Here’s the thing about people: We’re dumb [del]sometimes[/del] a whole fucking lot. Even people who fancy themselves pretty bright are dumb. I plead guilty to noticing flaws in people, but overlooking them because, I dunno, something special is going to happen this time? Let’s see…
-Person has very serious impulse-control problems. Worse than mine, even, which are pretty serious, and should probably be addressed at some point.
-Person flees at first sign of difficulty from any situation.
-Person is incapable of thinking long-term, and modifying behavior with future plans in mind.
Sounds like the perfect person to settle down with! I’ve ignored all kinds of stuff in relationships because we were having fun at the time, I was in love, the guy made me laugh, bla bla bla, completely moronic stuff here. But don’t worry, with age you learn how to separate your emotions from the rational thing to do, take those emotions, and kill them.
Ha, isn’t that the truth. My “relationship” emotions seem to be dead, or I left them somewhere a few years ago after about the 800th guy screwed me over. I try to like and love and fall in love and all that, I really do, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do that again.
Long-term: Like others, we never should have gotten married in the first place. I was in love with her. She…liked me a lot. The romantic connection only went in one direction. All things considered, the fact that we did OK for 10 years (outside of our sex lives) is fairly amazing.
Short-term: She found someone else to fall in love with. Which really brought the stuff I posted above to the forefront (we’d both been essentially burying the obvious the entire time we’d been together because we were so well-matched as friends). Eventually, we realized that we were trying to salvage something that was never really there to begin with.
We got married in the first place because we were both very unstable mentally. She should never have married anyone, and I should never have married someone I knew to be a cheating narcissist. But we got married nevertheless.
The last straw for me was not the second affair and the endless badgering and verbal abuse. It was when I was no longer able to be respectful to her in front of the children. I verbally eviscerated her at breakfast one day, in front of the children. And it bothered me that her sobs not only failed to elicit any compassion or mercy, they fueled the viciousness of my rant. And on my drive in to work I reflected on how horrifying that scene must have been for the kids and how I hoped they never found themselves on either side of such a thing. So I filed the divorce for my own sake, and so my kids might someday remember that there are some kinds of crap you never have to put up with.
It’s been 3 years now. I’m happy, more mentaly stable than I ever recall being, and my hatred for that woman has never cooled.
I find this thread pretty interesting. Two of my uncles have gone through divorces in the past 2 years (well, one separated from his live in girlfriend of 30 years and I was brought up to believe she was my “aunt”) and it’s been eye opening to see why and how their lives played out afterwards.
The one who was actually married has 3 kids and the oldest reached college when they separated. Even though he and my other cousin lived at home, I think the stress of planning for their retirement in 3 years caught up to them. I remember ten years ago when he wanted to retire in Missouri and she wanted to retire in their home of LA; he figured she’d come around and vice versa. He tried to explain to her how they wouldn’t have enough money but she’d really gotten into the lifestyle and it ended up being a huge factor. She was upset with her life and wanted to write a screenplay when the kids left; he wanted to retire and travel, but that was only possible if they lived somewhere cheaper. That uncle is doing well for himself financially but he’s extremely sad he doesn’t have access to his kids like he used to (they’re still living with her). He seems to regret the situation entirely.
I wonder to myself, how could this have been avoided? It’s hard in your mid 20’s or even early 30’s to know what you’ll want to do in 30+ years with your life.
The other uncle really hit a high note afterwards; they didn’t have any kids (he sorta raised her daughter, but they were never emotionally close). That separation was super messy; I watched her shove my grandmother once, which apparently had been happening for a few months. Some elder abuse agency got involved and she tried to get half of his cash. He lost 50 pounds (now a size 34" waist!) and is learning to be more tech savvy. He changed jobs (no more doing expensive concierge medicine, he’s working at a low cost clinic which he loves) and is scouting condos with my mom so he can return to live on the ocean. He and my grandmother are super happy living together. Really different outcomes. I’m surprised too; this uncle’s old fiancee died in a horrible car accident while they were in medical school. As a result he vowed never to fall in love with someone again and instead went for a bimbos, like my “aunt”. I thought he’d be emotionally wrecked but it was like he emerged better than ever. I hope he starts dating soon, but he doesn’t drink (by choice, doesn’t like the taste) so I wonder how he will fare.
My wife and I haven’t gotten divorced, but we came damn close about a year ago. She left me for two months before we patched things up. I never cheated. I never abused her. I just spent so much time trying to be a good father, that I forgot to be a good husband.
