Most of us have done it. It’s human nature.
Some of us do it occasionally. Some of us do it ten times a day. Or we get our friends to do it. And then there are those brave souls who do it openly, and even make a public response, either genuinely or to prove that they’re totally fine, honestly.
Yes, I’m talking about looking up an ex’s profile on social media.
Regardless of how the relationship ended, it’s usually confronting to see an ex moving on with their lives. It’s a strange sort of reminder that the person you were intertwined with has an identity of their own. Even if you no longer love them, even if you’re 100 percent over them – there’s often anger and hurt feelings when you think about your life together.
So the moment when you see a loved-up photo of them not just travelling on their own, or simply out to dinner with friends, but with a new partner, will undoubtedly give you a jolt.
Even worse, if it makes headline news because your ex is a high profile media identity, like Karl Stefanovic.
Yesterday, Stefanovic posted a happy shot of him and his new fiancée, Jasmine Yarbrough. On Valentine’s Day. Combine the intense interest in the couple with the significance of the day, and you have a post that’s got national attention.
Stefanovic and Yarbrough look happy and relaxed. Perhaps posting this shows Karl’s indifference to how it might make his ex-wife, Cassandra Thorburn, feel seeing it. Perhaps not. But either way, the couple is happy and they want the world to know.
Which of course is absolutely fine.
But it doesn’t mean posts like these are easy to handle if you were once that other person with your ex. It’s common to have a visceral reaction when you first see one; to wonder why your ex is happier without you, to perhaps be envious of how easy it seems for them to move on.
It can be outright confronting to see that the partner who stopped kissing you goodbye in the mornings is now apparently very comfortable with public displays of affection.
Top Comments
“I felt ripped off that he ended up getting married before me. I was fuming for weeks. Then I saw the wedding pics and it was so beneath me (both in taste and in the woman he married) then I felt normal again. Because my life is meant for better and great things. But at the beginning it was like ‘how DARE you have a happy ever after when you are an a**hole and a bad person?’ ”
I only see one 'bad person' in this scenario, and it's not the ex or his new partner. Apparently showing a bit of class is also beneath her...