At the same time, it really, really sucks thinking you found this and then slowly realizing years into it that it’s not going to work because it’s just crushing your soul and there are some fundamental incompatibilities that are just not going to change and you have to get out for the sake of your own sanity and long term happiness, despite how much you want to make it work.
Source: I’m in the terminal phases of that process right now.
Apologies for being a Debbie downer. Just having some pretty rough times right now, and the next couple of weeks are going to absolutely suck, and there’s definitely no way around it but through.
I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you manage to navigate this uncomfortable (and temporary) period of your life and can get back to building happiness again.
I appreciate your sentiments. Your posts often give me spikes of amusement, for what that’s worth. <3
I’m glad! Hang in there, bud. <3
Hey, I just did that a year ago this November 1st!
Man, am I glad I did. And man, was it so worth it.
So glad to hear it gets better. Thank you!
At the same time, it really, really sucks thinking you found this and then slowly realizing years into it that it’s not going to work
Its not going to work with that particular person, but that doesn’t mean your life is over nor that the one you’re looking for still isn’t out there looking for you. I’m really sorry to hear about the situation you’re in right now, and its not going to be easy to get through this and its certainly not going to be quick, but you can get through this. You can heal. You are so much more than just that relationship even though it may not feel like that right now.
You must navigate these choppy waters with an aim to come out the other side whole in time. You owe it to yourself. If you want to try again in the future, should you want to try again, you owe it to the other person thats still out there looking for you.
Oh, I know that. I am actually very confident I’m going to feel way better in the long term. I’m just struggling a lot with guilt and stuff right now because a big part of me feels like a complete psychopath for basically spurning someone I love a lot, and who I know loves me a lot too.
That said, I do appreciate your well-wishes. <3
I am in exactly the same place right now. It’s really shit. I know it will be better eventually, but to hear someone else say it is very helpful. Best of everything to you. Stay strong.
You too, friend.
Yo, I’m turning in the divorce papers in a few weeks. After months of detangling finances and finding new places 🎉 Only took like 5 years of me giving it my all and my former spouse constantly telling me I wasn’t doing enough for them. The years before all that were pretty great though
As a generally lazy person, I would suggest other lazy people look for similar minded matches. Don’t look for a type A hyper organized person that’ll pick up after you. My wife and I are lazy in different ways and make that work for us. Sorry you are going through this OP, I hope you find your match!
That’s… actually part of what did us in. She helped me improve myself, and I became a lot happier for it. I tried to return the favor… she was largely unreceptive, and several years of that led to immense frustration, followed by despair. It turned my trajectory right around. And one I had tasted the positive direction, I wanted it back, and I couldn’t settle for just trying to pull her through life.
Dude I’m in the detangling finance stage now.
I made like 3x what she did before we separated so quite literally everything has my name on it. Her lawyer gave an absurd number for the budget she would need me to cover for maintenance for the next 5 years and my lawyer said “ok prove the need.” I don’t think she’ll be able to, but yikes, the thought of this having to go through court is frustrating
I’m fortunate enough that mine is very amicable. No lawyers, we’re splitting everything 50/50, there are a few big things that would make it more complicated in a court but we’re like “no you’re the only one who uses that you get it” kind of stuff. We would have turned in the divorce papers a few weeks ago actually but they’re on my insurance and I didn’t want to kick them until their new job’s insurance takes affect. Even with all this going for us the finances thing took so much work. Can’t imagine what a contested detangling would be like. You’ve got this!
Been there my friend. 30 years together, and she ended it without warning with a weak excuse. Took me a year to realize she was a drain on my mental wellbeing and I’m now better off. But, for the first 10 years I can say life was good.
Today, life is way better.
Yuuuup been there before. Gets worse if you have a kid together. Thankfully I didn’t in my case but I have friends who are “stuck”
Wife doesn’t love me, least not the way I love her. Just had the talk, this post is downright brutal right now.
