Divorce...

Fair warning to people looking at potential partners.  Apples don't fall far from their trees.  

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :

And, opposites may attract, but fundamental philosophical differences just get worse.

In reply to RX Reven' :

I'm not one to meddle, but if it hasn't already happened, bail. Sounds to me like she wants a puppet. 

RX Reven' said:

Stampie said:

In reply to Pete Gossett :

My line was when I saw Lil Stampie being affected. That's when I realized he'd be better with two happy homes than one sad home.

Yep, I watched my MIL browbeat and berate my FIL into an early grave and now I realize that I’m nothing more than a sparring partner for my wife to teach our daughters how to have the exact--same--failed--marriage.

Yes, I did try to get us into therapy…she decided that only I needed to go and she wrote a list for me to give the therapist identifying all the things she wanted fixed in me.

I told mine to set up counseling.  A couple of weeks later I asked about it and she said that we got so many free and she thought she needed it more for herself than our marriage.  Thanks for making my decision easier.

Was down this garden path once,  near 40 years ago.   Choose to forget about it.  Life is good now.

When you see her phone light up with a message from a coworker (who you thought was your friend*), that he's going to bed and his door will be unlocked, if she wants to come over, so curiosity gets the best of you and you open her messages to see one of her messages that it's that time of the month, but lucky for him it's BJ week... Yeah, it's time to kick her to the curb. 

(sorry for the run-on sentence) 

*They became coworkers after we became friends

In reply to RealMiniParker :

yea that is pretty clear.

I am coming up on 25 years of marriage this year.  There have been some pretty rough patches along the way.  We are still have have work through things regularly. We choose to keep doing it.

For me the key question has always been this, "Am I going to be happy living by myself?"  The answer has been has been no when I have asked.  We have never gotten so distant from each other that the positives of her been in my life everyday were outweighed by the conflicts we have had.

Matrimony:

  "The only war where you get to sleep with the enemy".

I've only been married 6 years and still enjoy it, reading this makes me dread the possibilities! 

In reply to dropstep :

Don't dread anything.  I've been married for 27 years to the woman I lived with for 3 years before that and went out with for 3 years before that.  Basic compatibility is all that is required strategically - the rest is just the tactics of being an adult who cares about someone else.

I've been married 23 years and we are in the process of separation. I can't stand her and she can't stand me.

We started to realize it was affecting the kids and that's when we decided it was time.

The house sold yesterday. Time to move on.

Three rings of a relationship:

1. First comes the Engagement ring  

2. Second is the Wedding ring  

3. Then comes the Suffering. 

dropstep said:

I've only been married 6 years and still enjoy it, reading this makes me dread the possibilities! 

Read Athol Kay now and it will keep things rolling along nicely.

Divorced or thinking about getting married? Read Rollo Tomassi and Esther Perel.

If only I'd learned this stuff when I was 21 instead of 46...

In reply to ddavidv :

Marriage is not just a word, it is a sentence.

Marriage is the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life.

To thine own self be true....Marriage saved me from  what what was going to be a delightful and exotic road to ruin.  

Pete

ddavidv said:

dropstep said:

I've only been married 6 years and still enjoy it, reading this makes me dread the possibilities! 

Read Athol Kay now and it will keep things rolling along nicely.

Divorced or thinking about getting married? Read Rollo Tomassi and Esther Perel.

If only I'd learned this stuff when I was 21 instead of 46...

I thought of Ether Pearl when reading through the posts on this thread. I found this interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa0RUmGTCYY

In reply to RealMiniParker :

I heard of Shark Week but this is new to me......LOL.

My wife and I are good friends - sometimes this feels like we are sitting in the front seat of the roller coaster and going on a long ride together.  Jobs, kids, life, death, cars, houses, food, fun days, bad days........I do enjoy her being here for me and I have always been there for her.  

One odd item is we were friends for two years then got together as a couple - sometimes that might help as I knew her as a friend for a while.  

My single most important memory since the divorce is also the saddest because I understand how terrible it is. 

Two years ago Tanner had mentioned that he did not understand how his mother was having a 6th anniversary date with her boyfriend if she and I had only been divorced since 2012. He's 13 at the time and exceptional at math but according to his mother the divorce was all my fault. 

He also understands complex reasoning.

