So, this seems to be a common “romantic” fantasy in TV/movies. A nuclear family splits apart, one of the two partners gets another partner (who is always kind of a jerk), but the original couple is clearly still in love. In the end, the jerky newcomer is cast aside and the couple reunites into the nuclear family they once were. Cue swelling violins and happy children.
Now, as a second wife of a divorced dad, I always find these plotlines tedious. But it makes me wonder… How common is it, really, for a divorced couple to get back together? I’ve never seen it happen, but that doesn’t prove anything. Has anyone done this/seen it happen?
I’ve seen it. My middle school best friend’s parents got divorced when her dad got addicted to cocaine, got found out, and got fired from his job as a college professor. Then he quit the cocaine, they moved here to escape the stigma they faced in the smallish town where they lived, and they remarried. This happened shortly before I met them, and when I knew them they seemed like a very nice, normal family.
Then my current best friend’s parents (hmm…never thought of that before, what’s with my best friends’ parents?) got divorced before I knew them too, and they’ve gotten back together a couple times, but never remarried. They’re no longer together though. The dad has another long term girlfriend and the mom has never really dated anyone else seriously since their divorce almost 20 years ago. Not sure why. She’s a perfectly lovely lady.
Friends of mine did, after about a two-year divorce. Then they remarried, had a couple of kids…that was almost 20 years ago and they are still married. Liz Taylor and Richard Burtonmarried, and divorced twice.
My mother married the same man twice. The first time, he was physically abusive and cheated on her. The second time (and you’re not going to believe this) he was physically abusive and cheated on her.
Please don’t ask me what she was thinking, I can hardly talk to her about it without wanting to smack her up myself.
I’ve seen it happen successfully twice. However, I don’t think its common at all.
Once was the same story as upthread, although it was alcohol abuse. She dried out, they remarried. She fell off the wagon fifteen years later, they stayed married while she dried out a second time.
The other was a guy who married, had kids, and then decided he didn’t want kids. Came back after six months when he decided kids and a maid/wife was a better gig than doing his own laundry. They’ve been married forty years for time two.
I have been divorced for 22 years and maintain a close relationship with my ex. We talk on the phone nearly everday and have coffee at my house at least twice a week. I have entertained the thought a few times but always quickly came to my senses. My sisters ex hangs out at her house all the time. Sometimes has dinner ready when she comes home etc but sleeps at his own house ( 2 doors down) They would never consider remarriage.
While I was going through a family genealogy phase, I discovered that the state where most of my extended family lives provides good online access to marriage, divorce, birth, and death certificates. I set about looking up the exact dates for everything that seemed relevant. I discovered while doing this that two different uncles (on different sides of the family) had brief first marriages before I was born that I hadn’t known about. In one case the first wife’s name was one I didn’t recognize. In the other, it was one I knew quite well because she was also my uncle’s second wife. There had been a gap of several years between their divorce and remarriage.
By this time they had long since divorced again, although their second go at things had lasted more than ten years. It’s my impression that the second divorce was worse than the first one though, although that may have been because there were children that time around.
I saw it happen with a good friend. He married a woman, legally adopted her daughter (her natural father had another family and was not in the least interested in her) and then separated. Maybe divorced, I never knew. Time passes and they are back together. Then they split again and never got back together. I asked him about it. He said that when his daughter was about to go to college he and his ex negotiated how to pay for it and he saw the side of her that had originally attracted him. Then after they got back together, he saw again the side of her that had caused him to leave the first time.
Still, he got a dividend. His last years were ill and unhappy and the daughter took over his care. There was never any question about that. He was a good father and she a good daughter.
