Blindsided

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just goes to show you, how well does someone ever really know another human being?

There must be something wrong with me, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. Do other people not have dark depths of their soul? I do, for sure, and civilization and mores trample most of it very effectively- but on some level, it just makes innate sense to me.
Do I condone it, no, what absolute a-holes. Do you know what does give me serious joy is how miserable they will be a few years in with a spouse with all these expectations their long term wife had abandoned. Like get in there, loser. You’re going active husband ing you sad sack of crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not unheard of and sorry, but sometimes it’s not preventable. This is why Belle Burden’s book is a bestseller. So many women can relate.

Also, I hope you fudged some of the identifying details about your friend.

Belle Burden is whatever the opposite of hyper vigilant is and there were zillions of signs leading up to her husband leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not unheard of and sorry, but sometimes it’s not preventable. This is why Belle Burden’s book is a bestseller. So many women can relate.

Also, I hope you fudged some of the identifying details about your friend.

Belle Burden is whatever the opposite of hyper vigilant is and there were zillions of signs leading up to her husband leaving.

Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep better at night.

Though she was a total idiot with the prenup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not unheard of and sorry, but sometimes it’s not preventable. This is why Belle Burden’s book is a bestseller. So many women can relate.

Also, I hope you fudged some of the identifying details about your friend.

Belle Burden is whatever the opposite of hyper vigilant is and there were zillions of signs leading up to her husband leaving.

Perhaps there were signs. I didn't pay a lot of attention to them either. Addressing the state of my marriage was something I knew I needed to tackle but I wasn't quite ready. When I did finally address it because the red flags could no longer be ignored, mine said he wanted a divorce. He was caught, he panicked, he fled. Her and my lack of vigilance does not grant a blanket excuse for the subsequent behavior of our exes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not unheard of and sorry, but sometimes it’s not preventable. This is why Belle Burden’s book is a bestseller. So many women can relate.

Also, I hope you fudged some of the identifying details about your friend.

Belle Burden is whatever the opposite of hyper vigilant is and there were zillions of signs leading up to her husband leaving.

Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep better at night.

Though she was a total idiot with the prenup.

The guy was a hedge funder who lived separately in Manhattan for months out of the year from her and the kids, including summers. He had many controlling behaviors surrounding money, including getting her to commingle the money from her trust. He was conflict avoidant and, by her own admission, their physical relationship “had cooled considerably” over the course of twenty years.

He seemed like a narcissist who had cheated throughout the course of the marriage. There’s no way the woman he left her for was the first woman he had an affair with. He was living like the kind of guy who had given multiple hookers Amex cards. Belle was the woman he was “supposed” to marry. From a respectable family, passive, didn’t ask too many questions, attractive but not too sexy. He dumped her as soon as the COVID lockdown interrupted his little routine.

While I don’t doubt she was blindsided, all the signs were there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not unheard of and sorry, but sometimes it’s not preventable. This is why Belle Burden’s book is a bestseller. So many women can relate.

Also, I hope you fudged some of the identifying details about your friend.

Belle Burden is whatever the opposite of hyper vigilant is and there were zillions of signs leading up to her husband leaving.

Perhaps there were signs. I didn't pay a lot of attention to them either. Addressing the state of my marriage was something I knew I needed to tackle but I wasn't quite ready. When I did finally address it because the red flags could no longer be ignored, mine said he wanted a divorce. He was caught, he panicked, he fled. Her and my lack of vigilance does not grant a blanket excuse for the subsequent behavior of our exes.

And mine. Long marriages go through ups and downs. The downs were not dramatic. We had been married for more than 2 decades and had successfully weathered some hard stuff. Only in hindsight can I pick out a few red flags or signs, but still not many that would have caused suspicion. I didn’t worry because I didn’t think there was any need to worry. Will I ever trust like that again? Nope. Was I a fool? Maybe. You don’t think your husband is planning to leave when he’s still saying and doing all the normal things and nothing significant appears to have changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not unheard of and sorry, but sometimes it’s not preventable. This is why Belle Burden’s book is a bestseller. So many women can relate.

