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84 Men Look Back On Their Marriages And Share What They Wish They Had Known Before Divorce
Marriage often comes with plenty of surprises, but few people expect one of them to be a divorce notice they never saw coming. While some couples slowly recognize that their relationship is in trouble, others only connect the dots after everything has already fallen apart. And hindsight, as they say, is annoyingly good at pointing out what you missed the first time around.
That question recently got men on Reddit reflecting on marriages they once thought were going to last, asking those who felt blindsided by divorce what they would tell their younger, married selves. Their answers offer a mix of regrets, hard-earned lessons, overlooked warning signs, and reminders about the things that can quietly shape a relationship long before it reaches its breaking point.
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#1
Listen to your wife. If she is nagging you about something then it's a problem and you need to man-up and resolve it. Probably the main thing to remember she is not your mother and you're not her 'little soldier'.
Unfortunately men tend to only try and fix things at the separation/divorce stage, by then it's too late. She will have been dropping hints for ages. Next time you have an argument try and think what it's about and why she is so pissed off **at you**. You might be tired after a day at work, but you forget that she has done the school run, gone to work, done the school run again, made dinner for the family, but you can't be bothered to do the dishes because you're tired.
Finally there's a feminist saying "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle", I've seen couples split-up and unless the woman is cheating it'll take her a lot longer to try and get back into a relationship than it will the man.
Edit: typos.
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#2
Divorce is OK. Life is too short to accept being unhappy. It’s easy to fall into a routine that doesn’t fulfill one but not worth it. Divorce may take courage but is needed to be happy in certain case.
#3
Never stop dating the person you marry. Wake up everyday and remind yourself how lucky you are to have someone amazing that for some reason still loves your d*****s. It doesn't matter if you are successful in your career and good at almost everything, you are most definitely an a*s hat in a thousand ways.
Appreciate the balance that your other half brings to the table.
The more years that go on, the more they will irritate you. History proves this time and time again, so get ready. But you can't beat time, and every significant other will irritate you 100%. So relax, let the little things go, you don't have to be right 100% of the time, meet in the middle, and enjoy the ride. Always remember why you fell in love and keep that alive. THAT my friends is your greatest show of success in life
Peace and love to all who read this.
A marriage can begin to feel fragile long before either partner uses the word "divorce". Scary Mommy explains that what looks like a sudden decision to one spouse may actually be the end result of a long period of private emotional processing by the other.
One partner may still believe the relationship is troubled but fixable, while the other has already become emotionally detached and reached a decision. The difference is not necessarily that one person cared and the other did not. Rather, they may have been experiencing and interpreting the state of their marriage very differently for a long time.
#4
Look I’ve been married 26 years. I’m still flabbergasted she likes me. If she ever decided to divorce me, I will think she finally figured out what I already knew. Till then I just continue to count myself lucky.
#6
Marriage is a 100% effort, Not 50 from husband and 50 from Wife, But 100% from Husband and 100% from Wife too!
That disconnect can become especially difficult when smaller relationship problems are repeatedly brushed aside. Frustrations, disappointments and unmet needs can accumulate until a relatively ordinary disagreement brings much larger feelings to the surface.
A forgotten chore, an unanswered message or another minor annoyance may therefore become the latest expression of a problem that has been building for months. When the same issues keep returning without meaningful resolution, couples can also become accustomed to unhealthy patterns, making dissatisfaction increasingly difficult to recognize as something that needs to be addressed.
#7
What I am seeing said over and over here is the imbalance of work around the home. Women in general tend to do the lions share of that work. Part of it is cultural and we are part of the problem. Little girls are raised with toy kitchens, houses, dolls, cleaners, etc. You name it that is what you find in the 'PINK' section of toy stores. Little boys are raised with everything except that. When my husband and I were having this problem and I had 2 children under 5 I asked that we try to divide up the chores. I even went so far as to say you write up the two lists and choose which one you want to do. He refused. At that point I was doing the taxes, paying the bills, doing all the yard work, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc. He would share in caring for our children and clean up after dinner. It dawned on me that I wanted him to do things he hadn't done before, didn't know how to do, and just didn't care about. So I just stopped doing the things he could do and did care about. He really liked to eat and was highly responsible on financial issues. I stopped shopping, paying bills, doing taxes, etc.. I loved gardening so I kept doing that and at the time I enjoyed cooking and cleaning. We found our niches and we functioned much better as a couple. We have been together almost 50 years. I am not saying this would work for everyone but I do say that we MUST stop raising our children this way. We are in the 21st Century and our children stores are still divided into PINK and not pink. Pay attention people. Is this what you want your society to be?
#8
We briefly separated before rejoining and continuing our marriage, 2 years since then.
1. Both people have to try. That means you. And that also means them.
2. This might sound obvious, but when things are a recurring fight / grievance / complaint.. fix them. Change the relevant behaviors.
3. People overestimate their own effort by about 25-50%. So if you *feel* like you're doing 1/2 the work, you're probably doing around 33%. You should *feel* like you're doing around 66% of the work for things to actually be fair, and there should occasionally be days when you feel you're doing 90%.
4. Physical closeness matters. Words of affrimation matter.
5. Be someone that is pleasant to be around.
6. Figure out your own b******t. Whatever childhood trauma or insecurity or a*******n or other b******t you bring to the relationship, figure it out and then address it. You're not perfect and you 1000000% are bringing some sorta b******t, your duty is to 1) try to fix it, and if you can't 2) try to create behaviors such that it isn't your partners problem, and if you can't 3) inform your partner about the b******t and accept their response.
