Divorcees of Lemmy, why did your marriage end?
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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?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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?
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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?
We didn't love each other anymore
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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?
First one, we were sexually incompatible (both tops) which only got worse over time. We opened the relationship which doomed it.
Second one, in progress: we're both addicts, I got sober, he's still struggling, but I think he won't get clean until I am actually good and gone. Enablement is sometimes not something you can avoid doing once the systems are built... resentments the same.
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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
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Thank you for this. My wife left about a week ago. It blindsided me, but I'm hindsight I could have seen it. She's been throwing herself into her work for the last 4 years. I felt the lack of love, but never had the tools to express my needs. Whenever we talked about it, we ended up fighting.
In hindsight, if someone is not feeling love in a marriage, why would they stay?
Like you, we also always thought we had the tools to work things out.
I've learned now that in our relationship she has been anxiously attached -- it makes sense now why I could never have the "rational" kind of conversation I wanted with her.
Meanwhile I have been avoidant or possibly fearful-avoidant. What I thought of as "taking a break in an argument when things get heated" to go independently deal with my emotions must have been painful for her, and she would then chase me. End result: neither of us was able to regulate our emotions.
I've was open to ENM in our relationship, but she was against it, so we never persued it. So it stings even more seeing signs that she's been cheating on me. Though I guess, even in ENM, why would you keep seeing a partner whom you feel no love for anymore?
In the last week I have been cramming attachment theory, Gottman, NVC, trying to have some idea of what the hell happened. Now I realize that if I don't work on myself, I will bring all of my problems to any future relationship. I'm only at the very start of the journey, and every day is still painful -- our relationship lasted 15 years, and that can't be unwound quickly.
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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.
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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
Always cringe when you see someone that's ENM cheat... Like bruh your partner is/was very cool with basically anything... And you still found a way to betray trust
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Now I want to hear more about this intellectual monolith
this, uh..... cerebral menhir ?
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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.
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First one, we were sexually incompatible (both tops) which only got worse over time. We opened the relationship which doomed it.
Second one, in progress: we're both addicts, I got sober, he's still struggling, but I think he won't get clean until I am actually good and gone. Enablement is sometimes not something you can avoid doing once the systems are built... resentments the same.
Going to assume that there was no "versaTop" in the equation.
-
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?
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.
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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.
-
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?
He (now she) came out as trans. I am bi myself, but I had been attracted to him for his male qualities, and I did not find her attractive as a woman. That, and she deserved to have the life experiences of dating/living as a woman that our marriage could not provide. There were signs well before the divorce, and we did try marriage counseling before we called it quits. We were married 7 years and thankfully had no kids. The divorce was amicable and we are still friends, still hang out and text regularly.
I already had trust issues, but I definitely trust people even less now. I had many people say things like "Oh, but isn't it nice that she trusted you enough to come out to you?" like that's some sort of consolation prize for my marriage ending. There is not much support outside of immediate family for the ex-spouses of trans people because so many assume we are all anti-trans because of the divorce, when that's so far from the truth. If you love someone, you set them free, and that's what we did for each other by divorcing.
There's a very fucked up community that call themselves "trans widows", which is full of angry ex-spouses hating on all things trans. I get their anger, but at the end of the day, it's the individual person and their particular actions and not the trans community that they should be angry at. The situation is difficult, and I know my ex carries guilt about it, and I could not relate to the "trans widow" community at all.
What can my experience teach you about your own relationships? I dunno, man, probably nothing good. That my paranoia and assumptions were ultimately justified leading up to her coming out? That you can't trust anyone? That everyone has something to hide? That giving yourself to someone fully isn't worth the risk? I dunno.
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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.
Makes SOOOO much more sense being you met her @ 14. We all could have fallen into that trap.
Ooofff...no matter how hot they are, someone is tired of putting up with their shit. (They is genderless, men are nuts too)
She unfortunately was not smart enough to understand consequences of fuck around finding out.
I as a fellow old fuck absolutely understand the self-imposed obligation...but just remember, you can't always be Captain Save-a-ho. I am really hoping I've finally figured that out myself.
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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?
We were both terrible people. We were 19 when we got married and enjoyed playing house for a while. We instigated each other at every opportunity. She cheated, we decided to make it work. Then we found out she was pregnant. I told her if she has it and it's not mine then I wasn't interested in taking care of her and the kid. She chose to have it (I was mad at the time, but in hindsight and with a lot of therapy behind me I realize that's not really why I was mad, but I still made the right decision) so I made good on that promise.