Also, I hope you fudged some of the identifying details about your friend.

Belle Burden is whatever the opposite of hyper vigilant is and there were zillions of signs leading up to her husband leaving.

Hindsight is always 20/20

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t view my husband as a “ profound moral obligation”, that’s crazy. He can stay or he can go, I will be fine. I will also help my children through the process if needed. Marriage is so outdated in my opinion. Just because we decide something at 27, doesn’t mean it needs to carry over until I’m 90 or die. I have a realistic view, most marriages don’t work or aren’t very happy. I love my husband and have never cheated and I don’t think he has but I’m not naive enough to believe it’s not a possibility and I will certainly make sure I will be fine in the event our marriage doesn’t last.

I'm curious about this statement. I am a financially independent woman but I love my husband and he is my best friend and while I don't NEED him in the sense that I could survive on my own, I am crushed at the thought of him leaving me. I love our life and our family and I would be heartbroken if it were to implode. Are you happily married? I know you say you love your husband, but if you love being with him, why would you be so nonchalant about him leaving? Would I be FINE if my husband left? I mean, sure, I am pretty strong and I could support myself and my kids but I am not indifferent to his presence at all! We both travel for fun (I am heading out for a girls' weekend shortly) but I miss him when he's gone although I appreciate the time apart. I just don't want to imagine a future where we're not together, so I'm shocked that you are so cavalier about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t view my husband as a “ profound moral obligation”, that’s crazy. He can stay or he can go, I will be fine. I will also help my children through the process if needed. Marriage is so outdated in my opinion. Just because we decide something at 27, doesn’t mean it needs to carry over until I’m 90 or die. I have a realistic view, most marriages don’t work or aren’t very happy. I love my husband and have never cheated and I don’t think he has but I’m not naive enough to believe it’s not a possibility and I will certainly make sure I will be fine in the event our marriage doesn’t last.

I agree with your larger point that I will be fine. I’m never going to put myself in a situation where I cannot take care of myself. And perhaps “profound moral obligation” is a bit much. But you seem to be dismissive of really trying to work through things if you have kids.

I’m definitely not sticking around for major dealbreakers. But I think my husband and I both feel a strong obligation to try to be our best selves individually and as a couple for the sake of our family unit. We talk about this and definitely try to make sure we are connecting with each other and the kids.

We have one teenager with profound intellectual disability and the other one had cancer. We both know that we are way better off parenting together than trying to trade off kids from week to week.

My dad remarried at age 70 and managed to create big mess for me and my siblings — even though we are all low drama grown ups. I cannot even imagine doing that kind of thing to my daughters.

I can think of one person I know who wasn't messed up by their parents' divorce - and that's including my friends and my kids' friends. That person's parents divorced while they were young so they never really knew anything except two houses, but my friends who experienced divorce have very negative feelings about it and my kids' friends say things about how much they hate switching houses or they hate their step-siblings. I think posters who act like the kids will recover from divorce like a stubbed toe are crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not unheard of and sorry, but sometimes it’s not preventable. This is why Belle Burden’s book is a bestseller. So many women can relate.

Also, I hope you fudged some of the identifying details about your friend.

Belle Burden is whatever the opposite of hyper vigilant is and there were zillions of signs leading up to her husband leaving.

Perhaps there were signs. I didn't pay a lot of attention to them either. Addressing the state of my marriage was something I knew I needed to tackle but I wasn't quite ready. When I did finally address it because the red flags could no longer be ignored, mine said he wanted a divorce. He was caught, he panicked, he fled. Her and my lack of vigilance does not grant a blanket excuse for the subsequent behavior of our exes.

