Divorced Men Share The Things They Wish They Had Noticed Before Their Marriages Fell Apart

We went through a rough patch after having twins, never thought about divorce but one thing that has always been helpful advice to me is that being the sole bread winner in the family does NOT equal 50% of the total household workload. Every relationship is inherently 60/40 but they work when BOTH people are trying to be the ones giving 60%. Always do more than you think is exactly half. That goes for both people.

Communication is what you need to do. Even (especially) when it's communicating awkward or frustrating subjects.

Don't mistake comfort for stability. Being a good provider and co-existing in the same house isn't the same as staying connected. Keep dating your spouse, listen when they raise concerns the first time, and never assume tomorrow is guaranteed.

She hasn't asked for a divorce, just for us to see other people. We have two young children and can't bear to give up the family home or give them a broken family. It felt like it came out of nowhere, but in hindsight we have been growing apart for years and my crippling depression for the best part of a decade was a big part of it. She deliberately held off telling me how she felt until she felt I had done the work to be able to handle the change of situation, and again in hindsight this was absolutely the best way she could have approached it. I took a while to process it, but now I'm diving into the whole "open relationship with completely free license" thing. I don't know what I could have told myself, or when, to make it work and avoid this whole thing, other than "get the help you need and do the self-reflection you need to be a whole and reliable adult". Even then, sometimes you just can't save it.

Marriage therapy/counseling should be like routine car maintenance in a relationship. We didn't have any big issues but small issues simmered and resentment grew over time. Counseling helps clear that toxic resentment out but if you start during a relationship d***h spiral, it won't likely help much. .

Better learn to shut up and listen, dude. Stop fixing. Start listening. Learn to validate and get over yourself.

Actually write out the house chores, the chores for having guests over, the chores for going on holiday.

Also, stay reliable. My spouse could cope doing 80% of the chores, what broke us was when I couldn’t reliably do the other 20%.

Stay away from divorce forums- including Reddit.

You cannot describe 20 years of marriage in a way where anyone actually cares.

People will judge you no matter what.

The things she is asking for are small. Don't get in your head about how she isn't doing those things for you, just do them for her. Your marriage is good and the problems you think are problems are not. Don't be comfortable thinking it will work it self out and she will stay. She's not hard to read and you know her. Don't sabotage your happiness when she is there. When she isn't it will hurt a lot more. 

Edit: I've read my own comment probably 100 times now and each time it makes me breakdown, even now. I had everything I wanted and my own arrogance and selfishness pushed her away. When she stopped asking I didn't even notice and it was too late by that point. Knowing how her pain felt, as I'm living it now makes me feel like a monster. She was crying on the inside and I made it happen. She isn't and won't ever be coming back. I wish I could have told myself these things when I had her, I would have changed. .

You’re not happy. This isn’t fun. Divorce is probably the easiest change to make. If you want to fix yourself and the way you interact with your family, you need to fundamentally change everything. The career you’ve been building for the past decade needs to simply be maintained, you can trust FMLA. Your role within your extended family only exists in your own head, and you can change the assignment you’ve given yourself. Your family isn’t the thing that lacks happiness, it’s you. You could be happy homeless & broke.

I didn't feel blindsided by the divorce, but I did feel blindsided by the affair. When she explained why she did it, it was a lot of "I've been trying to tell you I feel alone in our marriage and you didn't take me seriously." But she also kept up the affair after telling me she ended it and we went to couples counseling, sooo...

Looking back, sure there were things I missed and things I didn't take seriously enough. But, and I say this 15+ years later and 12+ years into a new marriage that's functional, the communication problems were just as much her fault as they were mine. And I think that's true for pretty much every marriage that ends in a blindsided divorce or affair.

If your spouse isn't picking up what you're laying down, just be blunt about it. Figure out how to let the other person know what's going on. Not everyone speaks the same "language" in relationships. Like, you wouldn't go to a foreign country and get mad cuz people can't figure out what you're asking for when you are literally speaking a different language, right? Why do we treat our relationships differently and assume the other person knows what we need without just straight up telling them and making sure they understand?

What would I tell my younger self... Don't get married to her lol.

I am going thru this right now, or at least the very real possibility of it. All I can say, and all I have said in therapy is looking back on it, it can seem fairly obvious that something is an issue, but that is all looking in hindsight, when thr stress of that moment are gone. Why didn't you do ABC, you definitely could have? Well, because not only was there XYZ, but also ABC involved, plus a bit of DFG. Problem is, while that handles that exact situation, ABC is still not resolved, which can continue to fester and breed resentment that can overwhelm a relationship when really, it can be more situational blindness and value mismatch than anything

For me, I believe I have a few undiagnosed issues, ADHD, depression and prolonged grieving among them. Identifying that I have always had trouble with alexithymia was one of the differentiating factors in figuring out that it was a more chronic condition rather than a passing feeling. Treating it more like a long term medical condition than something temporary gave me some basis to work on myself and my understanding of why I do things and how I feel them. Medication can help too, especially when things feel overwhelming, it can be a way to keep moving forwards and try to keep working on yourself. I know I had to get over a big mental block with myself by recognizing using them wasnt a weakness or a crutch but more a tool to be used, similar to how antibiotics can hold microbes at bay long enough for the body to heal itself.

I dont know how it will all turn out, especially given how hurt and alone my partner has felt while I have knowingly and unknowingly been doing things that have sabotaged our relationship. She has said it has gone on long enough that we feel more like roommates now, and she's staying together for the kids more than anything. She complains I am not the man she married, and I would have to agree with her as I shouldn't be, I should be constantly changing and growing and improving. However, this doesnt necessarily mean I am changing for the better as not all growth can be in the right direction, and one of the best things I can do is be mindful about it, try to change or influence what I can and be able to rekindle something here, hopefully for thr better.