I was a completely different person when I got married the first time than I ever have been in my life. I had been dating a man and we’d moved in together and to make a very long sad story short the escalation ended with him beating me up. Between the systematic isolation he subjected me to and the beating, hospitalization and court case I was not myself for a few years.
Unfortunately for my ex I met him a couple months after prosecutor dropped the charges and I was looking for someone safe, quiet and non demanding. He fell in love and I felt safe. 3 years later I was returning to my natural personality and he felt threatened and I felt trapped. It was not pleasant for either of us.
I think the abuse/cheating ones are fairly honest and can’t be misconstrued. But I’m sure the first uncle’s case I mention is seen differently by my aunt.
My ex straight up blames herself, accepts responsibility for everything. She’s admitted to intentionally inflaming my mood swings to get me to roll into a rage. Because when I was in a manic rage she felt better about the times she failed to control her own moods and actions. There’s a lot of backstory. I wasn’t perfect, but at least I never intentionally sabotaged my relationship and I never humiliated her.
But of course, there is a (entirely valid) cynicism implied in your query that suggests the only believable evidence would come from the ex spouse logging in and posting, “Yep, my fault.”
lindsaybluth, your uncle’s story is really interesting. I don’t know how you could tell that either – I guess I just assume by that time that a couple would be able to negotiate something like that! I mean, it seems to me (in the throes of having a small child, and watching my parents do retirement) that raising kids necessitates a lot more negotiation and working together than planning retirement, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for your uncle and aunt.
Do you know how the aunt is doing at all? Is she able to do the things she thought she was going to be able to do? Does she regret the divorce? Is it possible they might get back together if they both regret it?
I’m not sure if I sound like I’m blaming the spouse or not. In the first marriage I did the walking and it was me that wanted out. The second time half of the problem was me, but she wouldn’t talk about it and just said one day she wanted out. I have my problems, but I’ve worked on myself over the past year.
In both case I’m sure they do. The first wife I can understand, but not with the second. She could have said something instead of just saying forget it. And since we have kids I see her enough and she does blame me.
Who knows? What I learned from my divorces was that I had a lot of issues to work out, and that because of those issues I was choosing to be with the same guy over and over again. I’m still working on that.
Since SHE was the one who wanted out, and I was happily married, it stands to reason that a HUGE percentage of the blame MUST rest with me.
It’s just that I still don’t know exactly what I did that she blamed me for, and she wouldn’t tell me. Maybe she thought she was sparing my feelings.
I can only tell you there was no OBVIOUS reason. No abuse, no cheating, no fights… just a wife who once adored me but could no longer stand living with me.
First marriage: We were too young and stupid. She took stupid to a whole new level by getting pregnant by some guy that was on his way to a long prison term for child rape.
Second marriage: She could not control her spending, was addicted to prescription pain pills and became someone that was truly unpleasant to be around. I was going to wait till after Christmas to tell her I wanted a divorce, she did me a favor by leaving a week before Thanksgiving. It’s been 3 years and I’m still dealing with the crap she did back then.
badgering, cheating, post-wedding personality/goals change on her part, massive post wedding weight gain on her part, verbal abuse, she even hit me once… urrrgh… she’s probably the only person in the world right now i actively hate.
My first husband could possibly have conquered his addiction to alcohol, and worked on the emotional issues which caused him to be violent. It would have taken a lot of strength and courage on his part, and to be fair, he was still a scared kid at the time. I don’t blame him per se; but I also don’t think it was a healthy environment for our children. I felt I had no choice.
I fault both of us for the second marriage. I think we wanted it to work so badly that we ignored our incompatibility. We were equally complicit. If it makes you feel better, I walked out with essentially only the kids’ furnishings and clothes, and my clothes. I left him the household furniture, the good dishes, the pots & pans, linens, vacuum cleaner, coffee maker, all that stuff. I didn’t even have a dining table to eat off of for about a month after moving.
My failed marriage was something like that.
First of all, we had vastly different sexual appetites: I like to have sex every night, I like foreplay, cuddling and kissing. At the beginning of our marriage she said she wanted sex twice a week, but in reality it was more like twice a month. 2 years later she didn’t want me to touch her or talk to her, just leave her alone so she could watch Xena and play video games.
I was naive to marry her, but at the time I was in my early 30’s and still looking for acceptance to compensate for a childhood of abuse and neglect. I didn’t think I would ever meet anyone who I would find attractive and would want to marry me.