7. Most of your problems are probably "you" problems, as in, your spouse is probably not weighing you down. Out of shape? Not enough social life? Debt? Whatever it is, you can probably fix these issues with just as much effort as though you were single.
#9
It'll pass. Don't use it as an excuse to have a midlife crisis. Stabilize your life, get comfortable being divorced, and THEN start considering whether or not you want to start dating.
The way couples handle those disagreements can matter as much as the disagreements themselves. Relationship Room highlights four destructive communication patterns known as the "Four Horsemen" including criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. Instead of focusing on a particular behavior, criticism can turn a complaint into an attack on someone's character, while contempt introduces mockery or a sense of superiority.
Defensiveness shifts attention away from responsibility, and stonewalling involves shutting down or withdrawing from the conversation. The Gottman Institute similarly describes stonewalling as a form of withdrawal that can occur when someone becomes emotionally overwhelmed, potentially making productive discussion even harder.
#10
Advice to all men.
If your wife is no longer talking, no longer fighting…your marriage may be coming to an end.
So many of my friends who ended up divorcing their husbands didn’t fight with them any more because they didn’t care enough to argue.
FreeTheUnicorn 32 minutes ago
You should know it's an unhealthy relationship when there's regular fighting, ling before the give up phase
#11
I don’t know how short I’m going to be able to keep this, but I’ll try. I’m in the early stages of divorce right now. She communicated she wanted divorce on 5/22/26 and tried to go through a mediator to get it finished about the time our kids got back into school, but I am still trying to fight for our marriage even though I know that the odds are very much against me. I thought I was listening to her and trying my best to understand her perspective, but the speed at which she was rushing through the process was terrifying and I needed time to process everything. Took her all of 3 days to drop money on a lawyer and start the divorce papers…
Shockingly, our communication has been pretty good. She finally acknowledged how hard this must be for me. Before she was just so angry that I couldn’t see it coming that I think she felt I “deserved” the be as hurt as I was. And since we have been talking as often and as well as we have, I was FINALLY able to determine why there was such a huge gap in how large we viewed our marriage problems. First, we both probably contributed 50% of the issues. I am a stay at home dad and struggle with insecurities that can cause me to pull away from people. I allowed my insecurities to get out of hand and became so overwhelmed by my lack of self worth that it caused me to neglect my wife’s needs. She had some major childhood trauma from s****l a***e and when I started neglecting her and making her feel abandoned, she started hiding away her more inner thoughts and feelings from me. The combination of those two things allowed our connection problems to fester for years. She would reach out for emotional connection every 2-3 months and I would put in a little effort until things “smoothed over” and then go right back to my bad habits. I saw her opinion of me drop and I wallowed in self pity. Then she would reach out for physical intimacy and I would reject her because I felt like I didn’t deserve it and it didn’t feel natural. It felt forced. Like it was just something a married couple was suppose to do, not something we naturally desired with each other.
That should have been enough to wake me up, but I continued to downplay it, think of our issues as normal marital bumps along the road. I wish she had just slapped me honestly. I wish I had heard the words “I can’t keep going on like this!” or “We seriously need marriage counseling/therapy”, but it never got brought up. And from what I’m seeing on here, apparently direct confrontation from women appears to be pretty rare, so I guess it shouldn’t have come as a shock to me like it did.
BUT the main reason she feels like she has to seek divorce isn’t even the issues themselves, but what her brain and body have been doing to her through the years of neglect. Aside from the anxiety, feelings of abandonment, fight or flight responses, she has also been experiencing a slew of physical responses such as random bruising over her body, weight gain, and nearly an auto immune disease. Hence the reason why she feels she has to escape the marriage as fast as possible and why our perspectives on our situation are so different. She is seeing her therapist, but rarely in person, so I’ve been trying to encourage her to do that, but mainly, I am trying to work on myself and discover why I acted the way I did and how I can change my life going forward.
So now to finally answer the question, I am doing weekly counseling, lots of videos and books on becoming a better communicator and getting more natural at connecting with people, journaling, weekly walks and talks with friends, etc. I never really worked on myself at all during our marriage and didn’t have any relationship goals in mind. I was just “doing life” aimlessly. That was a big problem as well as putting way too much weight on my wife (she did this to me too) where she was more or less responsible for my self worth. It makes hard conversations almost impossible to have because emotions just fly in them.
Anyway, the strangest thing is happening and I don’t know where we will wind up, but we are sort of “resetting” our relationship. She made the comment to me months ago that she desired to “remain friends” after the divorce. I’ve never witnessed that before and was emotionally all over the place at the time, so I laughed it off and thought “how naive of her”, but since her anger against me has lessened and some empathy has returned, there has been actual effort put forth in getting together to go for ice cream or out to lunch as a family where we can just talk and share our hearts again. So, inspired by her efforts, I suggested that we work together and discuss what being friends would actually look like. So just today, we got together and went over things like how often we desire to get together, how we can support one another, what boundaries need to be in place, etc. My hope obviously is that we will be able to get back together, but I know she needs time and healing. I want to show her that real change in me is possible, so I will continue to work on myself and grow in ways I should have been doing during our marriage.
If I could have, I would have told my younger self that you can’t stop pursuing your wife. Just because you are married, you can’t naively assume that she’s going to be with you ‘til d***h do you part’ without putting in the work to maintain or grow the marriage. Also, the stupid 23 year old me thought that after my wife went to therapy for her childhood trauma, it was “taken care of”. I’d love to have gotten myself educated on how those childhood issues can resurface in marriage and also learn how to support her and what pitfalls to avoid as well.