And mine. Long marriages go through ups and downs. The downs were not dramatic. We had been married for more than 2 decades and had successfully weathered some hard stuff. Only in hindsight can I pick out a few red flags or signs, but still not many that would have caused suspicion. I didn’t worry because I didn’t think there was any need to worry. Will I ever trust like that again? Nope. Was I a fool? Maybe. You don’t think your husband is planning to leave when he’s still saying and doing all the normal things and nothing significant appears to have changed.

The day before mine decided he wanted a divorce he texted me about going to a concert a few weeks later. I truly believe he just wanted to keep having his affair but when I said I knew what was going on he ran away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t view my husband as a “ profound moral obligation”, that’s crazy. He can stay or he can go, I will be fine. I will also help my children through the process if needed. Marriage is so outdated in my opinion. Just because we decide something at 27, doesn’t mean it needs to carry over until I’m 90 or die. I have a realistic view, most marriages don’t work or aren’t very happy. I love my husband and have never cheated and I don’t think he has but I’m not naive enough to believe it’s not a possibility and I will certainly make sure I will be fine in the event our marriage doesn’t last.

You sound really grounded.

I bet your daughters are too!

I disagree.

The wife in the OP will be fine too. People who go through even worse will be fine too. It's silly to downplay the devastation that one rightly feels from having to adjust to new challenges and hurdles because of a divorce because, " they will be fine" when the dust settles.

Pp is stupid/naive if she thinks that these teenagers' lives would not be more difficult if they have to deal with the insecurity of step siblings from their father ( which will probably be the case in the OP since he is marrying a much younger woman).

Which mother wants that for her children? Yes, they will adjust in the end, but there will be trauma. There will be most likely be lifelong tension around step children and insecurities surrounding those relationships.

If marriage is not important to you, don't make the commitment. Go ahead and have your kids outside of the institution. Don't bring up kids under its warm embrace and then snatch it someday because " they will be fine".

Ofcourse no one is saying stay at all cost. But downplaying the downsides of breaking up a marriage when children are involved is stupid and selfish.

She is grounded i reality because she knows this is possible (it always is). And she has built a life that is not entirely dependent on another adult , whom she cannot control.

Very mature and wise.

I think it's kind of sad to be married to someone you couldn't care less about. I'm not financially dependent on my husband, but I don't think we'd have a real marriage if we weren't emotionally vulnerable with each other. How do you even have friendships without being vulnerable? Of course that then gives them the power to hurt you, but that's where trust comes in. I'm not dependent on anyone else but I'd be crushed if my close friends or husband betrayed me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't play this game. I burned it all down.

Kids despise the father now. I made huge public scenes as did the kids. They were shell-shocked. I had the golden reputation so I used it.

Don't F with me. They learned the hard way.

Who is they? Because your kids certainly learned the hard way that their parents are incredibly selfish. My daughter's best friends parents are currently going scorched earth against each other and it is destroying their daughter. I can't believe they don't see or understand that and it is so hard to watch. I will never understand how they could be so stupid and selfish. They could have walked away and created a good environment for her but instead they're more interested in burning each other to the ground. I have lost all respect for both of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How often do you think this happens?

I caught up with a grad school friend I hadn't seen or spoken to in 4 years. Married, 52, three daughters 12, 14, 17, lawyer. Husband is a lawyer too. No abuse, cheating , drugs or excessive alcohol according to her. Just a ho hum, one foot in front of the other marriage.

Husband came home from work one day last February and said:

"I'm done. I'm in love with a colleague (17 years younger) and I want a drama and trauma free divorce. Please don't make this messy for the girls. Please lets just end this. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen but I don't love you anymore."

It actually made me tear up typing this out because it's just so.... sad. She is a great person- so kind, funny, pretty and now she is.... in deep, deep depression.

I mean, that doesn't sound like a great marriage to me. Clearly there were cracks.

I know someone whose husband did the same thing but after the initial shock wore off I realized I wasn't actually that surprised - their marriage wasn't that great.

I'm sorry for your friend, that sounds awful, but if I had to list the people I'd expect something like this to happen to, it's all the ones where their marriages aren't very strong. Now, if it happened to some of my friends I would be jaw-on-the-floor shocked. But others? Sad, of course, but not all that surprised.

