Comparing myself to my ex-husband’s new partner

Hello!

My main question is: how can I stop comparing myself to her, restore my self-esteem, and stop depending on how much he once loved her?

I can sense how pressing and important this question is for you.

Theoretically, this can be resolved step by step.

First, it’s worth addressing your self-esteem (!) That is, working through your attitude toward yourself: how it was shaped by your upbringing, your later experiences—including the period when

for two years in our relationship, he treated me very poorly: he humiliated me, insulted me, didn’t support me financially or emotionally.

Also, consider the reasons and motives behind why you got back together...

So, why did you get back together? Give me an honest answer.

Was it out of love for the man?

Or was it to seek his forgiveness for your own actions?

Or for the sake of the children?

Out of fear of being alone?

What’s your answer?


Additionally, another aspect is the way you tried to restore your sense of value as a woman—

Then I started a relationship with a neighbor, and later with another man. It helped me feel like a woman again. Partly, I even wanted him to find out about it, to hurt him.

This approach is understandable and has been used by people for a long time. However, it reveals a tendency to rebuild self-worth through external validation (!) In other words, this method is somewhat fragile because it excludes unconditional love and respect for yourself (!)

By the way, while I’m at it, I’d like to ask: how loving were your parents toward you?


So, restoring your self-worth will lay the foundation for a sense of self where there will be neither reason nor opportunity to compare yourself to that girl (!)

Because comparison—understand me correctly—serves as fuel for your own feelings of inadequacy. To feel worse, inferior, not good enough, in short, unworthy of love and kindness.


And the third aspect. It stems from the first two. It’s about emotional dependence. This reflects a certain vulnerability and lack of self-sufficiency.

On this path, you’ll be working toward inner balance and spiritual fulfillment. Toward meanings and purposes you’ll try to realize. You probably already sense it—this is about your aspirations, interests, passions, and values that go beyond jealousy, comparisons, and suffering.


In summary, consulting a psychologist could help you see the situation more clearly and find appropriate, effective ways to change.

Let’s break down your situation. You’re constantly comparing your ex-husband to yourself. At the core of this is the fear that "I won’t be fully chosen." When the comparison kicks in, it’s as if you’re taking an exam every time: appearance, sex, success, "was he happier with her?" It’s exhausting. Comparison is an attempt to figure out "what makes her better," and it seems that if you become like her, you won’t be abandoned. But the cost is that you’re giving your life over to her image. Usually, comparison is rooted in:

- Anxiety ("I might lose him")
- Low self-esteem ("I’m worse")
- Rejection experience ("I’ve been left before").

To stop comparing, catch the main poisonous thought. Usually, it’s one of these:

"He’ll choose her" or "She’s better."

But this isn’t a fact—it’s fear searching for evidence.

Shift the question from "Why is she better?" to "What do I need right now to feel chosen?"

Separate the past from the present. His past is his experience. Your relationship is what’s happening now.

Look at the facts: how he treats you, what he does.

Strengthen your "self" outside the relationship. The less your life revolves around the relationship, the more space the ex occupies. Take back your anchors: your body (massage, swimming), friends, interests, goals.

Talk to your partner not about the ex, but about your sense of security. Not "Is she better?" but: "It’s important to me to feel your choice."

If this overwhelms you daily, if you can’t stop, if your self-esteem plummets—this isn’t jealousy anymore, it’s an anxiety loop. A psychologist can help untangle it and restore stability.

Good morning.

You ask, "...how can I stop comparing myself to her, restore my self-esteem, and stop depending on how much he once loved her?"

In my view, to truly address these issues, it’s important to first get to the "root" of all the problems. That means understanding why your husband treated you so poorly. After all, as it turns out, he can behave very differently depending on the situation.

So let’s take this step by step and start with self-esteem. This often determines how we see ourselves and how others treat us.

First, tell me: how did your husband treat you before your maternity leave? Did he give you gifts? Compliment you? Show care and support, including financially?

Second:

What is self-esteem? It’s how we perceive ourselves. And our self-perception is shaped in childhood through our relationships with our parents and how they perceive each other.