If you made it to the end, thanks for reading my story! I hope it can help someone!
#12
Leave the first time she cheated.
Don't give so much of myself to another individual
Recognize alcoholism earlier.
Over time, these patterns can make communication itself feel unsafe or pointless. A partner may raise the same concern repeatedly, receive little meaningful change and eventually stop bringing it up. The other spouse may interpret the absence of arguments as an improvement, when it could instead reflect emotional withdrawal.
Scary Mommy's reporting on the so-called walkaway spouse phenomenon describes a similar progression, noting that a partner may initially raise concerns gently, become more direct when nothing changes and eventually stop raising them altogether. By the time the relationship appears to end suddenly, considerable emotional processing may have already taken place privately.
#13
Do more chores
I did some but not as much as her and I regret it looking back (it prolly wouldn't have said my marriage tho)
Also invest more on your own goals .
#14
Years ago I got out of an LTR of 7 years. May as well have been one.
Trust how you feel. Single/relationship always comes with goods and bads that you take and leave with each. If life is better with them, you're set. If it's not, you work on it or you walk away. Don't be afraid to walk away at all.
In a good relationship, "fights" aren't fights. They're discussions. You bring them up when it makes sense and is reasonable. Not five seconds before the other person is falling asleep. Not over text in the middle of their work day. You talk through it knowing you're both solving a problem together. You're just trying to navigate each other's boundaries, express feelings, and solve issues. And it's not about blame or demanding the other person feels awful in order to understand your perspective, but respecting that you both want the same things. Keep it light, keep it straightforward, and then it's taken care of and you move on with your day. It takes maturity and compassion and openness to create the space to be open to sharing at this level. That means if you are with someone who makes you afraid to speak up (because you're wrong, somehow it's your fault, you have to apologize for feeling wronged, and you don't want to share your feelings again), you're with the wrong person.
Issues require accountability on both sides. Acknowledge the mistake, offer a way to improve, try, accept the other person will try, and you find a way to make it work. Accept no less from yourself and the other person. Some things may never get resolved and that's okay if it's not that deep. If it is, acknowledge the s**t out of it.
Ultimately, I think the thing I would say is if you can't be a good version of yourself with this person, they're not a good match and it's okay to walk away. If they are, do your best to recognize it's okay to deserve being with a good person.
#15
Marriage therapy/counseling should be like routine car maintenance in a relationship. We didn't have any big issues but small issues simmered and resentment grew over time. Counseling helps clear that toxic resentment out but if you start during a relationship d***h spiral, it won't likely help much. .
This also helps explain why one spouse can sincerely believe there were no obvious signs while the other feels they had been visible for years. The same evening of silence, for example, might feel like peaceful downtime to one person and emotional distance to another.
A disagreement might seem like a normal marital rough patch to one spouse but represent another reminder of an unresolved problem to the other. When partners attach different meanings to the same experiences, they can gradually develop very different understandings of how healthy their marriage actually is.
#16
1) Don't get married young. No need. Just wait.
2) Don't have kids if you don't want to.
3) Those "gut feelings" that you have are not just "cold feet"
4) Wait allllll youuuuu wannntttt. If it was meant to be it will wait.
Edit: .
#17
My brother went through a divorce a few years ago. He said something that stuck with me: “I thought all couples went through this pain and suffering. That’s what everyone says you have to work through…”
No. You shouldn’t suffer in your marriage.
FreeTheUnicorn 23 minutes ago
Don't listen to the people who say relationships are work if they are more work than being single, you're doing it wrong
#18
Never, ever, let a mother in law think they are part of your marriage. If they feel emboldened to over step and you criticize them, there will be a part of your wife who can’t cope unless she is one of the few 100% committed.
Yet looking back after a divorce can make those differences even harder to evaluate fairly. Research published in Perspectives on Psychological Science explains that hindsight bias causes people to view an event as more predictable after learning its outcome.
Once a marriage has ended, earlier arguments, periods of distance or moments of tension can suddenly appear to have been obvious signs of what was coming. They note that people tend to selectively remember information that fits what they now know while overlooking other evidence that once pointed in different directions.
#19
I would educate my younger, married self on what an avoidant is, what DARVO is and to be prepared to never be enough. This isn’t about blame, but more about reality. Relationships with avoidants are incredibly challenging and sometimes no matter what you do, they’re going to withdraw and convince themselves it’s not working. They’ll do this quietly and ironically, the more you try to address their needs and establish intimacy, the more they will pull away.
If I had known about this years ago, maybe there would have been a chance for us to work through it earlier, but at the very least I would not have been as caught by surprise as I was.
And for the record, my STBXW admits to being an avoidant, which is definitely progress for her, but also that it was just too late for us.
FreeTheUnicorn 24 minutes ago
You don't need a Scientology personality test if you just relate to your partner as a person. If you reduce people to their labels, you aren't going to ever be happy.
#20
Communication is what you need to do. Even (especially) when it's communicating awkward or frustrating subjects.
#21
Blindsided 2.5 years ago. Still not healed.
What would I tell myself? Even though you both promised forever, she isn't going to stay unhappy forever. Even though you would have. Listen to her. Pay attention. She doesn't care that you are successful, that she doesn't have to work and that the kids are happy. If she's not getting what she wants, she's going to leave you. And what you think matters, doesn't necessarily matter to her.