I’m really sorry. I just had a friend go through the same thing and I was counseling him last night. I will say something similar to you that I did to him:
It all seems awful right now, but you will get past it. Remember that there are other people in your life who love you even if it’s platonic love. On top of that, I had a good friend who was good looking and friendly, someone people enjoyed being around. He was single for 15 years. He got married in his mid-40s to someone I can tell he will be very happy with.
There’s always time to find love, even if you’ve lost the love you’ve had before.
Now granted, I have been married for more than two decades, so feel free to tell me to fuck off with this advice.
This post is going to make some people very sad and some people very happy and I guess I’m here for that. Life is alllll sorts of experiences, good and bad. Just gotta roll with it.
And some of us just, meh. Tried the co-op mode and found that the people I’m attracted to aren’t good for me. Now I’m just looking forward to retiring before I’m 50, and surfing. That and having tons of dogs that I foster and train to be good, and then adopt out. I’m not a good dog parent because I can’t see them as anything but needy toddlers. Therefore annoying. I can’t foster cats because I couldn’t adopt the cats out. The dogs are at least consistently needing the same repetition so that they become good dogs for some family out there.
At first I imagined actually getting into the fetal position and rolling on the ground, but then I realized that’s only my fetish… You were obviously talking about trains.
Ideally yes. This is me and Mrs. Warp Core and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
However…
Well, let me put it this way. Ever have a best friend that, after spending a lot of time around, you find out that you actually can’t stand more than a few hours at time? That is absolutely a possibility here. Only now their stuff is in your house (or vice-versa), and/or they’re on the same lease.
$0.02: It may not always be advisable, but absolutely benchmark the practical aspects of your romance long before tying the knot. Long-term co-habitation is not the only route here. Consider other ways to rack up large blocks of time: getaway vacations, long weekends, or even just “play house” for a few days at a time. You’d be amazed at what horrible, terrible, filthy, obnoxious habits your partner has when “at home.” The reality is that everyone is a bit (more) of a mess in private, and the only real question you have to answer is: “what am I willing to put up with?”
I took a getaway vacation with a woman I had been dating for 3 months. We got back and haven’t corresponded since then. That was a few years ago.
I’m a full blown mess in private or public, they know what they’re getting into before seeing me at home. I have no shame
I have been married for 24 years and it’s been a mostly happy marriage. I also do consider my wife to be my best friend. But it’s silly to think that you will come home every day and be happy about dealing with another human, no matter who they are. Sometimes I will come home or my wife will come home and I won’t want to be around her because I won’t want to be around anyone. That’s just how life is. My wife is cool with it and I’m cool with when she wants the same.
Alone time is an important resource, especially when kids.
Absolutely.
I’ve been married to my wife for 2 years, after being in a relationship with her for 6 years. Things weren’t always perfectly smooth sailing but we’ve managed to work things out. We sometimes have communication issues, which we’re working on, but at least we understand that it’s a weak point and any fights (which are hardly fights) don’t last very long.
She is quite literally my best friend, and I am so, so grateful to have her. We spend most of our time outside of work together and we never grow tired of each other. We always help each other out and cheer each other up when one of us has a bad day. Co-op campaign mode is a great way to put it.
I came out to her as trans shortly after we got married, when I suddenly realized how I felt about being the opposite gender. She was very supportive from the beginning, and although she was initially a little nervous when I started hormones, we’ve grown a lot closer and our love has grown so much stronger since I began to open up and be my authentic self. And for that, I can’t be grateful enough. Many couples I’ve seen where one comes out as trans end up splitting up, for one reason another, so I think I’m extremely lucky to have someone that can see past gender and love me for simply myself.
As a recent divorcee: fuck this hurts.
It’s really nice if you got the right person for it. I love my person so much 💓💓💓
It’s damn nice, ngl. And I didn’t get married until 2013 at almost 40.
It’s one of those things worth waiting for, rather than jumping into at first opportunity. Not saying I wouldn’t have preferred to have had what I have now sooner, but younger me wouldn’t have been ready anyway. I’m just saying that it isn’t something to rush for the sake of being married, it’s about being good partners, matching well, and that’s not something that’s guaranteed to happen at any given age.
