Since he's using the past tense, is it some kind of omen that their life is not as good as it used to be?
Native speaker’s answer
Rebecca
In this scenario, yes. The way he uses the past tense indicates that his life was amazing, but something happened to change his life. However, using the past tense like this doesn't always mean a bad omen. A way to know that something changed for the worse is if the words "until" or "but" (conjunction words) follows it. These words show that something has changed for the worse. Ex: He was an amazing gymnast until he tore his ACL. Ex: He wanted to go to college, but it was too expensive.