I MIGHT also tell myself to never marry her. If I could go that far back.
FreeTheUnicorn 21 minutes ago
Don't be the type of person who doesn't care when your spouse says they are unhappy, just because you lay the bills.
Research specifically examining romantic relationships has found a similar effect. For context, the study found that people who were told a couple had broken up subsequently judged the relationship more negatively and considered the breakup more predictable than people who did not receive that outcome information.
They also found that people can also remember former relationships more negatively after they have ended than they actually rated them while they were still together. This suggests that even genuine warning signs should be interpreted carefully after the fact, because knowing how the story ends can change how the earlier chapters are remembered.
#22
She hasn't asked for a divorce, just for us to see other people. We have two young children and can't bear to give up the family home or give them a broken family. It felt like it came out of nowhere, but in hindsight we have been growing apart for years and my crippling depression for the best part of a decade was a big part of it. She deliberately held off telling me how she felt until she felt I had done the work to be able to handle the change of situation, and again in hindsight this was absolutely the best way she could have approached it. I took a while to process it, but now I'm diving into the whole "open relationship with completely free license" thing. I don't know what I could have told myself, or when, to make it work and avoid this whole thing, other than "get the help you need and do the self-reflection you need to be a whole and reliable adult". Even then, sometimes you just can't save it.
#23
Pay attention to the quiet distance not just the loud fights. She did not leave the day she packed her bags she left months ago when she stopped arguing and simply became indifferent.
FreeTheUnicorn 19 minutes ago
The loud fights were what should have clued you to the problem. The distance was there already
#24
You’re not happy. This isn’t fun. Divorce is probably the easiest change to make. If you want to fix yourself and the way you interact with your family, you need to fundamentally change everything. The career you’ve been building for the past decade needs to simply be maintained, you can trust FMLA. Your role within your extended family only exists in your own head, and you can change the assignment you’ve given yourself. Your family isn’t the thing that lacks happiness, it’s you. You could be happy homeless & broke.
That distinction matters when considering what someone might tell their younger married self after an unexpected divorce. Paying attention to recurring problems, taking a partner's concerns seriously and addressing resentment before it becomes entrenched can all be valuable lessons.
At the same time, hindsight should not create the illusion that every failed marriage contained an obvious roadmap to divorce. Some problems are genuinely ambiguous while they are happening, and a person making sense of the past has the benefit of information that their earlier self simply did not possess.
#25
Stay away from divorce forums- including Reddit.
You cannot describe 20 years of marriage in a way where anyone actually cares.
People will judge you no matter what.
#26
We went through a rough patch after having twins, never thought about divorce but one thing that has always been helpful advice to me is that being the sole bread winner in the family does NOT equal 50% of the total household workload. Every relationship is inherently 60/40 but they work when BOTH people are trying to be the ones giving 60%. Always do more than you think is exactly half. That goes for both people.
#27
I would ask myself "do you still want to be married to her?". If yes, change what you're doing. If no, keep doing what you're doing.
If I answered "no", I would inform myself that being divorced is going to be much harder than you think in ways you don't understand.
We were in couple's therapy for 4 months so it wasn't a total surprise but at some point she checked out. I still see our couple's therapist and the therapist says she was never really engaged, so who knows... My divorce lawyer said something great; that when men want to get divorced they want to f**k someone else, and when women get divorced they have already mourned the relationship and moved on.
My answer to wanting to stay married would have probably been "no" but I will always try to find a way to make something work, until the game ends. And she ended it with signing divorce papers without me knowing, taking half the money out of the bank (as she was entitled to), hiring two lawyers and trying to sell the house and move the kids' school district.
In many, many ways, we had a reverse traditional relationship. I did most things at home. She made most of the money. Or at least she was making most of the money at the end, so it was probably an easier decision for her to leave. That also hadn't occurred as much to me because I did the majority around the house. She never cleaned, mowed, raked, shoveled snow, paid a bill, took out the trash, got the mail, did laundry, filed taxes, washed her car, swung a hammer, never planned a date for us, etc... She was a great cook, but didn't cook much, and I would have washed every dish. I know that might sound like hyperbole, but it was 12 years into our marriage before she asked me how to turn the vacuum on. The way any living situation works is chores fall to the person who has the least tolerance for them not being done, and I always had the least tolerance. Hell, the reason I guessed she was divorcing me that day was she offered to take the kids to school, which was so out of the norm I knew something was up. But she was/is a fun, charismatic person and there are many, many reasons to like her. And despite whatever she enjoyed of me and my effort to make her living situation easier, there are always many, many reasons to not like someone, such as myself.
But one of the multiple truths are, while I continued to put in that effort around the house, I always put that same amount of effort in with her, and I stopped about a year before she divorced me. I got frustrated with her. Selfish and unselfish reasons, some reasonable, some not, but it was core differences over time and under pressure and she broke. She made 75-80% of the money by this point and so it was probably an easier financial decision for her to leave and that is a big practical plus at the decision point. Probably first or second in line with having a different significant other lined up, which neither of us did.
Another question is how hard to do want to break your kids' hearts. That was the hardest day of my life. I will never forget their howls. Doesn't mean you can't love them and have them still feel loved, and there are reasons to have healthier single relationships than an unhealthy marriage but it needs to be considered, heavily. (not asked here, but I am answering unsolicited to your previous post about IVF. 1 and 2 for us were successful. 3 and 4 we donated to science. my reasoning was i was never short on love, because I could have 20 kids and loved them all dearly. But I was short on all other resources; time, effort, patience, maybe money depending on that 3rd kid and how much it changes your life, etc...) Back to the task at hand...
