#21
#22
Flashforward 10 years, he leaves me in May and divorces me in July saying that I pulled one over on him.
The people in this thread who mention personality differences almost universally describe the same arc. The trait that seemed charming or interesting before marriage became a source of sustained friction after it. Research on personality compatibility consistently finds that similarity in core values, not personality type, is what predicts long-term relationship satisfaction.
Two introverts can be miserable together. Two people with completely different temperaments but identical values around family, ambition, and honesty can build something that lasts. The thread is full of people who had the same personality and different values, which turns out to be the harder combination to work with.
#23
#24
The question underneath most of the answers in this thread is not "what did I miss" but "what did I see and choose not to act on." Relationship psychologist Dr. Alexandra Solomon, who teaches a course on marriage at Northwestern University and has written extensively on what she calls "relational self-awareness," argues that most people enter marriage with a detailed vision of the wedding and a vague outline of the life that follows it.
"We spend more time planning the party than the partnership," she has said in interviews. The party lasts one day. The partnership, in theory, lasts the rest of your life, and the people in this thread are the evidence that the planning ratio probably needs adjustment.
#25
I think we all have a lot of implicit asumptions about what married life actually looks like and how everything works, and it's not until after we are married that we realise that we were not agreeing to the same things. Some of it is big things, like whether getting married automatically means having children or combining finances.
#26
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.
#27
The people who shared their experiences in this thread did not do so to serve as cautionary tales. They did it because the information is useful and they had to learn it the hard way. None of what they describe is obscure or unpredictable in retrospect. The signs were there; they just chose to book the venue anyway.
If even one person reads this thread and asks the question they have been putting off, has the conversation they have been putting off, or simply pays a little more attention to the eye-roll, then the people who shared their stories did something truly valuable with what they went through.
Have you learned something valuable from your divorce? Tell us in the comments!
#28
#29
#30
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.
#31
#32
#33
#34
#35
I didn't make him happy.
Much to my surprise. Life's goes on.
#36
As they say - the longer you entertain what’s not for you, the longer you postpone what is.
#37
# 2 - this too will pass, don’t get legally complicated.
#39
#40
I also wish I'd had the self confidence and self respect to not accept the way he treated me from day one, instead of taking 10 years to have the guts to say no to it.