Know more than a few people who lived together for years before tying the knot primarily for the economic benefit (plus throwing a big party is fun). By the time you’re really vibing with someone, marriage is almost an afterthought.
This is my situation. Dated/lived together for 3 years before going to the courthouse. Reception was at a spaghetti place nothing fancy since there are a lot of kids in my family lol it was such a blast, so low key. We’ve been together for a decade now. Wouldn’t change it for the world. We’re best friends. When we got married, everything and nothing changed all at once. Best decision I’ve ever made.
This is exactly my life right now, and it’s great.
This is exactly the relationship my wife and I share. We’re each other’s best friends, so it’s easy to hang out every day. Which is important because we’re both not working, so we’re around each other 24/7.
So many couples struggled throughout the pandemic because they were actually forced to spend a lot of time together and realized they just didn’t care for each others’ company as much as they thought. But it had no effect on my relationship with my wife because we already spent almost every moment of our free time together.
And it’s not like we do absolutely everything together. There are plenty of days when we’re indulging in our own separate hobbies or interests. But we’re always close by, so we can chat or share our geeky hobbies with one another.
If you marry someone for looks, status, money, etc., you may find yourself in more of a business relationship than a romantic one, which will struggle as you get older. But finding someone who completely gets you is refreshing. You don’t need to put on a mask around them; you can be yourself and be confident that they love you for YOU. And if you truly respect them, you’ll also love and appreciate them for being themselves too.
As a counter example my wife and I have separate rooms and some hobbies that we don’t share…and it’s amazing. She’s still my best friend, we still hang out every day, we still do the dirty, we’re still very much in love…we just realized that we both love some degree of personal space, personal time when necessary, and sleep 10x better in separate rooms. I think we still fit the idea of “best friends doing life together” despite not wanting that 24/7 always together lifestyle.
I can get behind that. My wife and I share a bed, but she’s talked about having her own separate bed. She’s an extremely light sleeper and even shifting a little bit in bed wakes her up. Suffice to say, she almost never gets good sleep and ends up napping half of the day after I’ve gotten up. She still prefers to fall asleep cuddled up to me, though, which is why we haven’t gotten her a separate bed yet.
We also have plenty of separate hobbies that the other doesn’t care for. I collect comic books that my wife isn’t interested in, and she loves true crime shows, which get very boring and repetitive for me. But we each indulge in our separate hobbies in nearby rooms, so we can excitedly share details with the other.
She loves telling me all about the horrifying ways someone was murdered on one of her shows, and whereas I don’t care for the show myself, I enjoy how excited she is about sharing all the gory details. I love her passion for her interests. 🥰
It’s great as long as both parties fully understand the other’s “drawbacks” and are prepared to deal with those. Never assume you’ll fix somebody with time. Hopefully both parties do grow and improve themselves over the years, but nobody is perfect.
Love is being able to get angry with someone, wanting to resolve it healthily, and then actually moving forward and feeling it was worth it. It can feel like work sometimes, but the work should never feel pointless.
My [second] wife is the coolest person ever and my best friend. I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else. She came into my life when I wasn’t even looking.
My first wife was a horrible person who convinced me that I was better off being single. I was perfectly content with that. It is much better to be alone than to be with someone who fills your life with misery.
If you’re reading the OP and feeling sad about your own circumstances, I totally get it because I’ve been there. Bad relationships or the breakdown of a relationship are really hard. You can get through it. Remember to take care of yourself. Prioritize spending time on things that bring you joy. Find someone to talk to, even if it’s just some random guy on the Internet. And know that it absolutely can get better.
That about sums it up. 10/10 fucking love being married
Are you the same person you were 5 years ago? 10? 20? Do you think you’ll be the same in the future? Will your partner also be? The correct answer is no. Marriage takes work to keep working as life takes you through its ups and downs and we evolve and grow as people. Best of luck to you all!