I will say there hasn't been one night I wish she was still in my bed. I have an even stronger relationship with my children than I did before the divorce because that time is more focused and I take none of it for granted. During the time I don't have them, 50% of that time is normal, 30% of that time is awesome (fewer obligations) and 20% is soul crushingly lonely.
To finish your question, I would tell myself, in my perpetual planning, to be ready to be more adaptive. Be ready to make new plans, and fast, and be ready to learn to try to be OK with not knowing how things will turn out, you've (meaning I) been wrong before, and it might be how you got here in the first place.
The last thing I would tell myself, that would fall on my deaf ears is to try and have more grace for where she (ex) was coming from. She was scared. She was hurt. She was doing what her lawyers told her to do. If I could have tried to focus on that, I could have saved myself about 8 months of terrifying anger from reading her lawyers awful, awful, letters. I wish I could have known it was going to be alright, but god almighty, it did not feel like that at the time. I also learned that John Grisham did lawyers a lot of favors... they aren't that smart.
If your question is rooted in personal context, I wish you and your family the best outcome. If rooted in interest only, I thank you for giving those of us who commented or read comments, space for catharsis.
The lessons people take from divorce are rarely limited to the moment a marriage ends. Sometimes they involve learning to pay closer attention to repeated concerns, making space for difficult conversations, or recognizing that a relationship can require active care even when there is no obvious crisis.
Other times, the biggest lesson is accepting that not every ending could have been predicted or prevented. Looking back can offer clarity, but it can also be easy to judge the past with knowledge that was unavailable at the time. What do you think someone should never ignore in a marriage? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
#29
Don't mistake comfort for stability. Being a good provider and co-existing in the same house isn't the same as staying connected. Keep dating your spouse, listen when they raise concerns the first time, and never assume tomorrow is guaranteed.
#30
The things she is asking for are small. Don't get in your head about how she isn't doing those things for you, just do them for her. Your marriage is good and the problems you think are problems are not. Don't be comfortable thinking it will work it self out and she will stay. She's not hard to read and you know her. Don't sabotage your happiness when she is there. When she isn't it will hurt a lot more.
Edit: I've read my own comment probably 100 times now and each time it makes me breakdown, even now. I had everything I wanted and my own arrogance and selfishness pushed her away. When she stopped asking I didn't even notice and it was too late by that point. Knowing how her pain felt, as I'm living it now makes me feel like a monster. She was crying on the inside and I made it happen. She isn't and won't ever be coming back. I wish I could have told myself these things when I had her, I would have changed. .
#31
Actually write out the house chores, the chores for having guests over, the chores for going on holiday.
Also, stay reliable. My spouse could cope doing 80% of the chores, what broke us was when I couldn’t reliably do the other 20%.
#32
I didn't feel blindsided by the divorce, but I did feel blindsided by the affair. When she explained why she did it, it was a lot of "I've been trying to tell you I feel alone in our marriage and you didn't take me seriously." But she also kept up the affair after telling me she ended it and we went to couples counseling, sooo...
Looking back, sure there were things I missed and things I didn't take seriously enough. But, and I say this 15+ years later and 12+ years into a new marriage that's functional, the communication problems were just as much her fault as they were mine. And I think that's true for pretty much every marriage that ends in a blindsided divorce or affair.
If your spouse isn't picking up what you're laying down, just be blunt about it. Figure out how to let the other person know what's going on. Not everyone speaks the same "language" in relationships. Like, you wouldn't go to a foreign country and get mad cuz people can't figure out what you're asking for when you are literally speaking a different language, right? Why do we treat our relationships differently and assume the other person knows what we need without just straight up telling them and making sure they understand?
What would I tell my younger self... Don't get married to her lol.
#33
To my younger + early married self: There were subtle signs during the dating period & in marriage that you chose to ignore. Now they’re going to rear its ugly head. That’s okay though, your belief in a true lifetime romantic partnership has actually gotten stronger from your experience. Also from this experience, your strongest inner beliefs that run deep into your soul haven’t wavered and that’s how you know it will be okay.
#34
I am going thru this right now, or at least the very real possibility of it. All I can say, and all I have said in therapy is looking back on it, it can seem fairly obvious that something is an issue, but that is all looking in hindsight, when thr stress of that moment are gone. Why didn't you do ABC, you definitely could have? Well, because not only was there XYZ, but also ABC involved, plus a bit of DFG. Problem is, while that handles that exact situation, ABC is still not resolved, which can continue to fester and breed resentment that can overwhelm a relationship when really, it can be more situational blindness and value mismatch than anything
For me, I believe I have a few undiagnosed issues, ADHD, depression and prolonged grieving among them. Identifying that I have always had trouble with alexithymia was one of the differentiating factors in figuring out that it was a more chronic condition rather than a passing feeling. Treating it more like a long term medical condition than something temporary gave me some basis to work on myself and my understanding of why I do things and how I feel them. Medication can help too, especially when things feel overwhelming, it can be a way to keep moving forwards and try to keep working on yourself. I know I had to get over a big mental block with myself by recognizing using them wasnt a weakness or a crutch but more a tool to be used, similar to how antibiotics can hold microbes at bay long enough for the body to heal itself.
