Anonymous wrote:"mistakes were made" = I left my spouse and found out my AP wouldn't leave his/her spouse... or I lived with my AP and found out it's totally different living with them than just having sex with them... and now I want a do-over and to return to my original branch

Ouch this would be the absolute worst. Tweaking your real family and then being unwanted by former and latter. Sad sad sad.

I don't know I would have any respect for those people. Mostly, why the heck did you leave?! Also devastate your children. Either you left for superficial reasons or you are emotionally damaged. I say this as a divorced person that left a domestic violence abuser. No way I would go back.

"mistakes were made" = I left my spouse and found out my AP wouldn't leave his/her spouse... or I lived with my AP and found out it's totally different living with them than just having sex with them... and now I want a do-over and to return to my original branch

Anonymous wrote:"mistakes were made" is a passive way of not owning up to own actions. A mistake is a noun that is incapable of action.

Ah, semantics. We all know what it means and actually is not relevant to the question. Did you get back with former husband/wife after getting divorced?

"mistakes were made" is a passive way of not owning up to own actions. A mistake is a noun that is incapable of action.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine is dating her ex-husband (who she has two kids with), and says it is going well. She says mistakes were made by both sides and it was the typical "We were both exhausted and miserable with small kids" situation.

I think they've been dating for about 9 months.

Hope it works out for them and they can have an intact family.

Me too. I wish I could do this for my kids, but ex is hostile and self-centered. No one truly gets how difficult marriage can be until they are in the trenches...

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine is dating her ex-husband (who she has two kids with), and says it is going well. She says mistakes were made by both sides and it was the typical "We were both exhausted and miserable with small kids" situation.

I think they've been dating for about 9 months.

Hope it works out for them and they can have an intact family.

Anonymous wrote:Hard to imagine going through all that expense, aggravation, and pain just to say "ooops never mind, let's take it all back".

Except what if you still love one another, even though mistakes were made? I do regret my divorce even though I was the one who filed- classic case of not knowing what you have til it’s gone.

Hard to imagine going through all that expense, aggravation, and pain just to say "ooops never mind, let's take it all back".

I know two couples that did this. They had both married young and divorced after the kids left. No cheating, just felt they had grown apart. I think both couples realized the grass wasn’t greener, shared history was worth something, and having grandchildren really pulled them back together. It’s been 10+ years for both since remarriage and they’re going strong. The only funny thing is that the one couple pretends they were never divorced. They’ll be celebrating their 50th anniversary with a big party next year but cumulatively they’ve only been married for 42 years. I don’t much care (I’m kind of distantly related but close to one of their kids) but it drives the kids crazy and so they wouldn’t throw the party even though the parents were pressuring them to.

Did either or both date other people during divorce or separation time? Did one or both spouses have difficulty with this, or did they view former spouse as a new person?

I’m realizing with kids, you can never, ever detach from an ex spouse.

I know two couples who remarried after divorce. Both very happy.

This happens quite often when people find that being apart didn't help. That's why a real separation is a good thing to give both parties time to reflect before getting divorced.

A friend of mine is dating her ex-husband (who she has two kids with), and says it is going well. She says mistakes were made by both sides and it was the typical "We were both exhausted and miserable with small kids" situation.

I think they've been dating for about 9 months.

People sometimes break up and reconnect. Have you tried? How did it go, especially with kids in the picture?