Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Get yourself into individual therapy as well. Then take it from there."

THIS. From what you write, OP, it sounds like you have at least a 50% role in the fighting and not getting along. You need to work on your conflict skills. Even if you do end the marriage, you'll still have teenagers to deal with, so you'll all be better off if mom can deal with conflict without blowing up.

OP again. I am sure I am at least 50 percent to blame, but I am just so worn out by the arguments, I just can't bring myself to even try to save the romantic relationship. At least not at this point. I am 100 percent committed to saving the co-parent relationship no matter what it takes for the sake of the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. We got divorced FOR the kids. The older ones were very relieved and the younger ones behavior got much better within a week. Staying together was not doing the kids any favors.

+1

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. We got divorced FOR the kids. The older ones were very relieved and the younger ones behavior got much better within a week. Staying together was not doing the kids any favors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Get yourself into individual therapy as well. Then take it from there."

THIS. From what you write, OP, it sounds like you have at least a 50% role in the fighting and not getting along. You need to work on your conflict skills. Even if you do end the marriage, you'll still have teenagers to deal with, so you'll all be better off if mom can deal with conflict without blowing up.

OP again. I am sure I am at least 50 percent to blame, but I am just so worn out by the arguments, I just can't bring myself to even try to save the romantic relationship. At least not at this point. I am 100 percent committed to saving the co-parent relationship no matter what it takes for the sake of the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You will be horrified by how quickly he'll move on if you divorce. It is much harder for women. - divorced mom

Unless you are a man and she had the affair -- betrayed husband

Anonymous wrote:"Get yourself into individual therapy as well. Then take it from there."

THIS. From what you write, OP, it sounds like you have at least a 50% role in the fighting and not getting along. You need to work on your conflict skills. Even if you do end the marriage, you'll still have teenagers to deal with, so you'll all be better off if mom can deal with conflict without blowing up.

Anonymous wrote: answered this question before, OP. I actually went and found what I wrote because it still makes sense to me.

As someone on the other side of marriage and children and family, I will give you a bit of insight. Yes, there were YEARS when I seriously considered getting divorced. Yes, these were the same years when we had small children or financial struggles or health issues. I didn't and I didn't because I don't view marriage as solely a romantic relationship. It is much, much deeper to me. It's family. It's taking someone and making them your person. And while we never veered into true toxic territory (abuse, adultery, etc.), we had the kind of rough patches that sent many, many of my friends into divorces. The difference? We worked through them and after each one, we were stronger, closer, more intimate. We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage. We went through fire together (or alone, pulling the other on their backs). And I say looking at three grown kids, an empty, sold house and a retirement, our next phase strangely feels like the first one. We travel, we have fun, we have time, we nap, sleep together, have long talks about the meaning of it all, and if it was a recording or a text of our days, we would sound strangely similar to those two 24 year olds who lost their jobs and decided to wonder around Europe together for a year (where I spend equal parts crying and feeling more alive than I ever had). But we're 65 and it's a lifetime between those points. Three kids. A grandchild. Five different careers (yes, I mean careers, not jobs). A flight attendant turned speech therapist. A journalist, turned attorney, turned high school history teacher. A house that some other young family is now raising their children in. My gray hair. His long departed hair. We are so much more than those difficult years when I was a stressed out working mom and he was a stressed out working father. A blip. But I didn't know this at the time. I felt it, I felt that there was a long game to be had when it comes to marriage. But I didn't realize how long and how great the payoff could be.

I don't know how other people define love and marriage. But I think my deal was worth making.

Anonymous wrote:"Get yourself into individual therapy as well. Then take it from there."

THIS. From what you write, OP, it sounds like you have at least a 50% role in the fighting and not getting along. You need to work on your conflict skills. Even if you do end the marriage, you'll still have teenagers to deal with, so you'll all be better off if mom can deal with conflict without blowing up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: answered this question before, OP. I actually went and found what I wrote because it still makes sense to me.

As someone on the other side of marriage and children and family, I will give you a bit of insight. Yes, there were YEARS when I seriously considered getting divorced. Yes, these were the same years when we had small children or financial struggles or health issues. I didn't and I didn't because I don't view marriage as solely a romantic relationship. It is much, much deeper to me. It's family. It's taking someone and making them your person. And while we never veered into true toxic territory (abuse, adultery, etc.), we had the kind of rough patches that sent many, many of my friends into divorces. The difference? We worked through them and after each one, we were stronger, closer, more intimate. We had a mutual respect and fundamental kindness that was the ethos of our marriage. We went through fire together (or alone, pulling the other on their backs). And I say looking at three grown kids, an empty, sold house and a retirement, our next phase strangely feels like the first one. We travel, we have fun, we have time, we nap, sleep together, have long talks about the meaning of it all, and if it was a recording or a text of our days, we would sound strangely similar to those two 24 year olds who lost their jobs and decided to wonder around Europe together for a year (where I spend equal parts crying and feeling more alive than I ever had). But we're 65 and it's a lifetime between those points. Three kids. A grandchild. Five different careers (yes, I mean careers, not jobs). A flight attendant turned speech therapist. A journalist, turned attorney, turned high school history teacher. A house that some other young family is now raising their children in. My gray hair. His long departed hair. We are so much more than those difficult years when I was a stressed out working mom and he was a stressed out working father. A blip. But I didn't know this at the time. I felt it, I felt that there was a long game to be had when it comes to marriage. But I didn't realize how long and how great the payoff could be.

I don't know how other people define love and marriage. But I think my deal was worth making.

My husband is selfish, lazy and messy. He has none of the five "love languages." He doesn't respond to anything other than respect, but how can I respect a man who sits on his ass while his wife runs hers off? How would I hope to fix that?

Anonymous wrote:The only way you can do this is if you stop fighting.

And if you stop fighting, who know, maybe your relationship will change.

So the net time something pops up that bugs you, let it go. Just let it go. Don't fight. It takes two people to fight. Start disengaging. You are thinking of divorcing. So why does it matter? Whatever petty thing you are fighting about, why does it matter?

if nothing else, starting to disengage now - letting go of frustration, anger, expectations - will help you as you divorce, because if nothing else you want an amicable divorce.

So just start today. No more fighting. he doesn't do something he said he would? Oh well, you knew he wouldn't, so why get upset? Just suck it up and do it yourself. He comes at you about something you did/didn't do? Who cares? Let it go.

Try it for one week. See how that changes things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am "staying for the kids"... but we don't fight. We have no problems co-parenting, running a house together. We love each other and treat each other with respect.

He had an affair, I tried to "work on the marriage" (which is a crock, since there was nothing wrong with the marriage). He had another affair, I was done.

It is better to divorce if you fight, it is worse to divorce if you don't fight. (I would link to the study but am in a hurry right now.)

It's hard to believe there was nothing wrong with the marriage if he had two affairs. Yes, maybe he just wanted to get blown or whatever on the side, but somewhere there was some unhappiness. Affairs usually, I'd say almost always, result from some needs not being met. In that case, something is wrong with the marriage

He was sexually molested as a child and acts out by self destructive sexual relationships. So no... it is not always the marriage.

Did you know this before you got married?

Anonymous wrote:You will be horrified by how quickly he'll move on if you divorce. It is much harder for women. - divorced mom