Divorcees - any red flags from the beginning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No magic formula, but take a good hard look at his family dynamics and his history (school, work, relationship). My ex is really good at blaming others (poor self understanding), so I bought into his explanations about why he switched colleges, majors, jobs, etc. Turns out that should have been a huge red flag that nothing would make him happy, that he would always resent expectations of him, and that he would never stick with anything. (Undiagnosed ADHD, similar to others who have posted.)

Also, really dysfunctional family, but since they were upper middle class and educated they were able to put a nice veneer over it. I found out that you really need to ask direct questions like "how did your parents handle finances, deal with conflict, etc." Because not everyone is going to volunteer the information if their family is screwed up.

Wow, all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I beleive that a significant percentage of marriages end for reasons that were apparent on some level before marriage but were minimized, ignored, or thought to be something that handled, made better, or worked out. You see it all the time in posts here and in this thread itself - he drank a little too much, he smoked weed but told me he would quit when we had kids, he had a temper, he lacked ambition, he had too much ambition and was a workaholic, he spent too much time with his family, he preferred hanging with his friends over me, he had credit issues, he was bad with money, he didn't want kids and I did, he wanted kids and I didn't, and on and on and on. Always remember the little things before marriage become the BIG things after marriage.

As my father said, "the signs are always there, it's whether or not you want to see them".

Sure, but nobody is perfect--everyone has some "signs" that could be warnings in retrospect. I think people overestimate how well they can predict what people will be like in the future and underestimate how much people change over time and how circumstances can change people.

I have good friends who were seemingly happily married for many years and divorced. My friend talks now about their the warning signs, but there were many years when they outwardly seemed very happy (and I spent a ton of time with them). I'm not saying it isn't true, but people pick and choose to build their narrative, and it changes as current circumstances change.

This.

[Anonymous]

Friends for years before we dated. Dated for years before we got married. No red flags. Changed completely after we had kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please also mention if your ex-husband was the only guy you'd ever dated, or if you'd dated others before him, and therefore had experience in other relationships before settling down.

how common do you think it is to marry the only guy you ever dated?
Don't be ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

He was 38 and never married, never engaged, never lived with a woman. Very attractive, good job, funny. Total emotional basketcase. I was 36 and tick tock, so I didn't pay attention.

[Anonymous]

Some red flags I saw but ignored as I didn't think they were important (sleeping in late, playing video games). Some of them worried me but it turned out ok (low earner turned high earner after I had a child and stayed home; spending habits significantly improved; etc). Some red flags just weren't there. He was very soft and agreeable and would let me run the show when I was younger, cuter, and more independent than I am now. He is now rude and almost abusive; would argue with me just for the sake of arguing. Not divorced but planning to.

[Anonymous]

We dated mostly long distance. I'd been divorced for years. I noticed after marriage how my xh would gossip about his friends relationship conflicts , but he would subtly imply the women were always wrong. I was new in the area and didn't know these folks... but gradually I realized he was a misogynist. when he sensed I was pulling away emotionally, suddenly he wanted a kid desperately. Then one day he had an angry melt-down (first ever, I was stunned). .. Then he began to falsely accuse me of cheating in the craziest scenarios, threatened suicide, then murder-suicide..... I planned my exit and one day just went to visit family across the country, and never looked back... the good thing is I'm now so happy to live alone in peace. . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We dated mostly long distance. I'd been divorced for years. I noticed after marriage how my xh would gossip about his friends relationship conflicts , but he would subtly imply the women were always wrong. I was new in the area and didn't know these folks... but gradually I realized he was a misogynist. when he sensed I was pulling away emotionally, suddenly he wanted a kid desperately. Then one day he had an angry melt-down (first ever, I was stunned). .. Then he began to falsely accuse me of cheating in the craziest scenarios, threatened suicide, then murder-suicide..... I planned my exit and one day just went to visit family across the country, and never looked back... the good thing is I'm now so happy to live alone in peace. . .

Sad. Glad you escaped. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

I find this to be a really interesting thread. I was like an observer of a couple getting married and saw the red flags for both of them but neither of them saw the red flags. I didn't say anything cause didn't feel like it was my job. He was nuts, gorgeous but nuts, anxious, bad with money, semi-abusive to his child from 1st marriage, 2nd marriage lasted < 1yr. This was his third. Her, lazy, able to work but hadn't worked in 5yrs when they married. Child from previous marriage. Had never taken care of herself or her child move from house to house of relatives and finally into his after marriage.

Whole thing imploded 6 months later, both devastated and blamed the other for issues and marriage failure. Felt like I was watching a slow motion train crash. Red flags are there it is just if people are willing to acknowledge and address

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find this to be a really interesting thread. I was like an observer of a couple getting married and saw the red flags for both of them but neither of them saw the red flags. I didn't say anything cause didn't feel like it was my job. He was nuts, gorgeous but nuts, anxious, bad with money, semi-abusive to his child from 1st marriage, 2nd marriage lasted < 1yr. This was his third. Her, lazy, able to work but hadn't worked in 5yrs when they married. Child from previous marriage. Had never taken care of herself or her child move from house to house of relatives and finally into his after marriage.

Whole thing imploded 6 months later, both devastated and blamed the other for issues and marriage failure. Felt like I was watching a slow motion train crash. Red flags are there it is just if people are willing to acknowledge and address

This. When people say there were no red flags, I believe that's true in their mind. I always agree with them that I never saw it coming, either, because why would you throw salt on a wound? That's just mean.

However, when our best friends divorced, let me tell you, we saw it coming even before the wedding! We even discussed it while getting ready for their wedding at the hotel.

People say "Oh! You just say that you could see the red flags to believe that it couldn't happen to you..." Or, "Anything can be a red flag in hindsight" but if that were true, there wouldn't be complete fields of study and professions dedicated to predicting human behavior.

[Anonymous]

John Gottman says 70% of the problems/arguments you have when dating, you'll have at 20+ years of marriage.

[Anonymous]

ExW said she had a high drive. While dating, that was true. During the engagement (about 13 months), the drive tapered off. A couple of months after we got married, it fell off the cliff. We went from 6-7 times a week, to 2-3 times a week to 1-2 times every couple of months.

We were like this (6-10 times a year) for about 10 years - one kid, because of whom I wouldn't change a thing about my relationship with exW.

[Anonymous]

I didn't marry the guy but we did call off an engagement. I should have bailed the minute it became clear that he was under the thumb of his parents. There was a very specific incident of disrespect of me by his father. He apologized, agreed it was out of line, etc. but he had no intention of setting boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Friends for years before we dated. Dated for years before we got married. No red flags. Changed completely after we had kids.

Agree. I never realized how much I was doing everything until kid number two when I hit the wall and the house, yard, social activities, my job all suffered.he, however kept doing the same daily schedule and routine he had since age 24.

[Anonymous]

When people talk about red flags theyre often thinking of red flags as predictive of the partner's negative traits, as if the partner is the main or only cause of the divorce. I'm divorced and I could tell you a bunch of things my Ex did that made me want to end the relationship, and the red flags that foretold these things. But I'm not doing myself any favors if I don't acknowledge my own behavior and my own issues and how they were part of the whole mess.

My red flag was myself: I couldn't look my ex in the eye during our wedding dance. That should have been my warning that things wouldn't end well, though I couldn't consciously see it at the time. In retrospect I see that the emotional "wounds" that brought us together and that seemed to be so
compatible, were the things that also broke us apart.

The bottom line is that I chose to marry my ex for fundamentally dysfunctional reasons, and that doomed the marriage from the start.