I dont know how it will all turn out, especially given how hurt and alone my partner has felt while I have knowingly and unknowingly been doing things that have sabotaged our relationship. She has said it has gone on long enough that we feel more like roommates now, and she's staying together for the kids more than anything. She complains I am not the man she married, and I would have to agree with her as I shouldn't be, I should be constantly changing and growing and improving. However, this doesnt necessarily mean I am changing for the better as not all growth can be in the right direction, and one of the best things I can do is be mindful about it, try to change or influence what I can and be able to rekindle something here, hopefully for thr better.
All I know is I have to keep going, to keep moving forwards, to keep fighting against myself and my previous actions and try to help and improve myself and my family. My kids may have to be at the center of this most of all, because I am a bit worried I will/have passed many of these traits onto them, and if I can't figure out how this works in myself, how am I going to be able to help them when they need help here.
#35
Stop sacrificing your health to please someone who doesn't care about you. You deserve to be loved and cared for too.
Work less overtime and look into how she's spending the money
I know you don't want to believe it, but she's obviously cheating on you.
#36
While married:
Take responsibility for the things you do, learn from your mistakes, go to therapy so you can vent and gain a new perspective. Take charge of the finances and speak directly to put an end to the resentment.
At the time of separation/divorce:
Don’t waste your time crying for that week. You weren’t happy before and she never stopped taking advantage of you from day one. Break off your finances immediately and push for the divorce to be finalized soon as possible.
#37
Just be honest with her and get the help you need (I gave away my marriage by hiding my a*******n).
#38
Is 100% ok to end his marriage 3 months after tie the knots. Is your life for God sake.
Also you are not that bad. Marriage is hard and you are trying your best (and she is not as perfect as you think).
#39
If she lies to your couples therapist in front of you about her drinking... she's got major substance a***e issues and the writing is on the wall. She's lying about more than you can imagine. The sooner you distance yourself and the sooner you remove any trust you have in her the quicker you can move on and mourn the life you were told you were going to have together.
#41
I think in a marriage, if you are afraid to tell your wife something, you mustn’t do it. Only in this way can one avoid getting divorced.
#42
Dont be a doormat ever, you lose respect for yourself and she loses respect for you faster.
#43
I've thought of this a lot over the years. I wasn't the only one blindsided, our entire long time friend group was dumbfounded by the way she changed her personality and created things out of thin air just to support her taking off. It's years later and still happens occasionally, but didn't while we were dating or married. So my advice would've been enjoy it for what it was, the good parts were really good, the bad parts real bad and you'll be in a much better place eventually.
#44
Once you identify that things aren’t right either actively work to fix it or end it. Don’t just settle for the new normal because it’s convenient. Once she has what she feels she needs to be able to move on she will regardless of what value you think you bring.
#45
I have been through a divorce and my little cousin is going through one now. He called me for advice as we both felt blindsided (like, things are going badly due to these outside influences [moving, taking care of d****g parents, economic collapse, whatever] but we love one another and are giving our all to this relationship and our kids and one day the sun will shine again)
And what I told him is, “a woman has divorced you 5 months before she tells you she divorced you. There’s nothing left to chase, she’s just letting you know.”
Edit*: typo.
#46
Better learn to shut up and listen, dude. Stop fixing. Start listening. Learn to validate and get over yourself.
#47
My ex and I met young. We both grew up and grew different goals, views and paths in life that just didn’t mutually track for a continuum of the relationship.
You can put in the effort on both ends to keep things going but you can’t ignore that two people are still their own persons and not everything will be eye to eye. As long as you understand their happiness and reaching their goals matters just as much as you reaching a potential you have wanted then the end is really just a new beginning for each of you and that’s ok.
It takes years to get past and never really stops hurting but you can’t dwell on what could have been when that means one person compromising on themselves.
#48
There's a song by Yellowcard that I heard and knew that it was speaking to me but I didn't listen. It went:
> I heard a voice last night
> It said "Wake up and open your eyes.
> Wake up, walk out tonight.
> Cause she don't care if you're d**d or alive.".
#49
You tried your best but it was pretty obvious from the start we had different reasons for being married.
When she wasn’t willing to do marriage counseling or choose you over her hobbies it becomes pretty obvious that things are going to change.
#50
If you're blindsided it's because you weren't noticing what was happening in your home. When someone tells you there's a problem, believe them.
#51
Don’t give away the house for the kids because they end up coming to live with you in your rented house.
#53
We weren’t married, but we were together for a long time and were talking about marriage.
Objectively she was a terrible girlfriend and not even a decent person. I’ve always known this even when we were together.
Love is the closest thing we have to real life magic. She was manipulative, mean, violent and egotistical. Almost like a psychopath. Yet I still love her and I can’t tell you why. If she texts me know that’s he wants to get back together, I don’t think I can say no.
#54
To not argue all points all the time and let her decide on the things the people around her expect her to decide about, saving her loosing face. Few things are important enough to you that they are worth a constant battle. Let her make and realize her mistakes, before correcting them.
Thinking about it now makes me realize there was no saving the marriage, not enough sacrifices could be made and no amount of handbags would have sufficed. She did not really know what she wanted herself, or why she figurer things a certain way, so there is really no way to make good on any of it.
Don't get married because you think that is what is expected of you. Younger me figured she was attractive enough, from a good family (atleast socioeconomically speaking), and agreeable, and that we had fun together, but that is not early enough and does not really say much about what happens once you 2 are alone together in a room and the magic and fun has wore off. That is when you find out if you are truly compatible. Life is somewhat long even if it passes quickly, and divorce takes a toll, in a big way. I don't think I will recover, in a few aspects.
