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#3
I told my current GF even if we get married our bank accounts will be separate and I would get a prenup. we can have a joint account to pay shared bills.
One of the most consistent themes across the thread is not infidelity or incompatibility as you'd expect. It is the things people noticed before the wedding and talked themselves out of. Research from the University of Washington found that the information needed to predict whether a relationship will succeed is almost always available before marriage, and that the couples who divorce report, in retrospect, having had doubts they dismissed as nerves.
Dr. John Gottman has studied couples for over four decades and can predict divorce with 94% accuracy from a single conversation. "People often know something is wrong long before they are willing to admit it," he said. So regardless of whether the venue was already booked, the red flags were there, and your gut was screaming at you.
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As for me... I wish that I had known just how much my trauma had affected me, and that faith and prayer are not enough. In fact, I wish I had known that prayer, really, mostly just affirms one's own gut feelings and biases. If I had had half the growth I have had since then, I could have reduced the pain we put each other through immensely, or even just not gotten married in the first place.
Gottman's most significant finding is the Four Horsemen, the four communication patterns that predict the end of a relationship reliably. Number one is criticism, landing blows on the partner's personality rather than their behavior. Next is contempt, which includes eye-rolling, sarcasm, and treating a partner as inferior.
Defensiveness is next: refusing to accept any responsibility. And stonewalling, the complete emotional shutdown during conflict. Of the four, contempt is the single most reliable predictor of divorce, which means the partner who rolls their eyes during an argument is sending a more significant signal than most people register at the time.
#7
She ended up being disappointed over the years until she emotionally checked out and allowed another dude to come between us and our marriage.
She then broke up with me, blindsided and traumatised our kids. Destroying whatever we were trying to build in the first place.
That marriage and kids with someone doesn’t make them entitled to your life. I treat her as if she’s a distant relative these days. I’m a single parent and she hardly sees the children. They too treat her like she’s a passerby to our lives. No longer integral or relevant to our present and future lives.
#8
I love my kids, but having our 2nd irrevocably changed my wife’s demeanor and mental and physical health. Her and our marriage never recovered.
Thankfully, we’re still friends and our split was mostly amicable and we’re co-parenting from different homes. But yeah, lots of tears and therapy before getting here.
#9
Money is where the majority of marriages go quiet before they go wrong. A survey by SunTrust Bank found that finances are the leading cause of stress in relationships, cited by 35% of respondents, ahead of every other source of conflict. But the problem isn't always just about how MUCH (or little) money there is. It is the difference in values around money, one person spending freely while the other saves anxiously, or one person hiding purchases while the other demands financial transparency.
Couples who have explicit conversations about money before marriage, about debt, spending habits, financial goals, and who pays for what, have measurably lower divorce rates than those who assume they will figure it out as they go. Spoiler: They do not figure it out as they go.
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That may sound stupid, but the pressure to get married was so incredibly h**h, there was no way I could see for me to not go through with it.
Roughly 70% of divorces in the United States are filed by women, climbing to 90% among college-educated women. Research from the American Sociological Association found that women in heterosexual marriages report lower relationship quality on average than their husbands, are more likely to identify problems in the relationship, and are more likely to initiate the conversation about those problems.
The marriages that end are disproportionately the ones where those conversations were not received well. The women in this thread who say they wish they had paid attention to how their partner handled being told something difficult are pointing at the same data from a personal angle.
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Before the wedding I asked him to go to therapy to work on that. For himself and for me.
When he blindsided me with divorce he did it crying and telling me he wished he had listened to me but now it was too late.
Love was not enough.
The average marriage that ends in divorce lasts eight years, which means the problems visible in retrospect were present and compounding for the better part of a decade. The "seven-year itch" has a basis in research, with studies showing a dip in marital satisfaction around years five to seven as the neurochemical effects of early romantic love stabilize and the relationship settles into its actual daily shape.
The person you marry in the honeymoon period is not the person you will be having a disagreement with about the dishwasher in year six. Meeting that person before the wedding would have been useful, so listen when people warn you about this.
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- marrying for the persons potential in the future is the most risky thing you can do. Bet on yourself than your to be spouse
- The red flags with in-laws become bigger over time
- You can divorce early if you realize that the person is not going to change
- Your spouses issues are not your fault and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it
- Married life should make you happy overall (yes it’s never perfect and takes hard-work). it shouldn’t make you more depressed and anxious.
Premarital counseling offers an incredible return on investment if you are a numbers person. Research found that couples who participate in premarital education programs have a 30% lower divorce rate than those who do not, and report higher levels of communication quality and relationship satisfaction in the years that follow.
Despite this, only around 30% of couples who get married in the US attend any form of premarital counseling, largely because it carries the implication that something is already wrong. The reframe that researchers suggest is straightforward: you would not buy a house without an inspection. The inspection is not an insult to the house.
#19
I can never not be the person that seeks adventure, loving the excitement of tomorrow being unknown.
They will always need the safety of predictability and the comfort of knowing whats next in life.
It doesn’t mean that we didn’t absolutely love the things out of each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together. We meant it, but as we grew, we realized that sometimes compromising ourselves to appease the one we love, breeds contempt.
She went on crazy adventures with me, and I settled down with her. We tried to be what the other wanted because we loved being with each other and deserved to be with the person they wanted. After twenty something years it was apparent that we would be living a life of lukewarm satisfaction until she passes peacefully in her sleep and I drown trying to swim out to where I can barely see land, just to find out if I can make it back.
Marriage is a story, its safety and adventure into the unknown of what makes life wonderful. It teaches us about trust, and compromise. It teaches us how to put someone before our selves.
If you love this person, nothing will top the regret you will hold if you don’t at least give it a try. Even the heartbreak of realizing it doesn’t work doesn’t compare to the heartbreak of never giving all of yourself to the one you love.
#20
If they tune you out, can't let you finish a sentence, and try to change the subject, then Run. They are selfish, and selfish people will ruin your love for them.