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Thoughts from a former married man


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l thought he was gonna be selling a book down the bottom for sure.

 

But eh,when a marriage gets like that , l dunno if you can go back anyway tbh, we didn't.

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But eh,when a marriage gets like that , l dunno if you can go back anyway tbh, we didn't.

 

OK but one of the lessons he is trying to teach is this

Little did I realise that I was the reason she was so down and depressed. I didn’t pay her any attention. I took her for granted. I was too busy wishing my life was more exciting, being romanced online, spending all of my free time thinking how I could get out.

I think that scenario plays out in many marriages.

One is so engrossed in thinking of ways to get out and dreaming about how life could be, that they do not see what they have.

They do not see that they are often the reason their spouse is down and depressed or angry or any of the other negative emotions she/he displays due to being neglected or made to feel less than.

 

I realised that if I'd treated my ex-wife the way I’d treated Eve, used the hours I spend woo-ing Eve on my ex, she’d have bloomed.
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Yeah but you see , it's all about what he was doing wrong .

But the thing is , often she causes him to get like that in the first place doing all the same things and taking things for granted in a marriage too ,goes both ways.

l see that in a lot of wives and then they wonder why he ends up like that.

And women probably see it a lot in husbands too.

 

l'm not passing the blame game ,maybe it was all him but just saying really, as in even my own marriage , often one ends up taking the wrap for some reason but it actually started a long time ago before all that from something else in the first place.

l recognize a lot of it in the story..

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xenawarriorprincess
I cam across this while doing some online research, and wanted to share it. It's an interesting perspective from a former married man who had been cheating on his wife...

 

https://www.news24.com/You/Archive/dont-be-me-and-live-with-regret-a-mans-letter-to-other-men-tempted-to-cheat-20170728-2

 

This story/article was very sad, and while I gather that it’s supposed to be Jacob’s wake-up call and his attempt at helping those in similar situations, I can’t help but think that he didn’t really learn anything and that he is simply reliving the same scenario with his GF that he was living with his Wife.

 

For example, he says:

 

“We were together for about six or seven years but never married – we believed marriage was not our thing. …. Eventually, no matter how well we got along in the beginning; no matter how well I thought she “got” me; no matter how good the sex was; the “honeymoon” came to an end….Eve and I started snapping at each other. Little fights here and there. I had a moment of pure realisation one night, at about 2am. I realised that I missed the woman who created my first home and family”

 

Why did it take him 7 years to realize that he had made a colossal mistake leaving his wife? And the fact that he describes missing his wife only when things begin to get bad with Eve, suggests to me that once again the relationship is going into a rut and he is looking for ways out by fantasizing about his ex-wife. Am I wrong in thinking that Jacob is just re-living the same cycle of being unhappy in the relationship and fantasizing about the “greener-grass”? Did he really learn from his mistakes?

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Am I wrong in thinking that Jacob is just re-living the same cycle of being unhappy in the relationship and fantasizing about the “greener-grass”? Did he really learn from his mistakes?

 

No you are not. There are some people that need to feel unhappy in order to feel happy. They need to feel unhappy in order to feel human and feel like they are alive. The tricky part is when you act on that and make decisions and take actions that flip your life upside down and turn it inside out.

 

I think it was a good article but it comes across a little as written by a man that seems to have put his ex-wife and his past life on a pedestal. He is too consumed with his own sentimentality that he forgot why he left to pursue "Eve".

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I think it was a good article but it comes across a little as written by a man that seems to have put his ex-wife and his past life on a pedestal. He is too consumed with his own sentimentality that he forgot why he left to pursue "Eve".

 

I think it is easier to regret a decision when it involves a marriage and kids,

 

Had his ex wife merely been someone he lived with and no kids, then he would be moving on probably a bit peeved maybe as to how life turned out, maybe a bit nostalgic at times, but virtually unscathed.

 

AS he has kids, and he is still living with their anger and disapproval, then he realises his legacy is not that of a decent man who did the best he could for his wife and his family, he was a shallow guy who went chasing skirt and deserted his family in pursuit of his own happiness at the expense of theirs .

Now his kids effectively hate him and that is not easy to live with I guess.

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To be brutally honest, I chuckled my way through it (not because it is not sad) because of the fact that he is not the first to experience something like this and he is certainly not going to be the last. If only people could learn simply by reading articles or listening to the mistakes of those that went before. The world would be a happier place.

 

Unfortunately, only once you have suffered tremendously will you truly learn. Only once you have lost do you realize what you have and appreciate it. If you have not learned, then you have not suffered enough, and if you still do not appreciate, then you have not lost enough.