Also, whomever is to blame for the divorce, you will until the day you d*e stand responsible for who you chose as a mother to your children. .
#55
Do more (and do it earlier) to try to help, support, and encourage her to get professional treatment for her mental health.
#56
I would tell myself that she doesn’t love you for who you are and she never did. She loved you for who how well you fit the picture of her perfect mate. Once she realized she was deluding herself and that you don’t fit the model of who she wished you to be she was done. She’ll go on and have unsuccessful relationships because she doesn’t love a partner just the idea of one. When times get tough she can’t love someone else and that likely cause she doesn’t love herself.
#57
Don't fight it. Just go straight to divorce. Spent 3 years trying to salvage the relationship, and it was a doomed effort.
#58
How you feel in the beginning is how you'll always feel. You can't fix people, you can only try to show them a better way.
#59
I don't think there's anything I could say that would really help.
I will probably never feel as happy as I did back then ever again. It's hard now just to go through daily tasks. She was everything I wanted and I did everything I could to empower and support her. If I told myself that she was going to cheat on me, I would have ignored myself. If I told myself to find something else to pour myself into, I'd reply that there's nothing so worthwhile. If I told myself it's going to be okay afterwards, I'd say who the hell wants to just be ok.
I've been over it and over it. I did everything the best I could. Even after she cheated, I asked we go to therapy together but she refused.
It's been almost 10 years. Nothing comes close to what it felt like to be married, to have someone who needed me, who desired me, who I could be vulnerable to, who I could bare my heart to and tell them how much I loved them, who I could share experiences with. Nothing can touch it. And I doubt I'll ever have that again. Even if I do, I doubt I'll ever trust it like I did.
I wish she'd have just k****d me or something. That'd be a mercy at least.
What I'd tell someone LIKE me? It never gets better. You get better. Better at handling it. But it stays the same. Be ready for that reality.
#60
What you think is love is just codependency and unaddressed trauma on both sides. Don’t give up your youth and future for this woman who only takes from you.
#61
I was absolutely destroyed when my wife told me she didn't love me any more. Fought for every strand of a chance to make it work.
I'm hindsight, I was wrong. I'd been fighting for years and I'd just not seen it.
I'd tell my married self, and all the married selves, to really take the time and make the effort to check in with each other and talk about your values, your wants, and where you see your future. And when you begin to notice there's disparity, don't just presume one will go along with the other or it'll all work out. An unaddressed hairline fracture is tomorrow's unrepairable fissure.
And lastly I would say to value yourself. Relationships and love are worth fighting for, they're worth compromising for, but they shouldn't mean your erasure. Ask yourself what you're really getting over and above just "being with them" and if the answer is nothing or very little at all, then that's a dynamic that needs some real examination.
#62
If you feel alone and lonely inside your marriage and your spouse doesn’t care, won’t work with you to improve that, or recognize that as an existential risk to the relationship, they don’t care about the relationship, just what they can get out of it and you.
#63
If someone tells you they have BPD (Not Bipolar though I mean...) and they've been fine up to now and you wanna be polite and understanding and say it's not a problem. Start making plans to distance yourself now, do not develop further relationships, it's a ticking time b**b and it WILL blow up at some point.
#64
"Men of Reddit who felt blindsided by divorce: looking back, what would you tell your married self?"
Here's what I would tell my married self at that time:
"Don't trust her. She's going to have you sign the house over to her so that you can get the house off your credit report to make it easier to buy your truck. Stay on the title if you do sign the loan over to her. Make sure you get your share. Her plan is to leave you and leave you with nothing and marry another man shes been hiding in the background. The signs are there, but you ignore them because you're too busy working and building the house up. One more thing......she's taking the dogs too. Its going to rip your heart to shreds, so be prepared.".
#65
Often times things can be fixed. Take a moment to think of the root issue. There will be a time they are exhausted and dont want to fix anything, big or small. There will be time YOU don’t want to fix anything, big or small. If you let these overlap while you are both exhausted, both of you will be cheated out of a functioning marriage purely from bluffing and holding ground that doesn’t need held.
Some things aren’t worth fixing, you will know if you’ve found yourself in that situation. But always take a moment to say the problem out loud. Did it start over laundry? Cooking? A mess? A broken item? Just daily yelling over b******t? Fix it.
#66
Our conversations revolved around either what she perceived as *my anxiety* or things she wished I did her way around the house, which I would then do my best to change each time we talked. But, then the goalposts would move to something else.
If I was able to go back and talk to myself about what was actually going on, I would say "those are her excuses, she wants a divorce, and is pushing you away. " If I had started letting her go, like WAY early on, it would have saved me a LOT of anguish.
The moment she started getting really emphatically into being supportive and radical about LGBT and trans issues is the moment I should have realized that she had decided she was gay, and was moving on from me. Even though, to this day, she has never admitted this to me. I've only learned it through the grapevine.
#67
That sometimes for whatever reason your wife might leave. She might not be committed to you or the marriage. Even if you do everything right she might leave on a whim. Even though you tried your hardest and she didn’t, realize that she is the problem and not you. Give yourself some time to mourn and then move on as quickly as possible. Find someone who loves you for you and is willing to commit to you and marriage.
#68
Sometimes you can do everything, and it will never be enough. Being alone is fine; you don't need someone to "complete" you.
#69
Wasn't blindsided about the divorce. Was by the fact she waited till she had replacement line up.
