I was married for almost nine years to someone who I thought was the most honest and respectful woman I have ever met. She had great morals, her outlook on family and life wonderful. I was in love and I thought that this is the one I will spend the rest of my life with, have kids and grow old together. We have two kids (7 and 4), until my wife got a job in an office, suddenly one day she changed from a caring, loving wife to a ***** of a wife with a no care attitude and just wanted to think about herself. She had an affair and wanted a divorce right away, moved out and moved in with this guy and said she was in love with him.
What is wrong with peole today that they cannot work things out, but just run away thinking it is beeter with someone else? I had no idea that my wife was even unhappy. Three months later I am getting my children, her new thing wants nothing to do with younger kids and I could not be any happier. I am coping and adjusting but will take some time to recover. Eventually, I will be fine but as for my wife who cares.
Life goes on, This was my second marriage, and will be my last, i see no point in getting married and a few years down the road when conflicts arises that your chances of a divorce is high (50-50) is not worth it. No one ever tries to make it work out.

Strike two-- you got the kids, good for you. The wayward spouse is the one that destroys the family and creates a hostile environemnt. Also, look at the morals that these people reflect on the kids and family.

Let her go, she will one day realize what she did wrong. She will one day realize that your two kids had to see her sin, fail, and look like a fool.

Wayward spouses are only into themselves and only themselves. They think they have found their quote SOULMATE!. What they found is lust, deceit and denial.

Move forward, and be there for your kids. And do things for yourself. REmember you are a good person, and a loving father.

It is hard to even want to be married after going through some of the things we've all gone through. I have to believe that God has some higher purpose for it... the preservation of the family unit and the raising of children with BOTH gender role models intact. But, it makes me wonder at how easy it is to get married in our society and how hard it is to divorce. It seems so unbalanced. If your spouse can screw you over in a divorce legally... it seems that in marriage, for example, when you go to open a joint account, they should pull you aside and ask you, "Are you sure?" and then make you sign a billion waivers. With how litigious our society is I've often wondered at why no one has successfully sued mortgage companies and banks and businesses for so easily allowing co-mingling of assets, the raiding of marital assets in dv, and then all the financial fallout... it never seems to touch them.

I hope that as I move forward in my life, I'll be able to find someone that understands some of the issues I know I'll be carrying with me and will patiently outlast them with me. In the meantime, I would almost suggest that everyone about to get married go spend a day in dv court... after all, you only have a 5 year window before you PROBABLY will divorce. SIGHS.

I guess what I'm saying is that it should be just as hard to get married as it is to get divorced. Last time I checked there were no drive through Elvis chapels of love in Vegas for DIVORCE, custody battles, and asset management.

Lyxa, I agree it should be harder to get married.
I wish there were drive through D's, but looking at your dates, you sped through yours. I'm on the slow road and it's just so discouraging.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by strike two:
<strong>i see no point in getting married and a few years down the road when conflicts arises that your chances of a divorce is high (50-50) is not worth it. No one ever tries to make it work out.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Strike two:

I'm so sorry for your pain. I can hear it in your post. But, I'd be willing to bet you'll see her at your doorstep again in about a year and a half!! Begging to come home!!

That's not my idle prediction, that's based on thousands of actual couples and data the Harleys have collected through their years of research.

When that happens, what will be your reaction? One of the reasons second (and subsequent) marriages don't succeed is that couples don't do the work required to change themselves when they split.

In other words, chances are, your W felt that some of her needs were unmet by you. That's what caused her to "find someone" else. If you don't fix whatever it is about you that made you treat her in a way that she percieved as unloving, it will only perpetuate in any other relationship you have in the future.

By the same token, her new "friend" will soon have the distinction of being the man who can't meet all of HER needs!! Why can I say this, not knowing her, you OR him? Becuase obviously, your W became so selfish when she wasn't getting her needs met, that she walked away, rather than working on fixing what was wrong with your relationship! This will become a pattern she will repeat, if I've learned anything about what the Harleys try to teach. This is what is borne out by the stat you quoted above.

Soooooooo, my question to you is this: What will be your reaction to your W if or when she wants to come home? Will you still be here licking your own wounds? Or will you have read, learned, grown, become a better person, AND a better mate? Will you be willing to help her get to the place you can get to, in order to create a safe environment for your children to grow up with BOTH of their parents loving and caring for each other forever?

It can be done. Read the concepts on this site. And think about it. You've got nothing but time on your hands for your renewal right now, my friend.

God Bless,

At this point, I'm wondering what the point is too. It's so easy to get married and leave a marriage now, it almost seems irrelevant.