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good article. what sort of research are you doing?

 

In spite of my many typos ( I am a terrible editor) , I write for a living. I spend hours every day doing research on a wide variety of topics.

 

Sometimes, I come across pieces that are interesting that really have nothing to do with what I am writing about.

 

This article was one of them.

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"Today I live alone and still only see my kids occasionally"

 

"She moved in with Craig, along with my kids. She set up a new home. A new family, with my kids…"

 

Those thoughts (and more unpleasant ones like it) has kept me married in a much worse situation than the author of that article. I did not need to leave to figure these were possibilities.

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If only people could learn simply by reading articles or listening to the mistakes of those that went before. The world would be a happier place.

 

Exactly, one look through the OW threads and no women would ever want to be an OW, but as it is, there is a never ending supply of deluded, sorely disappointed and hurt women out there.

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Cookiesandough

So this guy supposedly cheated, destroyed his family, left this great wife, and he’s only now regretting it because 9 years later she found someone else and was happy

 

She glowed with happiness. She radiated love and none of it was for me! My heart felt like it had been ripped out.

 

Typical of a cheater. No cheater will hear anything from this because they are behaving too selfishly like this guy, whose dull self-flaggration piece we’d never have suffered if he wasn’t so egomaniacal that it pained him to see the woman he hurt happy for once not because of him but despite him

Edited by Cookiesandough
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The thing that i got out of it...

 

I got how sad it was, and I am sure that it happens both to men and women.

 

But people like dichotomy, and no offense, also stay in marriages that make them miserable because they are scared that it may be worse than what they have.

 

I thought that I was doing the right thing staying with my wife and taking care of her, trying to keep the marriage together.

 

I think I was a fool. I think later when I discovered that she was a drug addict, and I truly feel she never loved me for a second. I knew I was a fool then.

 

I was not perfect, but I always loved her, but not any more. I don't hate her like I used to during the divorce, I would just rather never see her again.

 

But now, I know that I will never, ever be with a woman that does not make ME happy.

 

I think the newest girlfriend is the one, but if it goes south, I also know that I won't die.

 

Who knows what the right thing to do is a lot of the time? Stay in a miserable marriage for the kids, or brake it all up and face the consequences.

 

This article is sad, and it is never a good idea to have an affair. But it is also not a good idea to stay in a situation that makes you unhappy.

 

I guess you just roll the dice and see what happens...

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The thing that i got out of it...

 

I got how sad it was, and I am sure that it happens both to men and women.

 

But people like dichotomy, and no offense, also stay in marriages that make them miserable because they are scared that it may be worse than what they have.

 

 

No offense taken, its hard to know on a forum about someone and their situation/marriage exactly.

 

I know myself very well - I would be suicidal (no I am not exaggerating) if I could not have access to my kids and their day to day life - and GOD forbid another man entered their life, moved in with my wife (a stepdad) and I saw photos of their happy vacations and life on FB. Me living alone in a apartment or basic condo in a new town, MAYBE getting a date or two a month (maybe some occasional decent sex) with 40-50 year old divorced women with their own kids and ex husband drama in the background.

 

Nope, Nope and Nope!

 

This near sexless/intimate marriage of mine is heaven compared to that situation (like the guy in the article).

 

I have accomplished all I wanted/needed to in my life - my kids are it now - and also my little "storybook town" and home I built. I helped build parts of my town as well - and I am loved or respected for that as well. Not going to give all this up.

 

Yes its sad what I have to accept in my marriage. I tried so hard to fix it. However the guy in that article could not imagine what he might loose - until it was over. I can imagine it ahead of time.

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I think it's about value systems and knowing what order of priority you rank aspects of life. And yes, forethought to how those priorities will shape your life and being mature enough to deal with consequences of not being able to have everything because of that. I am the female version of that guy. Crappy post divorce apartment, 50% time with my kids, exh and girlfriend doing fun things with them, having a date here and there of average quality. But would I go back ? Absolutely not. Because I valued a healthy relationship (or none at all) over an unhealthy one but "intact" family. Others value family being together no matter what. Some it's the money. Some it's the house. Some value sex above all. It's different for everyone.

We can assign morality or judge based on that but shouldn't. (Don't misunderstand, I am not including the behavior of cheating which is a morality issue imo).

 

That's why it's important to know ourselves and know how well our potential partners understand themselves as well. I don't want to find myself in the arms of someone who values his past and what he lost more than the potential in the future of a good relationship with me. Which it sounds like this guy will be in that mindset no matter who he is with.

 

Decisions with such consequences need to be made based on values not feelings.

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