In reply to dropstep :

Remember you're listening to mostly middle aged men on the internet.  We're not happy unless we're not happy.  The Wife and I have been married 15 years and it has not gone at all how we may have wanted it to go.  She's had some serious health issues and I'm living a life that may end up slowly killing me to make sure she's taken care of.  That does lead to a lot of frustration as she is no longer able to do many things she loved doing and after work I am head cook, janitor, nurse ect. While it's easy to focus on the bad days and I often do, the good days we have are great and I can't imagine not spending them with her. She is happy just being here everyday and loves go out and do whatever she's able.  Remember to enjoy what you have and don't go looking for problems if you aren't having any.   

Type Q said:

I thought of Ether Pearl when reading through the posts on this thread. I found this interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa0RUmGTCYY

 

 

That video is the one that exposed me to Perel. She is brilliant. Mating In Captivity is a landmark work, IMO.

The problem with a lot of us is we focus on the idea of romantic love when we are humans (animals, to a large extent) that are driven by primal biology to attract mates and reproduce. The human species is the only mammal that attaches more to it. The warm, fuzzy feelings that we call 'love' tend to diminish over time (typically around year two) and we are left with the business of getting along and -- most importantly -- maintaining attraction with our partner. There are actually very few people so compatible that they can co-exist in a euphoric state over decades. The rest of us find we have to 'work' at our relationships and maintaining interest. Stir in the distraction of kids, work, crises of various sorts and so on and it is a daunting task. Relationships turn sour, familiarity breeds contempt and divorce happens for any number of reasons.

Wally said:

In reply to dropstep :

Remember you're listening to mostly middle aged men on the internet.  We're not happy unless we're not happy.  The Wife and I have been married 15 years and it has not gone at all how we may have wanted it to go.  She's had some serious health issues and I'm living a life that may end up slowly killing me to make sure she's taken care of.  That does lead to a lot of frustration as she is no longer able to do many things she loved doing and after work I am head cook, janitor, nurse ect. While it's easy to focus on the bad days and I often do, the good days we have are great and I can't imagine not spending them with her. She is happy just being here everyday and loves go out and do whatever she's able.  Remember to enjoy what you have and don't go looking for problems if you aren't having any.   

Between a complicated pregnancy, finding out and dealing with her having chrones disease and a layoff years ago we have been through alot together. We have known each other 16 years so we do fairly well. Right now I'm laid up with medical issues and she's doing it all. I figure if we survive all this and still enjoy each other then we should be good.  I often feel like I got really lucky in the wife department after dating a string of women who drove me crazy. I do everything I can too keep her happy.

In reply to dropstep :

The possibilities are based on the effort the two of you put into the current relationship now, and what some would call the courtship, or vetting stage.  

I dated women before getting married. The point of dating wasn't to get my rocks off, but to evaluate her as a potential partner FOR LIFE.  I passed on some, married one. We've been through Some crap that statistically destroys marriages. 

A good friend of mine told me he was getting married. After hugs and congratulations we were talking and he said "yeah, she's great. But I figure that if it doesn't go well, there's always divorce."  10 years later they're divorced. He was doomed from day one  

From my experience many people go into marriage with the same 'commitment'. We live in a disposable society, weather it be water bottles of vows taken before God and man. 

If you both work at it, it can be great. 

dropstep said:

I do everything I can too keep her happy.

Admirable, but treat as the default setting at your peril.

(I can sense the poising of numerous fingers over keyboards)

Here's what I mean by that:  treat kindly, certainly. Where too many guys go wrong is placing their women on a pedestal to the extent where they become SWMBOs. Once you reach a point where you become afraid of upsetting her you begin a downward spiral. Couples will have disagreements. Women will get mad at you (sometimes seemingly at random as we know). Too many guys try to avoid the natural part of relationships where two people will get annoyed with each other. "I can't come over tonight to drink beer and watch the game because my wife will get mad" is death. You lose your sense of self and become just a husband. The surprising end result is your wife/girlfriend will actually begin to lose respect for you even though you are always giving her what she says she wants. 

This does not mean do whatever you want and not tell her. It does mean allow yourself to do things that YOU want to do (with fair warning) vs ask 'permission' from your S.O.. A person should not lose their entire individual self when they become a couple. The individual is what attracted the other to you. When you go too far trading self for 'married' you are no longer the person you once were. Attraction wanes, nagging begins and the whole thing becomes a predictable crapstorm to marriage counseling or worse.

Yes, you should treat your S.O. with love, respect and kindness but not at the detriment to your own needs and desires. Relationships are the same as most things in life:  moderation is better than extremes.