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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Cause of divorce: he was more interested in / committed to his work than he was to our marriage and after a few pretty egregious demonstrations of that, I left him.

Married five years. Together for five prior to marriage.

Yes. Ex has always had a tendency to to become immersed in a new project or adventure. For the first couple years of our relationship, that was me. Then we got married and moved here and it became his work. He wanted to have a baby, so we did and for a while, she was the new thing. Then it went back to being work because he got a new job. Since we split another five years ago, I've seen him move to another new job and a couple new girlfriends and it's been the same pattern. I just didn't really notice it at first because I was the thing he was excited for.

He wasn't my first relationship, but he was my first very serious long term relationship. My previous longer relationships were not more than 2 years. I'd say that I had experience, but marrying someone and maintaining a connection with them through life's ups and downs is different.

[b]My advice to you would be to pick someone you like being around, who you have a connection with and who shares your priorities in life. You can't always see someone's flaws if you haven't been with them a while. In my experience, some major character issues take a while to emerge.[/b] [/quote]

I agree with this. I was married for 16 years. By the time I got divorced, the red flags were flying high, we had three kids and I was doing everything I could to keep our family together. I dated quite a few men before I met my ex, and had a couple of serious relationships. We met in our early 30's and married within 2 years. That was probably too quickly, but as we were both "older", I felt ready. There were a few issues in the beginning but I rationalized them away and told myself that no relationship is perfect. He was dx'd a few years into our marriage with ADHD, which explained a lot of his behaviors. Unfortunately, he did not take responsibility for his health, and remains untreated. This developed into a very unhealthy dynamic of my "parenting" him along with our kids. He started losing jobs, disengaging from the family, became increasingly less responsible for his behavior. It was like living with a teenager, not a life partner.

This went on for about 4 years, and despite counseling and therapy, he continued to pull away. The more he "left", the harder I tried to get him to step up and be a husband and father. It was awful. It brought out the worst in me. He was completely passive aggressive, and basically refused to participate in anything related to me or the family. He just bailed. I finally realized that one spouse can't save a marriage, and he was clearly not interested in being married. So I asked for a divorce. He never batted an eye. I have full custody of the kids, and he barely pays support, or sees them.

I learned several years into our marriage that his childhood was far more dysfunctional than he had admitted and included alcoholic parents, neglect and abuse. I think he buried that until our kids were born, and then he couldn't handle raising children of his own, increased responsibilities at work, owning a home. Being an adult.

My advice to my younger self would be to go to pre-marital counseling and explore how we would handle LIFE together. More pointedly, how would he handle difficult life situations? Because dating is fun. Life is fun, but life is full of mundane responsibilities and sometimes curve balls that are big and scary and have to be dealt with. You want to know you have a partner you can depend on. Who has your back. I liked being around my ex, we had fun, we shared the same goals, the same values, and I thought he was a genuinely kind and caring person. What I didn't know was how ill-equipped he was to handle adult life and responsibilities. And that when things got tough, he shut down completely. I didn't know he had zero ability to manage conflict, and that he avoided taking personal responsibility for anything at any cost. He is so broken that he has literally lost everything. His family, his career, his home. He has chosen to live with his own dysfunction than to work through his issues and have a full adult life.

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