Why do some friends and family consider the end of my marriage such a failure?

[Anonymous]

This makes me sad that you stuck it out for 26 years and now won't. It is so hard on adult children to have separate holidays. especially once they get married, you will essentially have 1/4 the holidays instead of half. I've seen divorced parents fighting while their children are in labor and can't be in the same room at weddings.

Why not just live separate lives for a few years and see if you miss your Dh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

As my late mother is fond of saying "It takes two people to make a marriage work and two people to make a marriage fail".

That is laughably false. Some marriages fail because of ONE partner. My sister has been physically abused by her almost ex-husband for years. She didn't cause him to abuse her. S friend divorced her husband when he chose alcohol over his family. She didn't make him drink. Those are only two of the most obvious situations.

OP, not every marriage works out. I would only characterize yours as a "failure' if you both failed to do everything to stay together - therapy, etc.

[Anonymous]

I'm divorced by the unilateral decision of my xh. I still feel like a huge failure. I'm wracked with guilt over my children's harsh childhood as a result. My parents and many relatives took his side, said I'm so difficult, I can't keep a husband etc. No, I was not a cheater or abuser or mentally ill. My children live with him due to his aggressive fight and my financial inability., I visit, and I have a very superficial relationship with them. Frankly the only relief I can hope for is an early and quick death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm divorced by the unilateral decision of my xh. I still feel like a huge failure. I'm wracked with guilt over my children's harsh childhood as a result. My parents and many relatives took his side, said I'm so difficult, I can't keep a husband etc. No, I was not a cheater or abuser or mentally ill. My children live with him due to his aggressive fight and my financial inability., I visit, and I have a very superficial relationship with them. Frankly the only relief I can hope for is an early and quick death.

Haha, what? You are a troll right? Because your last sentence was a crazy segue into troll territory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm divorced by the unilateral decision of my xh. I still feel like a huge failure. I'm wracked with guilt over my children's harsh childhood as a result. My parents and many relatives took his side, said I'm so difficult, I can't keep a husband etc. No, I was not a cheater or abuser or mentally ill. My children live with him due to his aggressive fight and my financial inability., I visit, and I have a very superficial relationship with them. Frankly the only relief I can hope for is an early and quick death.

You sound crazy dramatic. Many your parents and relatives were right.

[Anonymous]

Yes, PP is probably the real deal in BPD terms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you expect your kids to care for you (your ex) when you are sick?

My MIL lives in an over 55 community. It's a big issue. Divorced people don't have anybody to care for them. Their kids have lives, they have no partner. Often, when it is a 2nd marriage, the wife/husband leaves when there is an illness. They call the kids and say, I am out of here.

So what? A lot of older people are widowed, or one is institutionalized. Sorry for the inconvenience of declining parents, but that's life. Either way, it's no picnic for any of us dealing with aging, infirm parents, whether they're married, widowed, or divorced.

My elderly parents look after each other physically, but they practically hate each other and have been miserable for decades. I wish they'd divorced years ago. We hate dealing with them as a pair, with twice the inertia to battle. And now one of them is developing dementia and the other is being cruel, but you can't separate them. It would be easier to take care of them separately, and certainly more pleasant.

Yet DCUM's 1950s throwback "adult" children think Mommy and Daddy should be married until death comes to their rose-covered cottage and neatly sweeps their immaculate corpses off into the heavens together, and then the adult children can come back and wear crisp linens and reminisce by a bonfire on the beach about how perfect and easy Mommy and Daddy made life for them. I'm sorry some of you were latchkey children and never got over it, but at some point you have to start thinking like a grown up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm divorced by the unilateral decision of my xh. I still feel like a huge failure. I'm wracked with guilt over my children's harsh childhood as a result. My parents and many relatives took his side, said I'm so difficult, I can't keep a husband etc. No, I was not a cheater or abuser or mentally ill. My children live with him due to his aggressive fight and my financial inability., I visit, and I have a very superficial relationship with them. Frankly the only relief I can hope for is an early and quick death.

You sound crazy dramatic. Many your parents and relatives were right.

Perhaps, and so are OP's relatives are friends. It's sad, and a failure & dashing if hopes for many

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are fine with it, great.

