I wonder what causes people who once thought they’d spend their life together to not want to do that anymore.
Has your partner change? Or did they not change when you expected them to? Have you changed?
Have you not noticed each others’ flaws when love was young and the pink glasses still worked and only discovered them later?
And what can your experience teach us about our own relationships?
She came from a pretty messed up family. Not as bad as some but there was some pretty gross stuff going on. We dated for a long time, maybe 7 or 8 years. We got married, she was safe. And she started to grow and seek therapy. She grew into herself and it turned out we didn’t love each other anymore.
I could write an entire book on the reasons. The main factor was she cheated on me, wanted to make it work, I believed her, she hid the affair for 3 years (not very well) I discovered it again.
Men can be abused too. Yeah, I’m physically much bigger, but there is absolutely no way to defend yourself without looking like the bad guy, which she was well aware of.
She was also terrible in bed. And unfortunately about as sharp as a bowling ball and a few fries short of a happy meal.
Advice: Don’t marry someone just because they are hot.
Now I want to hear more about this intellectual monolith
Let’s start with the fact that we met at 14. This is important because my attraction to her was because she was (and still is) incredibly hot. 100lbs, hourglass, eyes that made me melt.
Well, all four years of highschool I was tutoring her through her remedial classes. She just barely graduated. As always though, thinking with your dick gets you in trouble.
I helped her start work on a two year degree she had a pell grant and scholarship for - that she couldn’t finish. Which of course she blamed on me because I was “too involved in my own education.”
She questioned the necessity of vaccines for a long time. Thankfully I got her opinion changed before we had a kid.
I remember when we first started dating she told me I “didnt have to be so smarty all the time.” I asked her what she meant and she said “well, have you tried like not thinking or learning everything you want to know?”
I felt bad for her. She couldn’t stand most jobs. I had this feeling I needed to be with her because she really had a dismal future. So I married her. I mean, come on, she’s hot. Maybe she can cook (she couldn’t cook well), or doesn’t mind chores, and she can be a little supportive. Plus, I would make enough that she wouldn’t need to work. And she really wanted to be a stay at home mom. Worked for me.
She couldn’t do the stay at home mom. She hated that “I got to work a job I liked” and she “had to be responsible.”
Fast forward a bit. She gets a job. She messes around with her boss, meets a customer has a “one time thing” with him. I’m crushed beyond belief. COVID comes around. I feel terrible about the potential for divorcing her. We try to work it out, im suspicious about the amount of time she spends with other men, she convinces me I’m too controlling. I discover her sexting nudes n stuff 3 years after the affair and she admits to it being the same guy (who I never found out who it was). She finally gets a job when I decide to divorce, but it comes with no benefits. Because she doesn’t want to work full or part time.
There’s more, but honestly I’m kind of done for now lol.
“well, have you tried like not thinking or learning everything you want to know?”
Speaks volumes.
We were both in the military and got married at 20 and 19 years old. She got sent to Korea for a year and since I was due to separate I didn’t go with her. She came home to visit after 6 months and something just felt off. The day after she left I was on my computer and noticed some files in the recycle bin. I restored them and found videos of a guy jerking off and talking dirty specifically to her.
So, then I started digging. I got into her email and found all the correspondence with a guy she met in Korea. The crazy thing was the things she was telling him were completely BS. She had basically made up an entirely different life, but with all the same people. I was apparently her asshole brother-in-law. And she came to Texas to buy a house with the “inheritance money” she got from her uncle. Needless to say she had no such uncle or money.
This then got me thinking about stuff she’d told me throughout the years and when I tried to put things together the more they didn’t add up.
So, ultimately I decided to leave her because of the lying. The cheating was bad don’t get me wrong, but the fact that she made up these entire different lives was just too much to come back from.
She didn’t change; she finally revealed herself. In short, her attachment type is anxious-avoidant. That shit burns down everything around it. She was jealous AND cheating, which was just rich given that we were ENM/poly. I was so busy with life, work, and my sailboat that I only had romantic bandwidth for her.
I am forever changed. I went on an intensive therapeutic and introspective journey. Anxious-avoidant people can be immensely attractive anxious attachment types like me. I identified that in myself, addressed my own life traumas, and developed my personal boundaries. These days, I’m less poly, more monogamish. I approached dating with explicitly defined intentions and must-haves, rather than just random chance. I found the partner of my dreams, and we’re about to celebrate eight years together.
Early on, there were mutual warning signs, but we both thought we had the tools to face any challenges. As I mentioned, I had poor boundaries, which now would put an immediate end to any such bullshit.
What can I offer now?
- Learn Attachment Theory and know yourself
- Read John Gottman books before and all during your relationships
- Get professional therapeutic help; CBT, DBT, EFT… you might already have all the tools, but a good therapist will teach how to use them in integration
- Learn non-violent communication and/or take a workshop; this will provide massive return on investment in all aspects of your life
- Practice meditation and mindfulness; also pays dividends everywhere
My wife started fucking a coworker she supervised, another woman, so she had me arrested, lied to the police and child services, then send my terminally ill mother to the hospital to die so she could move the lover into my house, emptied my bank account, maxed out my credit card, stole my work computers, posesiones, most belongings, and truck, Then blocked me from seeing my child, one I raised as a stay at home dad while she worked/fucked around. I am $18k in debt, with a bullshit arrest record and sleeping in my car.
Do I win?
That’s really bad but now I’m curious how she spins it so you’re the villain.
One day she got drunk coming home and decided she was going to change the baby. I was worry she was going to drop her again from the changing table so I pushed her hands away from her and she freaked out, grabbed the naked baby and shut herself in the bathroom. I called the police and her friends to get her out. A friend came over and the three of them stayed in the bedroom for 4 hours until the police arrived and they found her with mysterious scratches on her back so I got arrested. The charges were then dismissed as they were bullshit but the arrest record still shows up in background checks.
My ex wife made a claim that I hit her. She thought it would help her win the divorce.
Officially I have to check the box on forms saying yes I have in fact EVER been charged with domestic violence.
I’m the only person involved with a memory of the event she made up, because I have to maintain records of it and charges being dropped and everything. For work.
Investigators ask me, I have to say yes. I describe the situation and what happened and they give me the side eye “yeah sure ok, wife beater” and then my ex-wife doesn’t even remember the situation.
The good news is I have sole custody of our child. A judge saw the real of it when it mattered.
that’s completely fucked mate