Will My Toxic Ex Ever Be Happy Again?

There is a very peculiar stage after leaving a toxic relationship when, having finally stopped trying to understand the man, you begin trying to predict the rest of his life.

Will he ever be happy? Will the next relationship fail? Will he wake up one morning at fifty-eight, stare thoughtfully into the distance and realize that losing you was the beginning of everything going downhill?

These are ambitious questions.

And before you know it, you are peering into an imaginary crystal ball as though dating him has somehow qualified you for clairvoyance.

The Crystal Ball Comes Out

At first, the answer seems obvious: no, he will never be happy.

You know what he is like. You have seen the moods, the confusion, the remarkable ability to turn a simple disagreement into a three-act production in which somehow you end up defending yourself for something he did.

Surely this cannot lead to lifelong bliss.

So you peer confidently into the future and there he is, older, perhaps wiser, but still somehow creating trouble over dinner reservations. There may be regret, loneliness and possibly one tasteful moment in which he realizes, far too late, that he lost someone wonderful.

Nothing excessive.

Just enough suffering to confirm that the universe has read the file.

And this prediction can feel wonderfully tidy because, if he is unhappy forever, then perhaps everything makes sense. You were not imagining it, you did not leave too soon, and somewhere out there the universe has apparently stamped CORRECT DECISION across the whole affair.

Very reassuring.

For a while, anyway.

Then reality, which has very little respect for our plans, wanders in...

He Looks Happy

One day, you see him, perhaps online, through a friend, or simply because the universe enjoys poor timing.

And he looks happy.

Not mildly cheerful. Properly happy.

There may be a woman beside him, a beach behind them and one of those photographs in which two people appear to have never argued about anything more serious than where to order dessert.

Excuse me?

This was not in the vision.

You were expecting remorse. He appears to have ordered calamari.

Suddenly, your crystal ball is looking considerably less reliable. Hmm.

Maybe she has discovered the secret password? Maybe she knows exactly how to deal with him? Maybe there was a perfectly lovely version of this man hidden somewhere behind a panel and she, apparently equipped with superior tools, found the handle?

This is where the mind becomes wonderfully rude, because suddenly his happiness seems to raise a question about your past.

Was it me??

And yet, if you think about it, you had happy photographs too. There were dinners that looked lovely from across the room, weekends when he was charming and moments when anyone watching would have thought, What a nice couple.

Nobody photographed the conversation on the drive home.

A happy photograph is a terrible historian. It records the beach beautifully and somehow forgets everything else.

And even if he really is happy now, that does not sneak backward through time and improve what happened with you.

People can be difficult and still laugh on vacation. They can hurt someone and still enjoy lunch.

Annoying, but apparently allowed.

Eventually, the Crystal Ball Goes Back on the Shelf

The truth is, you may never know whether he becomes deeply happy, mildly happy, temporarily happy, or continues making everyone around him wonder what just happened.

He may change. He may repeat himself beautifully. He may remain exactly the same and somehow still have excellent vacations.

There is no satisfying guarantee.

And after a while, even the crystal ball becomes exhausting. There are only so many evenings one can spend forecasting the emotional future of a man one no longer wants.

Eventually, you stop wanting an answer.

Not because you suddenly wish him happiness from a hilltop while birds gather around your shoulders. Nothing so theatrical.

You simply stop checking the crystal ball.

His future stops feeling like evidence, and whether he is thriving, struggling, dating someone new or posting suspiciously cheerful photographs no longer seems capable of explaining anything about you.

That is when the question quietly loses its power.

You once wanted to know whether he would ever be happy again because, somehow, his future seemed capable of proving something about your past.

It cannot.

And eventually, even the most dedicated fortune teller gets tired of staring into someone else’s future.

Especially when her own is sitting right there, waiting.