Divorced people: what part(s) of your marriage's failure was/were your fault?

Question

It's easy to say that you divorced because your spouse had an affair or got addicted to something. It seems at least like nearly everyone points to the spouse as the reason for a marriage's failure. But my question is, what could you or should you have done differently in order not to have been in a marriage that ended in divorce? If your ex was adulterous, abusive, or addicted, what signs might you have noticed or paid attention to before marriage, signs that tell you your judgment of character was off? If the divorce was for some other reason, what was your role? What part of the divorce do you consider to be your responsibility? In other words, for what are you to blame for your marriage ending? Finally, if you accept no part of the blame, why not?

Waffen and Mean Carleen provide excellent examples of the kind of answers I am not looking for. Why did Waffen marry a control freak? Why did Mean Carleen marry a devil? What signs should you have seen that you were making a poor character judgment by choosing to marry a control freak or a devil?

Excellent answers from nearly everyone. I am very pleasantly shocked at your willingness to look inside yourself and see your role.

However, user "i know it all" did not answer the question, like a couple of previous answerers. How is it that you chose to marry a promiscuous woman? What signs should have tipped you off that she was unlikely to be faithful? Are you saying that you are a complete dupe who trusts blindly?

Answer 1

Well, I have to admit.....I do feel as though I have at least partial responsibility for my divorce. I spent three years with my ex husband prior to our being married. So, I knew exactly what type of man he was and what sort of family I would be marrying into. However, I married him anyway, lol. I suppose that I thought things would improve with time. I also thought that I would have to be a fool to pass up marrying a physician, lol. It is no surprise that things did not change or improve after the marriage. After three more years with him, I realized that this was not the life that I wanted for myself after all. I found that I did not love my husband (now ex) and I had grown tired of constantly hearing degrading and cruel comments about myself. I knew at that point that divorce was the route that I needed to take in order to live happily. So, I suppose that I am also to blame in the fact that I decided to get the divorce and did not have any intention of changing my mind after coming to that decision. I do not regret getting a divorce from my ex husband. I do, however, regret ever having married him.:) I am finally living the life I want, and have found a new man that treats me with the love and respect that I need.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

If I had not chosen a career I would have had a better chance of still be married to my first husband. Being newly married and having purchased a new home, both had new vehicles; I felt it was my place to help contribute to our future together. I guess he saw otherwise, or so he claimed. I don't know either way the marriage ended after a year. He told me he needed a chance to see what else was out there for him. I don't think I could have really done anything different, and I really don't place any blame on myself.

Answer 4

I married a bit of a control freak. But I knew that going in. I messed up b/c I started managing a finance company which occupied a lot of my time. That's when our problems started. The controlling dominant side of my x-husband couldn't handle me working 70 - 80 hrs a week. (Especially since he never worked.) Idle minds are a dangerous thing! He became paranoid...thinking I was cheating on him eventhough he called me 20 times a day. We argued about it, he hit me, I left. End of story.
We were together for 4 yrs before we got married. I knew him inside and out. I accepted his faults and he accepted mine. But no matter what, I will not tolerate abuse in any way. I made that very clear from the beginning. We can talk through any disagreement, but we can NOT talk through that. I felt like a failure for years. As a wife, it was my "job" to make my husband happy. Obviously I didn't. I'm over that now. I accept the fact that we both made mistakes and I would also like to think that I've learned from them.

Answer 5

If you really want to fight for your girls sake of having a family that's a good start but in order to get over this you need to forgive and forget and NEVER bring it up.He may have fell into a mOment of stupidity unfortanley you were still married and it's not an excuse for hom just the simply truth talk with him possibly go to counseling but I have 2 children as well and I've told my husband before I wouldn't leave him for anything my kids come before me and I won't let them have a broken family as I did and as an adult I still suffer from my broken family raised by a single parent is difficult growing up with that you need to fix this soon be open honest and communicate.Good luck hope all goes well with you and I'm sorry for what going on in your life

Answer 6

I didn't finish college before I got married to my 1st wife so in order to support our family I worked a lot while taking a class here and there at a community college. If I had waited to get married after I got my degree I would have been home more often leaving her less time to cheat on me and run up $17,000 on credit cards. She said she cheated because I was never around to pay her any attention.
I didn't finish school- that's my fault for rushing into a marriage without being prepared.

Answer 7

1st marriage: We were going in different directions. I wanted a family, little house, etc. He didn't, though I don't really know what he wanted except $$ and he wanted it illegally. He now says that he was an idiot and he said that when I tried to apologize for not being what he needed me to be, in order to keep him from pursuing such. He couldn't believe that for years I blamed myself and his words made me realize that I had taken too much responsibility for our marriage break up and that I was taken too much responsibility for my second husbands behavior.
2nd marriage: I couldn't have done anything different, in fact I gave WAY too much of myself. He became abusive once the dream of having children didn't come true. Which now of course I see as a good thing and it took along time for me to realize IT WASN'T MY FAULT. That I didn't deserve the treatment I got not matter what. He is a narcissist always was, I just didn't know it...I didn't know all the kindness came with a price as narcissist are notorious for. I didn't realize that everything bad in his life was because of me, even if I didn't have anything to do with it. That of course is according to him. The only blame I can accept is that I gave into his whims way too much and I let him push me down, almost to the point where I prayed for death, because I thought it was the only way out.

Answer 8

I think this is an excellent question. While I've only been married once (to my wonderful husband) I've been in a couple long-term live-in relationships. What part of our breakup was my fault? I didn't trust him (turns out I was right not to but I was very bitter and jealous) and I was trying to make him into something he wasn't. We had different life goals and expectations and they weren't compatible goals. The mistake I made was insisting that my goals were the better ones for 'us' instead of accepting him for who he was.

Answer 9

We married young and grew apart. We loved each other but were not "in love" with one another anymore. We both stopped communicating, both took each other for granted and so on. But when we both started to realise that we needed to do some work, we did. However, while we were both working on our marriage, he was having an affair. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to have an affair.

In any marriage that fails, there are two people at fault. Sometimes one carries more blame than the other through their behaviour. My ex's affair tipped the scales and ended in us divorcing.

Answer 10

I don't blame my self for the failure of my marriage, but I would accept partial responsability. We were incompatible, but you don't see that when you are young, he cheated so I divorced him.

I would say that I wanted my ex-h to be a better person. To be honest, he could use some improvement in many areas , so I spend nearly a decade trying to "change" him. Needless to say, the effort was fruitless and I felt like he was a child. I realized that I didn't like who he was and that I was trying to make him someone that he was not. I failed miserable in my attemmpt and our marriage was a constant battle. He felt inadequate and he felt that I was too good for him. He wanted a person that accepted him for who he was and idolize him and didn't point any of his flaws... it was easy for him to get someone with no ambition or education as him, so he left me for someone right up his alley.

I'm relieved and thankful that he did! Because now I have a person that is on my level and I don't have to nit pick on everything, he already knows.

Good luck