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I went back to re-read the OP and I found one of the problems.
This is a great example of a viewer not paying attention, and not realizing (or caring) that they haven’t been paying attention, then blaming at least one aspect of the movie for their own inattentiveness.
The careful viewer would have made note of 1) the scene where Alma Jr. accidentially brings down the display of nuts in the grocery store where Ennis has just brought the children when he gets a call to go to work. Alma’s working but then says she’ll call her sister to come get the kids. Alma Jr. knocks against the display and glass bottles come crashing down on the floor, spraying broken glass and nuts everywhere. Her boss comes to see what happened. Instead of being pissed off, the way most bosses would be, he clearly cares more about Alma being upset. That was a foreshadowing of what was to come, and 2) the scene where Ennis and Alma are in the courtroom and their divorce is being granted, both of which lead up to 2) Alma being married to her former boss.
Now, not everyone would catch all of that. In fact, when I first saw it I knew the guy she was married to was familiar, but didn’t remember where I’d seen him. It was only on the 2nd viewing that I recognized him during the grocery store scene and understood that the look on his face meant more than I’d realized during my first viewing. Still, the OP clearly missed the divorce-granted scene, which was a pretty clear indication that in the dinner scene that other guy was her new husband and Ennis was a guest (invited because of the daughters).
Heads-up were given, but you weren’t paying attention and you don’t care either. That’s fine to not care, but at least realize that the problem is yours and not the movie’s. You perceived the movie as a “disjointed mess” because you already didn’t like it, not because it was a disjointed mess. The passage of time was shown in various ways, through dialogue, makeup, hairstyles, the ages of Ennis’s daughters and various other ways. Just because Ang Lee didn’t show the passage of time as a cliched “montage” with cheezy music and a calandar with pages peeling off month by month by year by year doesn’t mean his way wasn’t effective for most of the audience, especially upon repeat viewings.
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Funny thing is: if Lee had included the goofy transitional markers you describe, there would have been even more complaints about “a slow pace.” You can’t win.
Upon multiple viewings, I keep finding things I hadn’t noticed before: nuances, details, gestures, looks, subtleties, hints, implications, and strong performances by actors who had very few lines or scenes.