She would hit me almost daily. I was severely emotionally abusive. I've grown since then and so has she. We're not friends exactly, but we do periodically email each other to say hello or laugh about the actual good times if something reminds one of us of the other. Because there were plenty of good times.
We were 19 and in love with the idea of being in love. We both came from broken families and fucked up situations. And I think if we met today instead of back then we would be really good friends.
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Always cringe when you see someone that's ENM cheat... Like bruh your partner is/was very cool with basically anything... And you still found a way to betray trust
Fully agreed. According to Gottman's research, relationships can survive "infidelity" just fine. It's the betrayal of trust that nukes relationships.
I can take a lot of shit, but I just don't want to be lied to. And that's why I prefer ENM/poly. People are gonna do people things, but letting my partner have that outlet, not feeling trapped in any way, is (in my experience) critical to keeping the flame alive.
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Thank you for this. My wife left about a week ago. It blindsided me, but I'm hindsight I could have seen it. She's been throwing herself into her work for the last 4 years. I felt the lack of love, but never had the tools to express my needs. Whenever we talked about it, we ended up fighting.
In hindsight, if someone is not feeling love in a marriage, why would they stay?
Like you, we also always thought we had the tools to work things out.
I've learned now that in our relationship she has been anxiously attached -- it makes sense now why I could never have the "rational" kind of conversation I wanted with her.
Meanwhile I have been avoidant or possibly fearful-avoidant. What I thought of as "taking a break in an argument when things get heated" to go independently deal with my emotions must have been painful for her, and she would then chase me. End result: neither of us was able to regulate our emotions.
I've was open to ENM in our relationship, but she was against it, so we never persued it. So it stings even more seeing signs that she's been cheating on me. Though I guess, even in ENM, why would you keep seeing a partner whom you feel no love for anymore?
In the last week I have been cramming attachment theory, Gottman, NVC, trying to have some idea of what the hell happened. Now I realize that if I don't work on myself, I will bring all of my problems to any future relationship. I'm only at the very start of the journey, and every day is still painful -- our relationship lasted 15 years, and that can't be unwound quickly.
Thank you for this. My wife left about a week ago. It blindsided me, but I’m hindsight I could have seen it.
- Happy to help
- JFC, I'm sorry to hear what you're going through, and I deeply empathize. I'm just some douchebag on the internet, but if you need a trained ear, please feel free to DM me.
- Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but a critical component is giving yourself grace and emotional space
Now I realize that if I don’t work on myself, I will bring all of my problems to any future relationship. I’m only at the very start of the journey, and every day is still painful – our relationship lasted 15 years, and that can’t be unwound quickly.
There is sense of closure and ability of growth in understanding the whys. Explicitly working to avoid carrying forward the injuries is a huge step. As you probably already read in Gottman: the best couple's therapy is individual therapy. Empathy by way of anecdote: when I was reading Levine's "Attached," so many of the example conversations had me feeling like "Were y'all in the room when we were arguing?!"
I'm serious about the being a sounding board/ear. I hope you find inner peace sooner rather than later.
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Going to assume that there was no "versaTop" in the equation.
Correct. I have had this problem again and again - I like top energy but I want to, you know, top them.
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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
Adding my voice to the chorus of thanks.
It takes a lot of courage to do the work. And effort. It’s not easy. Sharing resources helps to light a path for others who might be struggling in the dark.
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Do you two stay in touch? It sounds like it may have been for the best, if you two grew apart. I hope that doesn’t sound callous to say. I hope you’re both in a great place now.
Yeah. We had a kid so we were more co-parenting than anything. We stayed friendly. Well, after a while. I was pretty hurt but eventually it all passed. And now I'm way better off. Im married again and this time I can tell it's for keeps. We have our ups and downs but we both want it to last so we each work hard at it. Also, after all the child support, and kid coming of age after some pretty rough teen years, there was some heavy feelings and drama. My wife and I made an agreement that we'd never divorce; there could be a gun and a shovel either way, but no divorce.
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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?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]It’s hard to say exactly, since the mess was even more complex than the relationship. On the surface from my perspective, she was constantly yelling at me so I sort of withdrew to protect myself. Eventually she either recognized what she turned into or decided I was too emotionally withdrawn.
But the next layer is why we each acted like that and it becomes a mess. Looking back on it now, it’s strange to look at our behavior and wonder how it got like that
There were clearly communications issues, and unmet needs. There were some mental health issues and some serious stress from a major physical health issue. There were self-esteem issues and empathy issues. There are always time and stress issues but what happens when you realize that work is far more relaxing than the stress of a relationship that’s not working?