#70
Take a better inventory of what expensive items are in the house, so when you come home to find it half empty you can list them all in the divorce settlement.
#71
You cannot outwork or sacrifice enough for someone who is committed to misunderstanding you.
I think maybe, just maybe, if I would have called that out early, we might have had a chance. Twenty-five years gone in a poof. Virtually all of our joint friends have migrated back to me after initially siding with her, which is only a small comfort, but it's something.
#72
I can't really say I was blindsided, I guess frog in the boiling pot would be more accurate. Slowly, week by week, there was less affection, less communication, I just kept telling myself it was a slump. I continously tried to make things better, do things to show I cared, tried to talk things out, tried to make it like we were happy, and every time it got shut down I would just say well just give her her space.
We had been together for over 10 years, and friends for at least 5 before that, and had son together. I don't know what I would do differently, maybe there was nothing I could do. Probably would have just said asked for the divorce myself months earlier, saved myself months of pain, wondering what I was doing wrong.
I'm not trying to claim I was anywhere near perfect, God knows I made a tons of mistakes, but I at least was always wanting to try to work towards making it better, she would just sit back and watch it d*e.
It takes 2 people to make a marriage work. If you're trying and it isn't working, accept that it's already over, the bell rang but you didn't hear it. Move on knowing you at least tried.
(And by "mistakes" no I do not mean I cheated, just incase anyone thinks that).
#73
Don't ignore red flags and things that aren't meshing. Try to work through those things without being the only one that gives a part of themselves to make it work... Pretty soon you have no pieces left, then the resentments set in if they haven't already and you're in a slow moving d***h spiral and don't see it until you get hit with papers.
Sometimes people just aren't compatible and that's ok... Don't wait until it's too late.
#74
Either start marriage counseling or divorce earlier. I pushed myself too hard with work/kids and had nothing left for the marriage. Drifted apart over years.
#75
I missed so many signs, the little ones, I was just unaware. I think I wanted to be unaware. Because awareness felt like it would be too painful.
Signs like:
1. She was a professional athlete
2. She rode a motorbike.
3. She had never had a boyfriend before me
4. She never wanted s*x
5. She was a physical education teacher
So yeah... she came out as gay, I was blindsided, but not completely.
I would tell myself to read the signs. Don't ignore them; address them straight away.
#76
Marriage for most, for some reason:
"I promise to love you and only you forever, in front of all of our friends and family and I promise you're the one I will spend forever with. Etc. Etc....
.....or at least until I become unhappy, bored, whatever" .
#77
Fight to impose your limits. Do no allow her to take advantage of your feeling of powerlessness to be a ticket for her to slowly pull further away. Her a*******n to p**n is a problem too.
She’ll claim the s*x therapists you found were too expensive, and that she can’t pay for half of that - just choose one therapist and pay for the whole thing yourself, even if she complains.
Believe that you deserve better, because you are trying. Forget what that campus therapist told you about your depression just being “part of the course” for a PhD student, and find yourself a therapist willing to see you from your own point of view.
Finally, when her ex warns you about her tendency to “suddenly change”, take it more seriously. It’s nice of you to judge her through your own experience, but in this case, he was right. Your instincts were right, too - you kept hoping she would one day allow herself to be herself fully, but unfortunately that did not include you.
#78
Wasn't married, just long term relationship that ended with me walking in on her and her now husband.
Highly, highly recommend the book "the 7 principles of marriage work"
Not only did it help me understand how to treat the next relationship I am in with actual knowledge of what to do in rough patches, it helped me identify some of the issues I had myself that affected all sorts of relationships besides just it being about marriage.
#79
Id tell myself to stand up for myself and stop accepting her a***e. Id tell myself that it wont get better just because I put up with more and more.
#80
Ya can't change a BPD partner who is in denial of their condition and who is enmeshed with their NPD mother.
No one can.
Having 1 kid with them won't cause them to want to change.
Having 2 kids with them won't cause them to want to change.
They have to want to change on their own time and on their own dime.
All in all, I think that marriage to a BPD partner is feasible if they stops being in denial and work really hard on themselves with rigorous DBT treatments.
#81
Wasn’t blindsided but if you have to keep telling yourself “would you rather be right or would you rather be married?” This is your sign to leave now. Especially before you have kids.
#82
I’d have trusted my gut and told her to get her IUD pulled.
Ever since she got it she slowly started acting weirder and weirder. I tied telling her I thought the IUD was messing with her, but she told me I was crazy. Not long after the divorce she got the IUD pulled and said that she felt like her old self again within hours. She apologized and told me I’d been right all along. Unfortunately, too many bridges had been burned down by that point.
#83
If you're a Ph.D, do not marry a high school dropout even if you both came from similar social class strata. Do not invite her and her kid to move in with you six months into the relationship to keep them from having to move in with their aunts. Do not knee-jerk believe what she says about what her ex-husband has said and done. You may be dealing with a con person just looking for paid rent and pretending to care about you.
She's eventually going to grow bored with you, resent the hell out of the fact you rescued her and are helping pay for her kid's upkeep. She will find an illiterate ex-con m**h dealer to have her affair with and you'll have a broken heart and seven lost years of your life.
#84
In my experience, men are led to believe that they are the less romantic partner. That romance is more of a female thing. This can be naive. When a woman wants to marry you, there is often a network involved in that decision. It will probably have been discussed in depth. Your value is assessed. Your happiness will not feature high in that context. All of this may be revealed when things go wrong.
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