Long story short, I (29f, 26 at the time) met him (34m, 31 at the time) when he was still married to a gorgeous, intimidating, super cool woman. We met just a month before the pandemic started, and so we took some time off when the world shut down. We saw each other a little bit once the world started to reach the acceptance phase, with people still being very cautious, but getting together after taking precautions and still being diligent. I then went through a bit of a mental health crisis and decided to step away from the relationship for a while because I was in no emotional state to be seeing anyone but my very closest friends and family then.

Months later, once I felt I had my sea legs back a bit we reconnected (I can’t remember who reached out first) and he told me he and his wife were getting separated as she had come to the realization that she is a lesbian. He’s been incredibly supportive of that and they still are in each other’s lives. Which is great, they’ve been together since their late teens early 20s, they are each other’s family at this point.

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have agreed to start seeing him again only a month after they separated, but I thought “what’s the harm, we were together when they were married, why would it be different?” Some willful naïveté on my part for sure.

It’s been about a year since then, and things have slowly gotten more serious but his ex wife feels like a ghost that haunts me. The fact that things ended on her terms makes me feel like he must wish they were still together and that I’m just a cheap knockoff wife that keeps the loneliness away.

I know I have insecurity problems in general and I’ve talked to my bf about these feelings before and he’s been incredibly reassuring, patient, and loving through it.

But the way he talks about her and the fact that he is still clearly struggling with the divorce frankly makes my heart hurt and I don’t know how to cope. I’m wondering if staying with him is a disservice to myself even though I love him very much and I know he loves me too.

Any advice or sympathy or empathy or virtual hugs would be so appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Edit: well all this support has brought a little tear to my eye 🥲. Thanks for the input everyone, it really means a lot. Keep it coming too! I may have to refer back to this in the future if I’m feeling particularly low again