I’ve noticed a lot of people seem to assume that if a marriage is likely to end in divorce, it’s better not to enter into it in the first place. (This point of view can be seen in the current threads about marrying young.) But I have known of married couples who achieve a few genuinely happy years together before the wheels fall off. In such cases, is it really reasonable to say that it would have been better for the marriage never to have occurred? On the other hand, some matches seem poisoned from the start.
Having never been married myself, I put it to you all: if you have been divorced, do you consider the whole marriage to have been a mistake?
Nope although my first inclination was to think that. But in the 16 years I was married to the first husband, I learned a lot about myself and also learned some good stuff from him as well–for example, he handles conflict very differently than I do and over time, I did see the value in his method.
Plus, no matter how I might feel about his ability as a husband, he was and remains a very good father to our two sons.
We are good friends today, and I consider him part of my extended family. Don’t get me wrong, I would NEVER want to be married to him again and cannot imagine a better relationship than what I have with my second husband. But the first marriage was not an entire waste of time.
Yes, every minute. If I had my life over, I’d choose never to meet him in the first place. He kept a lot of things from me that would have seen me walk out had I known at the time, and knowing them now ruins even memories of happy times. He became increasingly controlling and abusive as the years passed and by his actions caused the three most miserable years of my life. I feel like he stole eight years from me and I can never forgive him for that.
I shouldn’t regret it entirely because good things did come from it - I met Ninevah through him, and I’d hate to have missed out on our friendship… but the big picture is that he has been the single worst experience I’ve lived through and I think it will be a long time before I stop feeling like he ruined my life.
Yes. Mine was a complete and utter mistake from day one. He was a terribly depressed liar and complete controlling nutjob and potentially dangerous. Happily, it did not last long and I saw through him early on. He couldn’t keep the act up for long after we got married. What a complete tool.
It had its good moments, so I can’t say that I regret entirely. But on the whole, I think I would have been better off not having had to live through the experience.
Mine was definitely a mistake. We were both too young and immature and way too different. Plus there was that whole “I didn’t love him” thing, that tends to put a damper on a marriage. But I got pregnant, and we were living together anyway, and we both thought it was the right thing to do. We divorced 5 years later, somehow having procreated one other time, and had another son.
It was the biggest mistake of my life, and it never, ever should have happened. It has been my biggest regret, and it did not end well for me, or him, or the kids.
When I see him now, which is frequently, I can’t believe I ever even dated him. If I met him now, I wouldn’t even be his friend. So the answer is yes- oh, yes, I regret it. I regret it very much. I’m glad the now-teenaged boys are here, though, very glad for that.
Being in a society were very few people care about religion or at least being “good practitioners” (other than attending special events like baptism, marriage and funerals) - and being myself out of any church - I really don’t see the purpose of marriage…maybe I’m too young, but if you found someone with which you can live the rest of your life, why a ring to remember? And if you can spend only a few years with the other person, why bother to marry in the first place?
I also don’t see how marriage can be a way to show your love…and there’s also no such institution of marriage around here. Some people do marry, but many are going for civil union or simply living their entire lives in common law.
I don’t really see the need for a debate about marriage here. Can’t someone conduct a simple poll among divorced dopers without someone coming in to remind us all of how open-minded and enlightened they are about relationships? Start your own thread with that.
For a lot of reasons, I would have never married my first husband had I known what I know now. But that’s part of the journey, to grow and learn who you are. I wouldn’t be the same today without all of my past experiences so I have no regrets.
Yes, I wish I had every minute of those years back. Well, the honeymoon in Disney World was great, but other than that I wish the whole thing had never happened.
I totally and deeply regret my first marriage. None of the good things come near to balancing the terrible things and even though the kids would never have been born, they wouldn’t be the damaged people that they are and I would be a much less damaged person had I never met my first husband. With help, I have forgiven myself for loving and hating him, but I will always regret the union entirely.
Do I regret my first marriage–Not at all. I got married very young and was married for almost 25 years and had a beautiful and wonderful daughter out of that marriage. But I got married at age 19 and we grew apart, and thus got divorced. But I have no regrets, my ex is a nice lady but life also comes at you and you do the best you can. In our situation the divorce made the most sense. I personally have never understood the whole ‘hate your ex’ mentality that seems to happen when people get divorced. But to each their own I suppose.
I am also very happily remarried and am even happier with my new wife.
No, I don’t regret the union entirely. Only some parts of it. There were some very good qualities, but quite often there was a lack of trust on both our parts.
I married a sociopath/“victim” who made my life hell and cost me pretty much everything I thought I valued.
I would never go through it again. I will never willingly interact with her again. Knowing what I know now, I would have broken up with her early on, before it ever went anywhere. I knew I should have at the time, but I didn’t, because I wanted it so much. My heart over-ruled my brain with dire consequences.
But in the end of all things, I learned so much more about myself and about the world than I ever would have learned if I hadn’t walked that dark path. Things that I desperately needed to learn.
So no, I don’t regret it, but I would never repeat it.
Question for those who regret entirely.Have you considered what that actually says about you,versus your ex?Assuming you made the choice to marry and not a shotgun or metaphoric equivalent.
I wouldn’t be where I am now without it, so I can’t regret it. Nothing in common, knew it was a mistake walking down the aisle. But it did build character for me, it put me in a place where I demanded and got better. He is a decent person, just not the decent person for me and had attitudes regarding open marriage that were not compromisable on in the end.
Essentially, I took him at his own estimation - he claimed to be moral, upstanding and decent, and I believed him. Whenever he did anything that didn’t fit in with that image of him, I found excuses for his behavior rather than seeing he wasn’t what he claimed to be. He did some things before we were married that should have been a big, fat, flashing warning sign to me, but because I don’t like to believe ill of the people I care about I chose to believe it was everyone else’s fault and would never happen again. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault but it was a good indicator of how he would behave in future, and I paid a dear price for not listening to my conscience.
I discovered that I make allowance for behavior in my loved ones that I’d never permit in myself and that I can be too docile, allowing myself to be treated badly when I ought to stand up for myself. These are the things that I will try to change in myself. I think my biggest mistake was in being too trusting. Trust is vital in a relationship, but in future I need to be sure that it comes with a healthy dose of common sense and that the person is worthy of my trust before I bestow it. I need to lose the blinkers and assess people by their actions, not their words or how I feel about them.
I do not regret my first marriage. I regret the way it ended and that we didn’t make it work. I do not regret the child that came from it.
I do regret my second marriage. In fact, I regret I ever let that relationship go any further than a casual, convenient sexual relationship to be carried on only while my son was at his father’s. Of course, I got pregnant and eventually married the guy. I never should have.
I have said that if I could have my boys now, but with the first guy I was ever engaged to, my life would be much happier. But there’s just no going back, ya know.
The thing I do not regret is that the feeling of complete and total devastation and having to pick myself up and just put a damn smile on my face and make dinner for the kids has taught me that I am much much stronger than either husband ever gave me credit for. And that finally, I realize that I am really OK alone and that I can do it by myself.
So I regret the pain, but not the lesson.