This is both a persistent cultural trope and a real life personal experience for a lot of women I know. I’m talking about that extremely frustrating, but oh-so-common experience of spending months or years communicating a need or a deep desire to a man, waiting for him to get around to it, believing his promises about it, eventually realizing he’s not gonna do it, watching the relationship end for this reason or adjacent ones and then finally concluding, bitterly, that he just wasn’t capable.
But then, surprise: he moves on to his next partner, usually quite fast, and he’s suddenly doing with her or for her exactly what you’ve spent enormous amounts of effort trying to convince him to do. You’re shocked and feel a renewed wave of frustration and something similar to humiliation. Why couldn’t he do it for you? Are you not good enough? What does she have that you don’t?
Maybe you wanted to travel together more and there was never the right moment or other things were bigger priorities, according to him. Twenty years later you divorce, having traveled very little while you were together, and suddenly he’s checking himself in all over the world with his new girlfriend.
Maybe you’ve spent months waiting for him to define the relationship or at least agree that you are in a relationship, only for him to keep telling you he’s not ready, and suddenly after you finally tire of it and leave, he’s suddenly committed, out and proud with a new girl, hand in hand.
Maybe you’ve tried explaining every other way that if he leaves the cooking AND the dishes AND any required post-cooking cleanup to you alone, this will end up killing your attraction. And he still acts like an entitled toddler after every meal instead of at least carrying his plate to the sink.
Moreover, it also seems sometimes like most of your ex-partners really settled into the relationships they have with the next partner after you. There was even a meme about it, with the internet slang dubbing women who feel this way ‘foster girlfriends’.
Does this sound familiar to you as well? Want to understand how and why it happens and what you should take away from it? Here’s the breakdown of how this phenomenon of the suddenly-much-better-after you man happens. ...
