any favors. Try to refocus your thoughts, and if you can’t on your own, seek some professional help. There’s no shame in that, and it’s only right to give your marriage everything you can.

It is unfortunate that you have such conflicting thoughts you have to bear. Please consider seeking counsel from a trained therapist who would be more likely to provide you with appropriate tools to understand from where these feelings arise and how to best address them independently and with your partner. All change is filled with both wonders and challenges. I encourage you to find support before the challenges you face become larger concerns.

Yea, no. You shouldn't be missing an ex when you're commited with someone else. I'd be devastated to know that my man is missing one of his exes.

Seek counseling. Couples counseling may be inevitable as well.

Is it possible you miss the time that you spent with your ex? I have an ex that I in NO WAY harbor feelings for. Good grief, he was awful. But, that time of my life was so exciting and happy and is filled with wonderful memories not associated with him. I don't miss him, but I do miss that time in my life. Maybe see if you're attributing these feelings to a person instead of a time? I don't know, this is kind of a lot.

View Quoted Comment I can honestly say that no, I have never fantasized about someone other than my S/O. I have never looked back on a past relationship and longed and/or missed any aspect of it. They're an ex for a reason. Even if it's bad timing or lives going separate ways and not necessarily ending on bad terms, When you start a new relationship with someone, you should be leaving past relationships in the past. Bringing things, especially feelings, from past relationships into new ones usually isn't a good thing.
Nothing extreme about speaking to a counselor and getting to the bottom of things, before this could potentially turn worse.

I would probably talk to a therapist about this, I don't think you'll get helpful advice off forums on a wedding website. But I would talk to someone professionally soon.

Could it be that you're not really missing your ex/person he is/was, but maybe that certain time in your life? Often times a lot of people relate individuals with fun times and memories they had. I often look back on my younger days at the friends I hung out with, the guys I dated, the stuff I did, etc. and think "Wow, I had some AWESOME times!" and miss those days, but if I were to go back and redo them, I would pick my FH to be with me in a heartbeat. I still think about my first "real" boyfriend, but not in a romantic/sexual way. We had a lot of fun times together, I loved his family to death and we were always on the go, but I would never want to go back. Our relationship wasn't healthy towards the end and I would never put myself through that again. Don't get me wrong, I have awesome times with my FH, but it's totally different. It's more of an adult fun than child's play. We consider awesome times getting day drunk on margaritas on an outdoor patio or going to the lake with friends all day. Not staying out till 4 AM, partying and running from trouble like I did with my ex/friends. (Yikes)

Sometimes we get caught up in everyday life of "adulting" that we just want to escape from it all and go back to when we didn't have a care in the world. That could be your issue? The way I see it, my ex was the boy I wanted, but my FH is the man I needed and prayed daily for.

If you have these types of thoughts, nothing wrong with that, but if you're totally missing your ex for the person he is, I would have a talk with your husband, counselor, whoever before things escalate. Don't leave FH in the dust over something that can be resolved.

I am a firm believer of believing that love that once existed does not completely disappear, but I always try to remember love that is in the past lives only in the past. I feel like we would need to know more to know if these are at a dangerous point or if you are just missing certain attributes of the person and reminiscing about memories. This might sound like a weird suggestion but I had to write a poem about one of my exes to really sum up the relationship, appreciate it for what it was, and then move on as it no longer suited me and my life. Closure is what you seem to be missing here.

I definitely don't agree that no one should ever cross your mind. I mean, this isn't 1984- thought crime isn't an issue. It is perfectly normal to think about or even fantasize about other people sometimes. We are all human.

That being said.. are you actually missing the ex? Or are there specific qualities of his that you liked? I think this is definitely something to dig deeper about and consider what is causing those feelings.

Hopefully all of our ex partners had redeeming qualities that we liked and cared about. I loved playing bridge with my ex husband. My fiance can't turn over a card to save his life. But I don't miss my ex husband.

There WILL be people in the future that you find interesting and attractive and all those other lovely qualities. That doesn't make you a bad person, either. That's reality. What matters is how you choose to act on it.

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Yes every bit of this!!!^^^^^^^^

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I agree with you to an extent but I also think there’s nothing wrong with a little therapy. I’m not saying you have a problem with it or anything but OP wouldn’t have created a profile on a wedding forum website as an already married person, to ask this question if it wasn’t serious. Why not talk to a professional, lay out all of her feelings, and get some guidance/closure on what’s going on?

OP - yes, if this is seriously affecting your day to day life, you should probably talk to a professional about it. There’s nothing wrong with that; they’ll just help you get to why you’re feeling this way. They will have zero judgement and you might realize you’re just being silly. Please remember that no long distance relationships are the same. I had two. It’s so easy to get caught up in “this is how our life would be IF we were here.” If you never really healed from the breakup, you just might be stuck in this fantasy of a perfect life and everything just being 100% up to your standards. You don’t actually know and you can’t get caught up in a fantasy of what might have been. Marriage is hard work and if you and your ex stayed together, there is no telling how it would have actually worked out long term.

Also, for the record, occasionally my husband will do something that reminds me of my ex. I’ve always gone for a certain type. Not a physical type but a confident, goofy, nerdy, kind of type. My husband will occasionally say something or do something where I think, “huh, that sounded like [ex]. ......... omg I am SO happy H is here and not [ex]. God I love him.” I’m not friends with any of my serious exes (a few where it just mutually didn’t work out) but I never miss them and I would be crushed to find out H missed his ex and thought about her constantly with me but justified it as “Sarah takes care of me, though.”

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I felt really weird. I know I shouldn't be tolerating this since I'M ALREADY MARRIED. Thanks for your advice Ash. Maybe I should consult a marriage counselor to ease the burden I'm carrying.

View Quoted Comment Of course, no problem at all! Most definitely talk to someone. Don’t let it weigh on you and don’t keep holding this secret. The counselor can and will help you talk through any closures and any feelings that you have for your ex. After you talk to a counselor and sort out all your feelings individually maybe the next step would be to involve your husband in the counseling session.

The WW Community is here for you always 💞

Yes, I have had this on again off again thing with an ex for over 15 years. We still chat from time to time. I love my FH and can't wait to be with him but JW (my ex) was the one that got away.

I don't think that therapy is a bad idea, but I do think that this is probably something that you can sit down and unpack on your own. It's human nature to hold onto memories and to reminisce. Those months or years of your life don't just disappear because you're married now. Anyone who says that they haven't had a single thought about an ex since getting married is lying. I think that you need to think long and hard about what it is that you actually miss. Was that a particularly fun point in your life? Was it a very intense, romantic relationship? Is it just certain qualities that your ex had that your husband doesn't?

At the end of the day, if you come to the realization that you do, in fact, just blatantly miss your ex, it's probably time to consider counseling and to have a very difficult conversation with your husband so that you guys can decide where to go from here.

I think it’s okay to miss them, but agree with most of the other comments that you should probably go talk to a counsellor about it. Talking through your feelings will help you understand what exactly they are- a lack of closure is probably most likely but it could be something else. It might help to get it off your chest anyway