I think only a minority of people have GREAT marriages. Do you disagree PP?

I'm the PP. I'll use our neighborhood as a sample size because I can reasonably analyze that amount of people.

In no particular order:

Couple 1 - I thought their marriage was rocky when I met them 10 years ago and I was right, they divorced about a year after that
Couple 2 - married 30 years, great marriage
Couple 3 - married 20 years, great marriage
Couple 4 - married 30 years, great marriage
Couple 5 - married 20 years, great marriage
Couple 6 - married 15 years, great marriage
Couple 7 - married 25 years, lots of cracks over the years, divorcing right now
Couple 8 - I didn't think their marriage was that great but didn't think it was as terrible as it was but I also didn't spend a lot of time with them, they divorced in 2020
Couple 9 - married 15 years, some cracks but both seem committed to the marriage, currently in therapy
Couple 10 - married 15 years, some issues but they love each other fiercely and have a pretty great marriage
Couple 11 - married 10 years, some major issues with alcoholism but she hasn't left him yet so who knows, I'd say their marriage is pretty terrible
Couple 12 - married 15 years, great marriage
Couple 13 - married 15 years, great marriage
Couple 14 - married 10 years, great marriage
Couple 15 - married 25 years, great marriage

So yes, most of the people I know would likely rate their marriages as great. We all spend a lot of time together, our kids all go to school together (different grades, but private school), the dads go on trips together, the moms go on trips together, various families vacation together, etc. We talk a lot and support each other and see all the couples in a lot of different situations (including stressful ones, we've all suffered loss of parent, loss of job, sick kids, etc. to some degree). Some are religious, some aren't. Most are dual-income, some are miliary, some wives out earn their husbands, some are same-sex marriages. Everyone has at least one advanced degree if not more, all are UMC.

If I expanded outside of this group and thought about my best friends from high school, college, and beyond, I would say that most of us have great marriages. We're not perfect, no one is perfect, and who knows what the future will bring, but when I read the posts on DCUM with people saying that all men are useless, etc., I just don't relate. Those aren't the men I grew up with (my dad wasn't like that, my friends' dads were not like that) and they're not the men I'm around now (my husband, my friends' husbands, my male friends). You can say I don't know what goes on behind closed doors all you want, but I haven't been surprised by a single divorce (they all had some pretty serious cracks/issues), and again, we do talk. You can discount my experience all you want, it doesn't bother me, this is just what I see.

You're so full of it. You know the status of 20 couples in your neighborhood and they've all been married some amount of time that is divisible by 5? When you're making shit up like this, you really need to do better.

No, I rounded because I wasn't going to actually calculate the lengths of all the marriages. I also wasn't looking to provide real identifying information. You can always scroll past posts you don't like, you know. Why you think someone would bother to make this up is weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't play this game. I burned it all down.

Kids despise the father now. I made huge public scenes as did the kids. They were shell-shocked. I had the golden reputation so I used it.

Don't F with me. They learned the hard way.

Who is they? Because your kids certainly learned the hard way that their parents are incredibly selfish. My daughter's best friends parents are currently going scorched earth against each other and it is destroying their daughter. I can't believe they don't see or understand that and it is so hard to watch. I will never understand how they could be so stupid and selfish. They could have walked away and created a good environment for her but instead they're more interested in burning each other to the ground. I have lost all respect for both of them.

NP but my ex went scorched earth. I refuse to engage but it's been awful for the (adult) kids. He tells them everything and has sown chaos since the day he left. His behavior is out of my control. All I can do is keep my side of the street clean and continue not to engage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not unheard of and sorry, but sometimes it’s not preventable. This is why Belle Burden’s book is a bestseller. So many women can relate.

Also, I hope you fudged some of the identifying details about your friend.

Belle Burden is whatever the opposite of hyper vigilant is and there were zillions of signs leading up to her husband leaving.

Hindsight is always 20/20