The decision was made at the end of October last year, so still very fresh and still very painful. Legally still married for a few more months.

I watched her spirit die in slow-motion from my health issues making me unable to meaningfully contribute and turning her into a caretaker while being the breadwinner. It wasn’t one single thing with my health, it was a series of one issue setting off new issues, and after a long enough time of that you stop feeling optimistic that getting through your current problem will be the end, and emotionally the new ones hit harder. I know this sounds bad on her, but she tried so hard for so very long. I knew it was killing her, it was killing me watching what she was going through. It wasn’t her fault for giving up, and anyone who watched what I did would understand that.

I’ve moved back in with my parents as a man in his late thirties. I wish I had had the courage to make that decision myself a year ago rather than forcing her to decide to give up. I kept trying to have faith that if I just kept pushing I could get back to a better place and fix everything. My parents are a nine-hour drive away, with my mom having severe cat allergies, so moving out also meant abandoning my best friends, and obviously my human friends too.

Counseling helps a lot but I feel like twice a week is still nowhere close to enough. And of course, almost every single problem I’m going through has health insurance fighting tooth and nail to not treat and I feel limited in my emotional ability to be constantly fighting on all of that.

I also had a really good relationship with my parents before but I am absurdly sensitive to the weight I’m putting on them right now, which I think is a trauma reaction. They are doing everything they can for me and I just totally withdraw and don’t feel like myself at all around them now. They want the best for me but right now I do not have the emotional strength to make any requests of them, no matter how light.

This mostly turned into venting, but given the thread topic it’s probably expected. I don’t really want suggestions for actions to take because right now I’m still too dead inside to follow through on anything.

He’d tell you because I was crazy.

I’d say it was because he wanted us to both move in with his (wonderful and supportive) family.

I was crazy, but not THAT crazy.

We had been living far away from his family, but he’d landed a fantastic job in their home town. Before the move, his mother started calling me and telling me that if I wanted to live in her house, I’d have to be respectful, and not go out drinking all night and coming home drunk – something I’d never done or conceived of doing – or what chores I would have, or how loud I could be, and when we would eat, and so on. I told him that I could not live 24/7 with his mom. I said I was moving to MY mother’s and when he got us a place of our own, I would join him. He didn’t. We divorced.

The divorce was fairly amicable. That was all about 30 years ago and I never remarried. I did shack up with a wonderful man for about 20 years, but I eventually kicked him out because he’d shrink into the shadows when I most needed support and I was tired of feeling emotionally devastated when I reaching out for succor and instead finding a void. I explained that I’d rather know that no one is there to help if I’m flailing about than to have someone I trusted stand by and do nothing. Yeah, I’m bitter about that one. I still love the guy, but sheesh.

My first wife cheated on me.

I’m now about to celebrate 10 years with my 2nd wife.

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Completely incompatibility between views of the world. It can sound a civilised realisation, but the process to discover that was very messy with lots of frustration that started to compromise the mutual admiration and respect along few years.

Today I only wish good things to my ex-wife and I truly don’t hold any bad feeling, but equally I don’t want to see her ever again in my life.

Dated for a few years, thought well we might as well get married for the perks, then afterwards realized we were just roommates and actually not all that compatible. We were both bored and letting life pass us by. It became my ex would stay out late “due to work” while I truthfully didn’t care. Found myself envying others’ lives, also imagining how life could be with a different partner. So I initiated the divorce, which timed with the apartment lease ending. The divorce process was easy and both sides moved on fairly quickly, so I suspect deep down my ex knew it was right to break up as well.

As for the fuck up on my part, I didn’t tell him but the realest truth is I stayed in a rebound relationship that should’ve never happened. And I felt comfortable. So I would advise not doing… That. Lol.

My first wife wanted to get married, she didn’t want to be married. The wedding itself and maybe the honeymoon (fancy cruise in the bridal suite) were what she really cared about. Almost 25 years later I got married again and after our kid was born she said I smelled differently and she was repulsed by me. She decided she didn’t want to be married anymore. 5 years later and neither of us are dating anyone. (I have no desire to get back with her.)

Currently amicably divorcing. We’ve actually been separated for 8 years, and it’s only now that I’m sorting out the divorce. Neither of us considered ourselves married after we separated, and both moved on to other partners, so the paperwork now is just a formality, primarily driven by our new respective partners not loving the fact that we’re still married.

We were together 18 years in total, starting from university age, and married for a decade. Two kids, no infidelity etc. I think it was a classic example of a relationship in which we’d grown apart and were effectively cohabiting rather than happy husband and wife. The truth is most people who get together at that age go through significant change over the ensuing decade, as you discover more about yourself and life, and grow in confidence. However you don’t necessarily grow in the same direction as your partner. It’s nobody’s fault, although it can be if you fail to acknowledge that and want to realign, but sometimes it’s too late and the love has gone. The marriage has become a routine, and it’s only stepping back and questioning whether you are truly happy that can allow you to figure out whether things can get better, and whether you even want them to.

I think, after 18 years together, there were no surprises, and within that environment there was limited capacity or drive to change. I think after it ended (once the initial trauma was out of the way), I became a much more independent, confident and responsible individual, because I didn’t have the safety barrier of somebody who could provide that extra decision-making or support. I had to do it myself, something I’d never had to do before.

In our case, even if it didn’t immediately seem that way, it was exactly the right decision, for both of us and the kids. Both our lives are happier and the kids have probably massively benefitted from two people that fully co-parent. I could probably write a book about that latter claim, but I believe that the kids splitting their time between two intelligent parents who understand that they are the priority, and that the parents themselves get a “break” from constant parenting while the children are with the other person, has been of huge benefit all round.

I wasn’t technically married, but after 10 years it was like it.

Anyway, technically i ended it by cheating on her, but in retrospective she had’t been fulfulling her part of the relationship on oh so many levels, and i was looking (cowardly) for a way out. So the cheat become my actual wife and we have been happy ever after.

It’s been the best change in my life ever. but my knees don’t always agree.

As a life lesson, you need to make experience. You need to know what you want from life, and you need to learn how to care for somebody. Before these three checks are green, your relaitonships will not be lifelong or positive. Break from bad relaitonships and learn from them, but most of all, learn from yourself. Find out who you are, then start grow a couple. Find a better person than you are as your SO, learn together and grow together.

and, most of all, do not follow advice from strangers on the net.

Saw a similar thread on reddit recently.

Overwhelming majority stated it was cheating, followed by cheating and boozing, followed by money issues.

It seems people can eormt through a lot but cheating is just kills it, which makes sense. Since after that there ain’t much of a team left lol