I saw a clip recently about a guy who submitted his ex’s new boyfriend in a tournament. Apparently after the match things escalated into a pretty serious confrontation because of how he did it, and a lot of the commentary around it centered on whether or not you can even be mad at the other guy in that situation.
Logically, no. You really cannot. If your partner moves on with someone else, there is a real chance that person had no idea you existed. They may not have known there was a relationship at all. The loyalty owed to you belongs to your partner, not to a stranger who may have been kept completely in the dark. Taking out your frustration on someone who might be completely innocent in the whole thing is misdirected, even if the pain driving it is completely understandable.
And I will be the first to admit, I know myself well enough to say that scenario would wreck me. I would be hurt, I would be angry, and I would probably want to act on that anger. But wanting to do something and actually doing it are two very different things, and that gap is where your entire future lives.
I want to be clear that everything I am saying here applies across the board regardless of gender or who is involved. The core question is the same no matter the situation. Are you really going to throw away your freedom, your career, your life, because someone betrayed you? Because that is what is actually on the table.
Think about the worst version of that scenario. You come home and walk in on something that cannot be unseen. The rage in that moment would be real and it would be overwhelming. But if you act on it, you are handing over everything you have built to a moment that has already passed. The person who wronged you already made their choice. Adding a criminal charge or worse to the situation does not undo what happened. It just means they move on and you do not.
I touched on something similar when I wrote about that Southland episode. The idea of someone else moving into your space, your life, the place you built, that stings on a whole other level. But the answer to that is the courts, legal separation, doing things the right way. Not a decision made in the worst moment of your life that you can never take back.
I am honestly speaking to myself as much as anyone here. I hope if I were ever in that situation I would have the presence of mind to walk away, take the loss, and protect my own future. Because no matter how much it hurts in that moment, losing everything you have over someone who already chose to leave makes the situation so much worse, not better.
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