But it IS the failure of the publicly stated goal you declared when you exchanged vows in front of your friends and family (and legally, to the state of wherever) when you got married. By getting married, you declared that your choice, your goal, your decision was to be with this person as long as you both shall live. So you failed at that goal.

You didn't have to set that goal. You could have been together as long as you wanted to without getting married. But you got married. And your marriage failed.

Nope. Then the criticism would have been about why are they together if they don't plan to marry. Are they not serious about each other? How could they bring children into such an immoral union? And on, and on, and on.

OP you do you and screw the rest.

And? I don't make major life choices involving legality and--in many cases--vows before God based on what other people will say/think/how they may criticize.

Do you?

[Anonymous]

PP the point is pretty clear in my last sentence.

Anyway OP looks like you've gotten all you needed out of this thread. The friends and fam will pipe down eventually.

[Anonymous]

OP, it seems like friends and family may be hitting a raw spot. Something failing does not need to mean it's your direct fault. But that's the way you seem to be taking it.

People fail for a number of reasons. Your personal life failed, but it doesn't mean you're a bad person who contributed to its failure. I'm in the "life happens" camp and can completely understand two people drifting apart. Still, it's a major let down any way you slice it. Chin up and good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you expect your kids to care for you (your ex) when you are sick?

My MIL lives in an over 55 community. It's a big issue. Divorced people don't have anybody to care for them. Their kids have lives, they have no partner. Often, when it is a 2nd marriage, the wife/husband leaves when there is an illness. They call the kids and say, I am out of here.

So what? A lot of older people are widowed, or one is institutionalized. Sorry for the inconvenience of declining parents, but that's life. Either way, it's no picnic for any of us dealing with aging, infirm parents, whether they're married, widowed, or divorced.

My elderly parents look after each other physically, but they practically hate each other and have been miserable for decades. I wish they'd divorced years ago. We hate dealing with them as a pair, with twice the inertia to battle. And now one of them is developing dementia and the other is being cruel, but you can't separate them. It would be easier to take care of them separately, and certainly more pleasant.

Yet DCUM's 1950s throwback "adult" children think Mommy and Daddy should be married until death comes to their rose-covered cottage and neatly sweeps their immaculate corpses off into the heavens together, and then the adult children can come back and wear crisp linens and reminisce by a bonfire on the beach about how perfect and easy Mommy and Daddy made life for them. I'm sorry some of you were latchkey children and never got over it, but at some point you have to start thinking like a grown up.

It's so true. The whiny posters here sound like spoiled, hysterical teenagers. Crying in a bathroom stall because you are visiting two parents! It's really unbelievable.

I bet they don't admit to friends or in public that they're so selfish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you expect your kids to care for you (your ex) when you are sick?

My MIL lives in an over 55 community. It's a big issue. Divorced people don't have anybody to care for them. Their kids have lives, they have no partner. Often, when it is a 2nd marriage, the wife/husband leaves when there is an illness. They call the kids and say, I am out of here.

So what? A lot of older people are widowed, or one is institutionalized. Sorry for the inconvenience of declining parents, but that's life. Either way, it's no picnic for any of us dealing with aging, infirm parents, whether they're married, widowed, or divorced.

My elderly parents look after each other physically, but they practically hate each other and have been miserable for decades. I wish they'd divorced years ago. We hate dealing with them as a pair, with twice the inertia to battle. And now one of them is developing dementia and the other is being cruel, but you can't separate them. It would be easier to take care of them separately, and certainly more pleasant.

Yet DCUM's 1950s throwback "adult" children think Mommy and Daddy should be married until death comes to their rose-covered cottage and neatly sweeps their immaculate corpses off into the heavens together, and then the adult children can come back and wear crisp linens and reminisce by a bonfire on the beach about how perfect and easy Mommy and Daddy made life for them. I'm sorry some of you were latchkey children and never got over it, but at some point you have to start thinking like a grown up.

It's so true. The whiny posters here sound like spoiled, hysterical teenagers. Crying in a bathroom stall because you are visiting two parents! It's really unbelievable.

I bet they don't admit to friends or in public that they're so selfish.

Actu ally it's about having to choose between them when they are very ill and have nobody else. And the fear that one or the other of them would die while I am with the other. But hey, thanks for your kind words.