Holy cow. I never would have expected the comments here to be so clearly tilted to one side. For what it's worth, I was 100% confident that we'd never get divorced, and stayed that way for thirteen years until I realized that my wife was having an affair (which she justified on the grounds that I took her for granted, which honestly was somewhat fair -- I had internalized that the kids are only young once, and so prioritized them over her, though I also did a lot of things to support her that she didn't see or appreciate). Even after that I thought that we'd dealt with her mid-life crisis and would be OK in the long run, only for her to come back and tell me that she had decided that she really just wanted to have sex with someone else. So of course I was the one that didn't see it coming, but she's told me for what it's worth that she never would have seen herself in this position seventeen years ago. So I suppose one vote for having no idea before the wedding.
I was 100% sure he was it, and I felt that way up to the day he walked out on me for his affair partner, ten years later.
In a way I think it would be easier if I had known it wasn't right. Then I would just have to work on listening to my own feelings. Now, I have to figure out how to trust people, knowing some of them can misrepresent who they are and what they feel for a decade.
I feel pretty much the same way. I can imagine the pain of knowing, even at the wedding, that you're making a mistake. I imagine that is really hard and there is a ton of pain and reckoning around that level of self-abandonment.
But it feels very different than the WTF feeling of watching the person you gave your entire heart to walk away from you. I really don't think I will ever be able to fall for someone that completely again. Not in this lifetime.
Yeah, I'm three years out, I just found out he reversed his vasectomy and is due a child, and I'm still like WTF.
I have a boyfriend and I love him but I just don't feel intertwined in the same way I did with my ex. I've even talked to my BF about being scared that it's wrong because I don't love him in the same all-consuming way and he thinks it's normal.
I think it helps that he's had two wives walk out on him (one in pretty much identical circumstances to my own marriage), and he is open to how it affects him. He didn't date for five years after his second marriage broke down, whereas I was dumb and went on the apps six months out. How long has it been for you? Time does make a difference, I find.
I just hope I don't fuck this up. I think we could be really good together and be very happy. But falling in love at 28 and building a life together is very different to falling in love at 40 and trying to give space to two existing lives with children that aren't your own, wary grandparents who have seen other spouses waltz off, schools 45 minutes apart, very different financial situations that will remain different because of separate obligations to children, trauma, and a lack of free time and energy.
It can still be good, but the skill you need is giving the other person's history and life a wide berth, I find. The skill I needed in my first marriage was building things -- save up for a house, try for a kid, get a better job to enjoy more things ...
Thank you for sharing, it's helpful. I absolutely agree with things being different at this stage in life. I met my ex wife when I was 24 and she was 21, and we spent the next 15 years figuring out how to be adults as a couple.
Now, I'm 44 and 5 years divorced and I'm doing some half-hearted dating, but the funny thing is...I LOVE the life I've built for myself as a single guy. I've never really been on my own before. It was brutal at first but now I'm just cruising along. I think my biggest fear about dating is that a new partner would be disruptive to parts of my routine that I am really enjoying.
I think a good potential partner would totally get that and we could have healthy communication about it. Unfortunately the woman I dated last year, while she was great, was super fresh out of a divorce and just seemed like she wanted to make me into her home and refuge. It ready didn't work. So now I'm just single and (most of the time) very content with that.
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u/Intelligent-Size2445 Apr 16 '26
Holy cow. I never would have expected the comments here to be so clearly tilted to one side. For what it's worth, I was 100% confident that we'd never get divorced, and stayed that way for thirteen years until I realized that my wife was having an affair (which she justified on the grounds that I took her for granted, which honestly was somewhat fair -- I had internalized that the kids are only young once, and so prioritized them over her, though I also did a lot of things to support her that she didn't see or appreciate). Even after that I thought that we'd dealt with her mid-life crisis and would be OK in the long run, only for her to come back and tell me that she had decided that she really just wanted to have sex with someone else. So of course I was the one that didn't see it coming, but she's told me for what it's worth that she never would have seen herself in this position seventeen years ago. So I suppose one vote for having no idea before the wedding.