When I was younger I was a part of a forum and made a lot of friends(some of them I'm really great friends with to this day and sadly this site doesn't exist anymore). Me and a guy became really close (we lived in different countries, me in the US and him in Canada). We actually weren't that far apart, just about a 3 hour plane ride.
After about a year of getting to know each other, we decided to meet, we would fly back and forth almost every weekend, back when plane tickets weren't crazy expensive. One day we decided to get married while I was visiting him, we eloped. Surprised everyone (families weren't too happy, but in the end they supported us). I was 19, this is was 2006.
After much debate on what we should do about our spontaneous decision, I moved to Canada to be with him. I didn't work, I was a stay at home wife, I cooked, I cleaned, I was alone.
Our marriage started off great, but things changed quickly, he became abusive mentally and emotionally towards me, he got physical a few times but I fought back. He was also cheating on me. I left him in 2008 and moved to live with my parents in Hawaii. I was there for about 5 months before he sweet-talked me into coming back saying that he was a changed man.
Flash forward 9 months and into 2009, my family was having a little reunion and wanted me to fly out, so I brought his sister with me as she always wanted to go to Hawaii. It was going great and we had a fabulous vacation. The day before we were supposed to fly back, he emailed me and told me that he didn't want me to come home, and that he was having second thoughts and needed time.
I lost it, as well as about 3 months of my life where I was in a drunken stupor and very suicidal.
After about two-years I decided it was time to file for divorce, I don't know why I waited so long, it just skipped my mind and I hadn't had any contact with him in that time. I did it all on my own, filed, and paid and all he had to do was sign and it was done. So as of 2011 I was legally divorced after 2 years of separation and no contact.
I've been extremely happy and can now joke about that period of my life (but because of the mental and emotional abuse I suffered in the relationship, I still have issues with trust and other men). I have not been in any relationships since then. I've had "friends-with-benefits" types of relationships but I don't let my guard down.
Ok fast-forward to present. For the past year or so I've been having dreams/nightmares about my ex where we are either together and things are happy or where I'm being hurt by him. My sub-conscious wont leave it alone and I don't know why. The sight/thought of this guy repulses me.
Now today I just found out that he's engaged. I'm still really close with his sister, but none of the rest of his family, and I haven't spoken to him (except like twice via email when I was doing the divorce papers). She (sister) is friends with my family on facebook/instagram as she's been out to visit me a few times since all the craziness and we still get on as sisters. Everyone keeps asking me how I'm doing hearing this news? I don't know? I don't care. I feel bad for the girl I guess (she's the one that he left me for and was seeing while we were still together) she to this day, still doesn't know that he was married previously (and married while they were dating), and he apparently forbade his family from bringing it up to her. I know for a fact that he cheated on her several times as we still have mutual friends in common.
This is more of a rant for me to get this off my chest since I can't post it anywhere else without having people bombard me about my feelings about this. I just want him out of my dreams/nightmares. It's not like I even have to see anything related to him on facebook as we have mutually blocked each other so even if he's tagged or commented on something I don't see it and vise versa.
Annnnd that's the story of how Rocket was married and divorced by 23. Yay.
I haven't known you long but I empathise with you and I'm so glad you can talk about it, that's really important. Sending you hugs, hope you're ok <3