You take a vow to be with someone for the rest of your life, yet there is no real consequence for breaking the vow (at least the WS doesn't see it at the time). Since society is based on principles of instant gratification, it is difficult to make a marriage work.

I do know that if I get married again, I will probably have future wife sign a prenuptual agreement due to reality. If she is offended and won't sign it, fine. We just won't get married. I am sick of seeing guys get screwed over by their ex-W's because of gold-diggers. I'm not rich now, but I plan on having a successful career and I don't want someone marrying me for money.

I ramble here, but there are plenty of reasons to not get married. Maybe right now, I'm having a hard time seeing the positives.

My bf never married me. He said I'am with him now and I should wait until he's ready. So I trusted him and I waited. Now 10 years later he just up and walked out on us. I am still in shock. I don't understand his reasonings. I would have done whatever it took to make things work. He just decided to completely quit. We each have a child from a previous relationship and they were raised from toddlers together. This has been very hard on my son and he hasn't even come around to see him. I think he is missing the sensitivity portion of his brain, I don't understand how you can go from acting like a normal family one day and treating us like crap them the next. Some of the people in this world are really f*cked up.
It's too bad they always have to screw up the good ones. I was a beautiful, loving, and trusting 21 year old when I met him. I passed up some really good catches and now I'm gonna carry this stupid baggage around for the next few years.
Lord knows I busted my [censored] trying to build a good honest life. I never did anything wrong but love this jerk way too much. (Yes I'm angry today, he stood up my boy this afternoon.)
Now he's pulling some disappearing act so we all wonder where he is. Why would he want me to think he is with another woman? He did this when he met me. He stayed at my house all the time for like 3 months, never talking to any of his family. (I didn't know about it until later.) Now he's doing it again. Except I don't think there is another woman? I dunno...
Maybe it would explain the Dr. Jeckle, Mr Hyde attitude.
Anyway married or not it hurts just as bad. The shame is still there, and there are friends & family members to answer to. Except on top of it you feel foolish for not leaving when he didn't propose after a few years. Bottom line is never forget who you are, never give up your morals, values, needs, and wants to appease someone else. Never build a business, house, or a family when it's not in writing. Protect your [censored] from some cosmic meteorite that might come and konk your loved one in the head and leave them demented and they take off with your whole world, listen to me it really happens, ok! Don't take today for granted because it just might be the best days of your life and you just don't know it yet. Marriage is a wonderful thing, don't give it up because some @ss wanted to take your dream from you. It's yours, you've had it all along, it will never leave you. It left them.
Anyway, I'm hurt, tired, and tired of hurting...time for me to go to bed. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />
~Good night

Hoping4best...

I understand what you mean about being married for money. I fortunately, or unfortunately, however you choose to view it, am right at the beginning of that issue. Not the marriage part, but the finances. I worked hard, and my ex thought she had half of it forever. She was just clueless, that is all. The world just doesn't tend to agree with her view very often.

However, at my mediation, both my attorney and the mediator told me that I needed to make sure that I got a prenuptual agreement in the future.

Now I am not this type of guy. But then, maybe that was just BEFORE I found that honesty, integrity, and faithfulness were not universal traits. I don't know, I will not marry anyone that I don't truly believe that loves ME not my finacial abilities, however there is no way to be sure. I thought that my ex was right there with me the whole way, and having put in the time, we were BOTH going to reap the benefits. Hmmm, fantasy thinking on both our parts I was to find out. My fantasy about my family, hers about taking half.

I will get a prenup. I have decided that my boys are too important to leave them up to chance with someone that has no 'real' connection to them. I mean, heck, my ex is their mother and did this to their family for her own pleasure. How much easier would it be for someone else to do this for her's?

As far as marriage however, I still believe that it is wonderful. We just have to be smarter about our choices. We have no one to blame other than ourselves if we put ourselves into a bad situation again. Fool me once, shame on you... Fool me twice, shame on ME !!!

<small>[ May 27, 2003, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: Formerly Confused ]</small>

This is an interesting question. When many people get married, they focus on the vows and perhaps the religious aspect of marriage. But the state does not see it that way, when it comes time to divorce. It's laughably easy for one party to break the contract, for any reason or no reason, and walk away with half of everything. Most of my married friends have big misconceptions about how the divorce process works. Some are shocked that serial cheating makes no difference.

I can see it the other way, too, if a cheating husband leaves his wife. He still gets half, and she usually gets most of the responsibility for their kids. I don't think cheating husbands are the ones making serious fights for custody.

