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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A lot of second wives were first wives, once upon a time.

I know middle aged men have a revolting tendency to leave their same age wives and shack up with younger women. But not all of them do that. Some of them meet and marry other same-age divorced women. Men don't just leave to find someone younger or prettier. Shallow men do that, sure. But not all of us are shallow.

I left my ex-wife because I realized at a certain point that I had never truly been in love with her, and had deferred to her on a hundred little things over the years because she would get so angry when I disagree that it never seemed worth trying to continue to push for what I wanted. She hated my job though it paid 3/4 of our expenses, had no interest in my interests and generally acted like I was a bit of an annoyance to her. She worked only part time even though she was repeatedly offered full-time work at higher pay, and I often asked her to take on more. We shared housework and childcare. We had plenty of happy times together, despite all this. We were good as co-parents, we took some great trips with the kids, we had comfortable evenings watching TV together. But there was no passion. She lost interest in sex early on. I finally suggested opening the marriage and she agreed, but then was furious at me when I spent time with other women. We closed the marriage again. The kids grew up and moved out. We stayed together.

It took me years to realize that I just wasn't happy. I felt like life was passing me by. And I felt like she and I never developed healthy relationship skills. I would try to raise an issue, she would yell at me, and I would back off and mope. I blame myself for this as much as I blame her. But the fact was, although we cared about each other and in many ways I like and respect her, I was just sad all the time. Still, I knew she would be devastated if I left. All our friends were mutual friends. I love her family. It felt like if I left, I would be blowing everything up.

It did take meeting someone else to prod me into making a change. I guess you would call it an emotional affair. But it made me realize how much was missing from my marriage. It took me another two years to work up the courage to tell my ex I wanted to separate. Her reaction was rage and insistance that I "owed it" to her to stay, not dismay or curiosity, which reinforced my decision. Honestly if her reaction had been, "I am so shocked and dismayed to realize how unhappy you've been. Could you help me understand why you feel so unhappy, because I would like to work on our marriage together?" I might have reconsidered and stayed. But her anger crystalized things for me.

So I left! I started dating the woman I had grown close to, who is my own age and also has grown kids form her first marriage, and got divorced, and got remarried, and that was seven years ago. My ex is still bitter. But my only regret is that I did not try harder, earlier to confront the problems in that marriage. If I had, maybe we could have improved it, or maybe we would just have divorced earlier, but either way, I would not have spent nearly two decades of my life in marital purgatory.

So please don't assume the man is the evil one here! I'm not saying the wife is, either. Just that life is complicated.[/quote]
Me, me, me, me, me…..
What a prince.  :roll: [/quote]

Don't be nasty. I'm not saying I'm a prince. As I said, I hold myself jointly responsible for not working harder, earlier to address the problems in my first marriage. But life isn't black and white. We all muddle through, and leaving a marriage doesn't make someone a terrible person.[/quote]

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