Ex who got married to his ex before me texted me a year after his marriage

doesn’t really matter does it? whatever the reason? hes married and has a wife. you have already replied to him. now forget about him.

This is common behavior for people who cannot bear to commit to one person indefinitely! Intimacy makes them nervous and restless, and so they look to a secondary person – often an ex – to provide the boost they need to and to offer an alternative, as they see it, to the person they’re with. DO NOT ENGAGE WITH THIS PERSON. He’s already shown you what sort of person he is.

He was fishing to see if you were still on the line. OK, you took the bait this time. Now that he knows you’re there, he will find another flimsy excuse of some kind to contact you again. At that point just say, you’re glad he’s doing OK but it would be best for him not to contact you any longer. And then you block and don’t respond to anything else if he finds a way to contact you on another channel. Like Alice said, either he can’t ever get all in with one person, or he’s unhappy in the marriage and looking for an easy outlet to get attention. Don’t give him any more. He made his choice and he has to live with it. You don’t need this kind of person in your life, not even as a “friend.”

No. For this type of guilt and cowardly person, seeing that you’ll still respond is validation enough. There’s still too much shame and immaturity to take any responsibility and apology, which is how you know he hasn’t changed. So even if it is guilt instead of flat out fishing for attention and an outlet to step out on his wife, it doesn’t matter. His outreach is nothing but bad news under all scenarios. I would just block him and be done, you don’t owe him anything further.

I can understand the impulse to want to ask that question, but it really doesn’t matter. What matters is all the actions he took were completely disrespectful of you, over and over for a long period of time, and why would you blame yourself for HIS choices? He’s a grown man. He has attachment, intimacy, and commitment issues. Even if he’s legally committed to her, randomly and vaguely fishing and breadcrumbing your exes who are on the terms he ended things with you on (emotionally charged, and you are not friends) is emotionally inappropriate. Plus, he’s already almost cheated on her at least once that you know about.

It is probable they will not have the kind of solid marriage you are looking for or one that would make YOU happy, though whatever they have may work better for them. Maybe they both like being miserable, who knows. He’s not going to magically change because that’s not how humans work, is what I think the answer to your question really is. It takes hard work and wanting to change over usually a period of a couple years in order to change. If he had something real to say in the vein of an apology and then mutually moving on (since he is married), he’d have said it in response to your reply. But it sounds he hasn’t said anything of substance, which means analyzing him or assuming his intentions when he has a history of treating you like crap is a waste of your energy.

If you want to examine something, it will be more helpful to you to introspect about why you’d accept the blame for his terrible behavior and choices and continued to stick around, why he’s able to guilt you into wondering if this was your fault. It’s not your fault, and his behavior should not be accepted and tolerated. You deserve better, and with the space you now have from him I hope it gives you the room to focus on healing yourself and eventually be open to someone who will treat you and care for you with the respect you deserve.