divorced sim lost skills and family members?

[MsSol65]

Obviously I did something wrong.. I had my sims divorce, I moved the husband back to the gallery, I thought I created a new household for him?  I went to move him into a new house and discovered he lost his job, painter level 7 or 8, lost all his skills, his friends, and now it shows he has no kids either.  What did I do wrong?  can I get that info back? 

[Playalot]

Welcome to the forum @MsSol65 
As soon as you take a sim out of the current save file they lose all relationships. They should, however retain their skills. Next time you want to move a sim out just use the in-game moving menu and you can create a new household there, that way they will retain all friendships and family relationships, their job etc.

Guide to Moving Sims

[MsSol65]

That is what I thought I did, but he has no skills now and no family.  So he is lost to me?  Thank you   At least now I know what I did wrong    (I think) 

And Thank You for the moving guide, that helps enormously

[oshizu]

Welcome to the forum @MsSol65

If you have an earlier save (before you moved the ex-husband out), you could return to that then follow the instructions provided above by @Playalot.

[MsSol65]

I don't know how to do back ups or save files.  (Old and lazy?)  never thought I would need one.. Never got attached to a family before..lol

So the trick to saving them is to move them out immediately to a new home?  I have discovered another sim who I know for sure I created a new household for him, but I did not move him to a property, he is totally gone, I don't see him in my library or anything. 

Ok, next reading assignment is looking up saves   Thank you all

[oshizu]

@MsSol65
I don't mean saving a sim to the Gallery (which, as Playalot already explained, saves skills but not relationships).
I meant to use "Save as..." to save a separate copy of your game file, rather than "Save" which simply over-writes your current save file.

Everyone plays differently, but I'm playing a multigenerational game where I rotate between six different files.
Every time I start a new play session, I "Load" the most recent save file but, when I later save, I "Save as" to a different save file and use it for the current play session.
I was hoping you might have an earlier save file where you hadn't moved out the ex-husband yet.

[MsSol65]

No previous saves, did not ever look for an option before today.. Now I know..

[Playalot]

The game takes a bit of getting used to for sure. Luckily Carl's guides are really helpful and easy to follow. Moving sims is particularly confusing at first.

[MsSol65]

I found him!!!! I ended up with two copies of the sim.  One copy had a little cash, the other had 20K, so I did do it right, I just tried to place the wrong copy back into game.  Thank you all for your help.  I understand what happened ( kind of .. haha).  As soon as I got the right version placed his youngest child showed up walking by so he got to see her again, all my sims are relatively happy again (me as well).  Thank you again for helping me save him!