I just found out an ex got married – and I’m shocked to feel jealous

I just found out that an ex-girlfriend got married — and I’m jealous.

I haven’t spoken with her for a long time. Several years after we split, we reconciled enough to at least be “Facebook friends” for awhile. Then she told me she missed me and wanted to start talking on the phone again. But I said, “No.” Not long after that, she blocked me.

I hadn’t thought about her in a long time. We still have a mutual friend on Facebook and something about her came up there. (I’m not posting on Facebook these days, but I still have to log on every now and then to make changes regarding this page.)

Since I could see her account, she must’ve eventually unblocked me. But then I noticed she had a new last name. And there she was — still as strikingly beautiful as ever — standing in wedding photos with a new man.

I felt a stab of jealousy. Maybe envy is a better word. It’s hard to name it. And it’s even harder to explain it.

It wasn’t that I wanted her back. It wasn’t that I wished she had married me instead. I had had the chance to pursue her again when she had invited me to come back into her web, but I had declined. And that wasn’t a mistake.

On the outside, there’s so much that’s right about her. She’s stunningly beautiful. A tall, blue-eyed blonde with a perfect face. She’s smart, comes from a good family. She has a great personality.

But our values couldn’t have been more different, in ways that I couldn’t ignore for long. She was shallow and materialistic to a shocking degree. I made a lot of money back then, so I was a perfect choice for her. Maybe she’s matured. I have no idea.

So why did I feel envy or jealousy?

It wasn’t the wish that I were the man with her. It was simply that she’s someone who I had known and cared for deeply a long time ago — someone I probably could have loved and built a life with — and she now had something which I don’t have. She had the beginnings of a family.

As I looked at the photos of her happy, smiling face with her new husband, something inside me reconfirmed that I had done the right thing to stay away from her five or six years ago. If I could’ve taken the “outer package” that she presents to the world — beautiful, smart, successful, stylish — and combined it with a better heart and better values, maybe I would feel different.

But the longer I live, the easier it becomes to look past a beautiful face and realize the emptiness that comes from being with someone whose values simply don’t line up with my own.

The last time I saw her, we were on a cruise together. In every room we entered, she was the most beautiful woman there. She turned heads. She was a star who was the center of the room. But because she offered so little on the inside, I felt all alone.

We broke up before we parted from that trip and I’ve never regretted it. I still don’t regret it now.

The only thing I regret is that I haven’t found a woman who’s beautiful and smart and successful on the outside, but who also has the heart and the values to match what I find important in life — and who wants me, too.

I assume she found that with this man. For her sake — and for his sake — I hope they’ve each found what they need. If they have, I’m happy for them. But I’m also jealous.

Because I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.