My guess is we never totally get beyond it. I base this on a conversation with a coworker. He's been happily married to his second wife for nearly 20 years. They raised a son. He said the second marriage is better in every way from the first.
Yet he still thinks about his first wife at least once a week.
That was an eye-opener.
This is my second divorce. Actually the second marriage was light-years better in every way than the first. The (current) X Mrs. Gardener had a very abusive father and wound up marrying a man 47 years her senior (daddy?). She often complained to me that from the day they were married, her name changed from (her name) to "Hon." I, personally, eschew pet names, so I always called her by her first name which she loved.
I, too, got married the first time around to the wrong person at the wrong time for the wrong reason (me:21, she:19).
As a result of these facts, Mrs. G. and I always said we were each wed before, but this was our first real marriage.
And I still believe that the sudden death of her horribly abusive father, with whom she had severed all contact for 30+ years, a death which occurred 5 months before the bomb, was the deep-seated catalyst of re-surfacing pain for her. And she had to escape...something. And that something became me and our marriage.
But, as always, I really digress, here. Sorry.
Gardener
"My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own." Cyrano deBergerac