I used to think pre-nuptial agreements were bogus, sort of planning for failure. But, now knowing that the state has such a different view of marriage, it absolutely makes sense to protect oneself. Marriage vows provide no protection. The state seems to view marriage as a business deal, with the possible complication of kids. People should know that going in. If a husband supports his wife's decision to be a SAHM, he can be punished for it later, both financially and in access to his children. He ought to know that.

Certainly, more preparation before marriage would help most people. But it's still not a guarantee, because the real stresses come later. How is your partner going to react to problems 10 years down the road? It would help if the couple "owns" the problem, but with the divorce laws as they are now, marriage is more on the "renting" side. Per Harley's new book.

I don't really have an answer for this, I'm still thinking about it. I do know that, since the love and hope are gone for my marriage, I'm now looking more at the legal and business aspects of marriage and divorce. And that just gets me angry again. Right now I have this pessimistic view, but I hope it changes.

FC,

I agree with you...I'm not the type of guy who would not share with his wife if I was wealthy and she was not.

However, there are too many women who initially judge a man solely on what he does for a living. They will marry a man they don't care about for money. Once he's locked into marriage, he's screwed because he was emotionally defrauded. I'm sure that this has worked the other way around, so don't slam me ladies.

As you can tell from my age, I'm early in my career. I don't have a ton of money...however, I'm also doing very well for my age. If that continues, by the time I'm 30, I'm a gold-diggers dream come true.

I think that a lady who respects my concerns (especially since I have been through this before) would sign a pre-nup. If not, well, her attitude isn't realistic or she has been revealed. After all, if you don't divorce, the pre-nup is worthless anyways.

lupolady

In reply to your question I have read many articles about infedility and why it happens as well as the normal behavior of people whose lives were destroyed by the spouse having an affair. I was willing to change and make it work out, and she knew that, I too feel that in about a year or two she will come knocking at my doorand want me to take her back. I love my wife, and had she just tried and talk to me or even go to a marriage counselor would have been a huge help, but she decided the path of running away. I would consider taking her back and try and meet her needs. So your answer to that is I would try every effort to meet her needs, but under the condition that she goes and get counseling.

So your answer to that is I would try every effort to meet her needs, but under the condition that she goes and get counseling.
So SHE has to make the first move (counseling) before you will do anything (meet her needs) to help the marriage?

I was willing to change
But now you are not willing to look at your behaviors and see where they may have been better for the realtionship?

My ex-H "ran away" too. He was involved with OW for at least 2 yrs (most of which we were still married). Im not sure if its still going on, but he acts verys secretive & hides information etc. I guess it goes back to the difference between mature love and "lust". He could have had that physical high with me if he had tried. I begged & pleaded & turned myself inside out trying to keep it together but he refused me & lied & treated me very badly at every turn. I think he assumed the grass was greener on the other side or that by running away all his problems would disappear. But I kept telling him the problems were inside & he couldnt run away from himself. So now, I am no longer there to blame when things go wrong in his life, and I think for the first time in his, he is having to face responsability for his own choices, though still trying to blame it on external factors.

As for meeting the others needs - we cant if they wont let us!!! There comes a point when you have to let go. ( I still have a hard time with this & think of him & miss the "old"him often. But like my friend said to me, "He's not thinking of me, so why should I think of him". Easier said than done. I too wish for reconsiliation when I really allow myself time to remember/think/feel all that I have lost. But me too for saying it would take alot of hard work and counseling. I begged my ex-H to go. He refused point blank fo reither joint or individual. I know that we could not go on the way it was, even if he wanted to. I cant go back to that. I have changed. I hope he is changing too (though much slower!). So often, I hear "take responsability" for your part in the failure of the marriage. I really feel NONE!! My problem was that I tried to fix problems the best I knew how & when the result wasnt what HE wanted - he blamed me. But God himself couldnt have fixed some of the problems!!
The only thing I will say is that we yelled & cursed wickedly (but always his initation). It was my defense mechanism. I would prefer now to walk away & discuss things calmly and rationally but he still throws a fit & yells & throws a tantrum with threats of withdrawal (and we're divorced!!). He would call me weekly, but got into it over my losing my job & when I said I wasnt goinh to argue, he walked off & hasnt called me since.

Why get married? I dont know anymore. In the old days it was mainly to have children, but nowadays anything goes. I would like to think that there is a special someone out there with whom I could spend the rest of my life with sharing their companionship & love & support. A you & me against the world attitude. But I thought I had that this last 10 yrs. Clearly, my H cared more about job, money etc than me. He was #1 above all else to me, but I guess he did not feel that way about me. I have my doubts that I will ever trust another person ever again!!