Divorced People Get Honest About What Would Have Saved Their Marriages (30 Posts)

Her realizing that the things I experienced during my childhood weren't my fault and didn't make me crazy or less of a man.

Her realizing that it is wrong to hold my prior suicide attempt from me dealing with my childhood issues over my head for almost twenty years and, during one difficult time, encouraging me to try again.

Her realizing that her mother sexually assaulting me was not my fault and not something I should be punished for every day for over a decade.

Myself not fucking up for the first half of our relationship would have been huge. I have no excuses, fucked up past or not.

Myself moving on sooner from the anger at my past and then present abuses. Even in my twelve good years I was quite the ass in response to her being quite the cunt.

Some relationships are doomed from the start. We made it almost twenty years where either one of us had every reason to leave.

I am thankful for the family we made.

If he hadn't had an affair with my "best friend" that I've known since the 2nd grade. Her youngest daughter is definitely his, and their daughter is 7 months younger than our daughter. The only time we are all together the was at my Mom's house at Christmas time for a couple of days.

I found out 8 years later that my God baby was my husband's child.. we had been married 17 years then. We tried to make it work as roommates for the kids and we had just bought our first house, but it didn't work and we had a bitter divorce.

These are the things I've learned in 26 years, still married but almost divorced twice. Don't sweat the small shit, it's absolutely not worth it to either of you. Be willing to make compromises and look at the things from your partner's perspective, or simply in a way that doesn't place your views and feelings on a pedestal. Try your hardest not to be an uncompromising asshole, that's also not worth it and both your lives will be much happier and more laid back. Be honest about your feelings and concerns etc. Try your hardest to support each other and work as a team through the difficulties in your relationship and your life and you will be able to conquer anything together.

The better question is now would I want to have saved my marriage? We divorced very amicably and I don't look back on my ex with negative feelings.

Around the time was a bit different. I did feel like a failure and was frustrated with them.

Basically, I wish we had just waited a lot longer to decide to get married in the first place. My ex was like a good friend that I shouldn't have really been married to, just been good friends with. I don't know that they really wanted to be married to anyone, and I'm not sure we were quite the right marriage pair.

I've since realized that my parents were right: if you're with someone you could be in a good marriage with, waiting won't hurt anything.

If my ex didn't give up in therapy, once we identified my personal issues and I started working on it, and things didn't magically get better. it became apparent that she had issues to work on as well. her response was, and these words are burned into my heart forever..."no.... I don't want to work on it anymore....im done"

Communication has already be mentioned a lot so I'm going to toss in Respect for what each person brings to the relationship. We tend to inflate what we bring and down play what the other contributes.

Let's use a generic, if maybe outdated, example: One person goes to work and earns the money while the other stays home and cares for the kids/house. The worker thinks they have the harder job because the responsibility to provide resources for the family is all on them. They see staying home and hanging out with the kids as the much easier task. The caregiver thinks they have the harder job because there is no start and end time. They are always on duty 24/7. They see going to work as a nice change of scenery, getting to interact with other adults and sitting all day at a desk.

Both roles are critical and they need to make sure they respect the value and challenges each role brings and faces. Lack of respect will erode the feelings of unity and eventually lead to a break down especially when the key component, communication, is not present. If your sex life is waning and there is no medical cause for it then that is your wake up call that you are not on the same page with your partner any longer.

P.S. the roles can be very different. One may be the dreamer that brings fun into the relationship while the other is the planner that makes sure the bills are paid. One may be the artist that make the house a home while the other is the engineer that keeps the pipes from leaking. The list is endless.

A little bit of effort on his part. I'm a touchy feely person. If you want to make me happy just let me cuddle up into you. New bf gets that and does this on the daily. For the last two years of our marraige, my husband barely touched me. Not even an arm around the shoulder. There was about a foot of space between us when we went to bed.

I will happily do 90% of cleaning and household tasks if my SO is regularly giving me the physical affection that I need. The ex just didn't get that. So on top of no physical touch, he did not do any cleaning around the house, never made dinner, never took out the garbage, nothing. Any type of effort into changing ANY of that and I would have stayed, at least for a little longer anyway. But I'm happy now, and getting everything I need so I guess that's all that matters.

If her doctor wasn't handing out opioid prescriptions left and right. Why does a psychiatrist** get to prescribe Norco?

If I had stopped drinking and he kept a stable job. But honestly we are both much much happier now so it was a good thing.

Literally just asked for a divorce yesterday.

Communication.

She didn’t tell me she was unhappy for 2 years. I didn’t hear about any real thing she dislikes about the relationship until after she kissed someone else and by then she was too unhappy to work on it.

I never told her I was upset either, I would bury it until everything all came out at once. Created an environment where she always felt she was walking on eggshells and cultivated the fact that she could never communicate what she was feeling. So she felt unhappy, unloved (despite always hearing from me how proud I was of her, scratching her back, hugs, whatever) and decided to get that attention elsewhere.

Both sides at fault, communication though.

Edit: Didn’t intend to give a timeline here but there’s some confusion.

Wife and Guy work together for 2 years.

Guys wife decides to move family 4 hours away, guy quits job.

During last 5 weeks at work, Wife and Guy have play dates for our respective kids, he has two daughters, we have a son. They go to zoo, children’s museum etc. During this time, she and him sneak out every day after work to parking lot to Hug, because he’ll be leaving. (Weirdest part of the story for me)

Last day of Work, Guy kissed her. She enjoys it.

A week later they have another “date”, she brings my son to his apartment to help him “pack” the last of their things. They also walk a local river.

Guy Leaves. I confront wife about him and express my discomfort. She denies but we both agree we’re unhappy. We agree to work on it, go to therapy separately to work on some issues.

She texts him daily for four months, “Are you okay” “I miss you at work” etc sending him screenshots of our arguments. Updating him on where we go places “We arrived at “x” talk to you soon.

She literally never leaves the house. We’re always together or at work. They were always with kids. I’m 98% sure it was just the one kiss physically.