All I know is I have to keep going, to keep moving forwards, to keep fighting against myself and my previous actions and try to help and improve myself and my family. My kids may have to be at the center of this most of all, because I am a bit worried I will/have passed many of these traits onto them, and if I can't figure out how this works in myself, how am I going to be able to help them when they need help here.

If you're blindsided it's because you weren't noticing what was happening in your home. When someone tells you there's a problem, believe them.

Do more (and do it earlier) to try to help, support, and encourage her to get professional treatment for her mental health.

Just be honest with her and get the help you need (I gave away my marriage by hiding my a*******n).

Is 100% ok to end his marriage 3 months after tie the knots. Is your life for God sake.

Also you are not that bad. Marriage is hard and you are trying your best (and she is not as perfect as you think).

I missed so many signs, the little ones, I was just unaware. I think I wanted to be unaware. Because awareness felt like it would be too painful.

Signs like:

1. She was a professional athlete

2. She rode a motorbike.

3. She had never had a boyfriend before me

4. She never wanted s*x

5. She was a physical education teacher


So yeah... she came out as gay, I was blindsided, but not completely.

I would tell myself to read the signs. Don't ignore them; address them straight away.

I would ask myself "do you still want to be married to her?". If yes, change what you're doing. If no, keep doing what you're doing.

If I answered "no", I would inform myself that being divorced is going to be much harder than you think in ways you don't understand.

We were in couple's therapy for 4 months so it wasn't a total surprise but at some point she checked out. I still see our couple's therapist and the therapist says she was never really engaged, so who knows... My divorce lawyer said something great; that when men want to get divorced they want to f*** someone else, and when women get divorced they have already mourned the relationship and moved on.

My answer to wanting to stay married would have probably been "no" but I will always try to find a way to make something work, until the game ends. And she ended it with signing divorce papers without me knowing, taking half the money out of the bank (as she was entitled to), hiring two lawyers and trying to sell the house and move the kids' school district.

In many, many ways, we had a reverse traditional relationship. I did most things at home. She made most of the money. Or at least she was making most of the money at the end, so it was probably an easier decision for her to leave. That also hadn't occurred as much to me because I did the majority around the house. She never cleaned, mowed, raked, shoveled snow, paid a bill, took out the trash, got the mail, did laundry, filed taxes, washed her car, swung a hammer, never planned a date for us, etc... She was a great cook, but didn't cook much, and I would have washed every dish. I know that might sound like hyperbole, but it was 12 years into our marriage before she asked me how to turn the vacuum on. The way any living situation works is chores fall to the person who has the least tolerance for them not being done, and I always had the least tolerance. H**l, the reason I guessed she was divorcing me that day was she offered to take the kids to school, which was so out of the norm I knew something was up. But she was/is a fun, charismatic person and there are many, many reasons to like her. And despite whatever she enjoyed of me and my effort to make her living situation easier, there are always many, many reasons to not like someone, such as myself.

But one of the multiple truths are, while I continued to put in that effort around the house, I always put that same amount of effort in with her, and I stopped about a year before she divorced me. I got frustrated with her. Selfish and unselfish reasons, some reasonable, some not, but it was core differences over time and under pressure and she broke. She made 75-80% of the money by this point and so it was probably an easier financial decision for her to leave and that is a big practical plus at the decision point. Probably first or second in line with having a different significant other lined up, which neither of us did.

Another question is how hard to do want to break your kids' hearts. That was the hardest day of my life. I will never forget their howls. Doesn't mean you can't love them and have them still feel loved, and there are reasons to have healthier single relationships than an unhealthy marriage but it needs to be considered, heavily. (not asked here, but I am answering unsolicited to your previous post about IVF. 1 and 2 for us were successful. 3 and 4 we donated to science. my reasoning was i was never short on love, because I could have 20 kids and loved them all dearly. But I was short on all other resources; time, effort, patience, maybe money depending on that 3rd kid and how much it changes your life, etc...) Back to the task at hand...

I will say there hasn't been one night I wish she was still in my bed. I have an even stronger relationship with my children than I did before the divorce because that time is more focused and I take none of it for granted. During the time I don't have them, 50% of that time is normal, 30% of that time is awesome (fewer obligations) and 20% is soul crushingly lonely.

To finish your question, I would tell myself, in my perpetual planning, to be ready to be more adaptive. Be ready to make new plans, and fast, and be ready to learn to try to be OK with not knowing how things will turn out, you've (meaning I) been wrong before, and it might be how you got here in the first place.

The last thing I would tell myself, that would fall on my deaf ears is to try and have more grace for where she (ex) was coming from. She was scared. She was hurt. She was doing what her lawyers told her to do. If I could have tried to focus on that, I could have saved myself about 8 months of terrifying anger from reading her lawyers awful, awful, letters. I wish I could have known it was going to be alright, but god almighty, it did not feel like that at the time. I also learned that John Grisham did lawyers a lot of favors... they aren't that smart.

If your question is rooted in personal context, I wish you and your family the best outcome. If rooted in interest only, I thank you for giving those of us who commented or read comments, space for catharsis.

If she lies to your couples therapist in front of you about her drinking... she's got major substance a***e issues and the writing is on the wall. She's lying about more than you can imagine. The sooner you distance yourself and the sooner you remove any trust you have in her the quicker you can move on and mourn the life you were told you were going to have together.

If you don’t f*** your wife every now and then, she’ll find someone else who will.