You write, "My parents—everything was perfect until I was 20. Then my father left for another woman."

But if everything was truly perfect, men don’t leave for other women, do they? So behind this "perfect" facade, there must have been something you simply didn’t see. After all, all children idealize their parents to some extent. Try now, from the perspective of an adult woman, to look more closely at your parents’ relationship.

What do you think—how attached was your mother to your father? Which parent took care of whom more? Were there moments when your mother overlooked something important in their relationship just to keep the peace?

Or was it your father? So-called love triangles arise when something is missing in a relationship... That’s exactly what happened to you. Why did you start a relationship with another man? What exactly was missing? Try to answer that.

In my opinion, to help you, it’s absolutely necessary to first understand what was happening between your parents. Why?

Because children unconsciously absorb their parents’ behavioral patterns and later apply them in their own adult family life. It’s no coincidence that both your family and your husband’s family experienced infidelity. So, a deficit of something may have been embedded in your relationship from childhood, which later provoked certain dynamics between you—and eventually pushed you to seek it elsewhere...

We like to think we fall in love and form families by chance. But in reality, we attract the people who fulfill our unconscious needs...

And finally, third:

Tell me—did your parents ever compare you to someone else in your childhood? Did they hold someone up as an example for you?

Also, you mention that after your father left for another woman, you cut off all communication with him...

So I assume his actions were a deep blow to you, and they remain a profound psychological and emotional trauma to this day...

After all, children see themselves and their parents as one whole. And when a parent leaves, the child (even at 20, we’re still children to our parents) often feels as if *they* are the ones being abandoned. In other words, the child may think, *I’m not good enough, I don’t meet their standards, and that’s why they found someone else...*

And then the child may unconsciously start comparing themselves to the woman their parent left for—often without even realizing it, buried under the pain they felt at the time...

Later, you can’t understand *how to stop comparing myself to her...*, because this comparison is irrational and can’t be resolved just by wanting to stop.

Edited by author 20.10.2026 07:12

Thank you for your responses.

I hadn’t thought about going back until the very end.

You were thinking about it... So, it seems your feelings of resentment and humiliation, as well as the desire to protect yourself from these emotions, were guiding you. To feel safe in a space where you are treated with dignity and where you feel comfortable?

Or were there other thoughts driving your decisions?

Honestly, I saw that he bought her expensive creams—the ones I wanted for our marriage—and I had that thought.

So, you were considering leaving, yet you were still keeping track of what he was buying for that woman? If not, how did you find out?

Why should she get what rightfully belongs to me? I earned it, and she didn’t.

Doesn’t this belief form the foundation of your vulnerability—the idea that you deserve it, and she doesn’t? What kind of merits are we talking about when the relationship between a man and a woman is healthy, equal, built on love and respect?

Do you still feel that you need to *earn* good treatment? As if it were like a good grade in school, a salary at work, or praise from parents—something that must be earned for them to finally show you their love. In other words, this is conditional love, and consequently, a lack of genuine love.

In my view, this is a flawed and weak foundation for a couple’s relationship. What do you think?

And then there’s the question of children. Money will go to her instead of the children—that’s the answer.

You know, children are often used as an argument for a woman to forgive and reconcile with unsatisfactory treatment of herself. It sounds noble on the surface, but only on the surface—because it borders on the risk of losing self-respect. And this phenomenon only worsens the relationship further, legitimizing the pain that was caused earlier.

Do you notice any similar thoughts in yourself that align with what I’ve described?

My parents—everything was perfect until I turned 20. My father left for a mistress. I don’t maintain a relationship with him. My husband’s father also left when he was a child. So we decided not to ruin our children’s fate.

Unfortunately, that’s how it happened. Your parents’ experiences couldn’t help but influence the formation of your and your husband’s beliefs and values.

However... the conclusions matter. Not just preserving things as they are without change, but *re-evaluating* the model of your relationship. To unpack and remove existing misunderstandings and obstacles. To give impetus to the development of mutual respect, openness, direct and constructive communication, and so on.

In this regard, seeking help from a family psychologist would be extremely appropriate and beneficial.