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

Ya can't change a BPD partner who is in denial of their condition and who is enmeshed with their NPD mother.

No one can.

Having 1 kid with them won't cause them to want to change.

Having 2 kids with them won't cause them to want to change.

They have to want to change on their own time and on their own dime.

All in all, I think that marriage to a BPD partner is feasible if they stops being in denial and work really hard on themselves with rigorous DBT treatments.

Dont be a doormat ever, you lose respect for yourself and she loses respect for you faster.

I've thought of this a lot over the years. I wasn't the only one blindsided, our entire long time friend group was dumbfounded by the way she changed her personality and created things out of thin air just to support her taking off. It's years later and still happens occasionally, but didn't while we were dating or married. So my advice would've been enjoy it for what it was, the good parts were really good, the bad parts real bad and you'll be in a much better place eventually.

Sometimes you can do everything, and it will never be enough. Being alone is fine; you don't need someone to "complete" you.

Wasn't blindsided about the divorce. Was by the fact she waited till she had replacement line up.

Take a better inventory of what expensive items are in the house, so when you come home to find it half empty you can list them all in the divorce settlement.

Don't ignore red flags and things that aren't meshing. Try to work through those things without being the only one that gives a part of themselves to make it work... Pretty soon you have no pieces left, then the resentments set in if they haven't already and you're in a slow moving d***h spiral and don't see it until you get hit with papers.

Sometimes people just aren't compatible and that's ok... Don't wait until it's too late.

Either start marriage counseling or divorce earlier. I pushed myself too hard with work/kids and had nothing left for the marriage. Drifted apart over years.

We weren’t married, but we were together for a long time and were talking about marriage.

Objectively she was a terrible girlfriend and not even a decent person. I’ve always known this even when we were together.

Love is the closest thing we have to real life magic. She was manipulative, mean, violent and egotistical. Almost like a psychopath. Yet I still love her and I can’t tell you why. If she texts me know that’s he wants to get back together, I don’t think I can say no.

To not argue all points all the time and let her decide on the things the people around her expect her to decide about, saving her loosing face. Few things are important enough to you that they are worth a constant battle. Let her make and realize her mistakes, before correcting them. 

Thinking about it now makes me realize there was no saving the marriage, not enough sacrifices could be made and no amount of handbags would have sufficed. She did not really know what she wanted herself, or why she figurer things a certain way, so there is really no way to make good on any of it.

Don't get married because you think that is what is expected of you. Younger me figured she was attractive enough, from a good family (atleast socioeconomically speaking), and agreeable, and that we had fun together, but that is not early enough and does not really say much about what happens once you 2 are alone together in a room and the magic and fun has wore off. That is when you find out if you are truly compatible. Life is somewhat long even if it passes quickly, and divorce takes a toll, in a big way. I don't think I will recover, in a few aspects.

Also, whomever is to blame for the divorce, you will until the day you d*e stand responsible for who you chose as a mother to your children. .

In my experience, men are led to believe that they are the less romantic partner. That romance is more of a female thing. This can be naive. When a woman wants to marry you, there is often a network involved in that decision. It will probably have been discussed in depth. Your value is assessed. Your happiness will not feature high in that context. All of this may be revealed when things go wrong.

I would tell myself that she doesn’t love you for who you are and she never did. She loved you for who how well you fit the picture of her perfect mate. Once she realized she was deluding herself and that you don’t fit the model of who she wished you to be she was done. She’ll go on and have unsuccessful relationships because she doesn’t love a partner just the idea of one. When times get tough she can’t love someone else and that likely cause she doesn’t love herself.

I don't think there's anything I could say that would really help.

I will probably never feel as happy as I did back then ever again. It's hard now just to go through daily tasks. She was everything I wanted and I did everything I could to empower and support her. If I told myself that she was going to cheat on me, I would have ignored myself. If I told myself to find something else to pour myself into, I'd reply that there's nothing so worthwhile. If I told myself it's going to be okay afterwards, I'd say who the H**l wants to just be ok.

I've been over it and over it. I did everything the best I could. Even after she cheated, I asked we go to therapy together but she refused.

It's been almost 10 years. Nothing comes close to what it felt like to be married, to have someone who needed me, who desired me, who I could be vulnerable to, who I could bare my heart to and tell them how much I loved them, who I could share experiences with. Nothing can touch it. And I doubt I'll ever have that again. Even if I do, I doubt I'll ever trust it like I did.

I wish she'd have just k****d me or something. That'd be a mercy at least.

What I'd tell someone LIKE me? It never gets better. You get better. Better at handling it. But it stays the same. Be ready for that reality.

What you think is love is just codependency and unaddressed trauma on both sides. Don’t give up your youth and future for this woman who only takes from you.

Fight to impose your limits. Do no allow her to take advantage of your feeling of powerlessness to be a ticket for her to slowly pull further away. Her a*******n to p**n is a problem too.

She’ll claim the s*x therapists you found were too expensive, and that she can’t pay for half of that - just choose one therapist and pay for the whole thing yourself, even if she complains.

Believe that you deserve better, because you are trying. Forget what that campus therapist told you about your depression just being “part of the course” for a PhD student, and find yourself a therapist willing to see you from your own point of view.

Finally, when her ex warns you about her tendency to “suddenly change”, take it more seriously. It’s nice of you to judge her through your own experience, but in this case, he was right. Your instincts were right, too - you kept hoping she would one day allow herself to be herself fully, but unfortunately that did not include you.

Id tell myself to stand up for myself and stop accepting her a***e. Id tell myself that it wont get better just because I put up with more and more.

"Men of Reddit who felt blindsided by divorce: looking back, what would you tell your married self?"

Here's what I would tell my married self at that time:
"Don't trust her. She's going to have you sign the house over to her so that you can get the house off your credit report to make it easier to buy your truck. Stay on the title if you do sign the loan over to her. Make sure you get your share. Her plan is to leave you and leave you with nothing and marry another man shes been hiding in the background. The signs are there, but you ignore them because you're too busy working and building the house up. One more thing......she's taking the dogs too. Its going to rip your heart to shreds, so be prepared.".

Wasn’t blindsided but if you have to keep telling yourself “would you rather be right or would you rather be married?” This is your sign to leave now. Especially before you have kids.

Our conversations revolved around either what she perceived as *my anxiety* or things she wished I did her way around the house, which I would then do my best to change each time we talked. But, then the goalposts would move to something else.

If I was able to go back and talk to myself about what was actually going on, I would say "those are her excuses, she wants a divorce, and is pushing you away. " If I had started letting her go, like WAY early on, it would have saved me a LOT of anguish.

The moment she started getting really emphatically into being supportive and radical about LGBT and trans issues is the moment I should have realized that she had decided she was gay, and was moving on from me. Even though, to this day, she has never admitted this to me. I've only learned it through the grapevine.

That sometimes for whatever reason your wife might leave. She might not be committed to you or the marriage. Even if you do everything right she might leave on a whim. Even though you tried your hardest and she didn’t, realize that she is the problem and not you. Give yourself some time to mourn and then move on as quickly as possible. Find someone who loves you for you and is willing to commit to you and marriage.