Divorced Men Reveal Shocking Red Flags They Ignored Before Their Marriages Crumbled
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Communication is what you need to do. Even (especially) when it’s communicating awkward or frustrating subjects.
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.
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.
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