"He was medically retired from the army unexpectedly and abruptly. I worried about money and housing. He was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder — I focused on the wrong things.
He struggled to find a job — due to loss of identity, I viewed it as 'laziness.' He didn’t communicate with me. I got a job, and while giving myself to the job, kids, and what was left to him, I neglected myself.
The things I did were never appreciated. He shit on my salary because his VA check was bigger than my paycheck (even though it wasn’t enough for our family). Resentments were built on both ends, and things spiraled from there.
I did the best that I could with what I had, which, in hindsight, wasn’t much. We went back and forth on the idea of divorce (neither of us actually wanted it or did anything about it). Then, he became distant.
Last year, he told me he was sleeping with someone else. He claims it wasn’t cheating because we agreed to divorce. But nothing was filed, and he was still living at home.
He’s still with that woman, and I moved out two months ago. If I’ve learned anything, it's to communicate and understand what your spouse is saying and to prioritize yourself. You cannot give your best to anyone if are not at your best.
— — — "Woah, same experience with the career! We were both career try-hards, and I was super ambitious. Now, I've taken less interest in my career and am leaning more heavily on more 'traditional' wife and housework duties, and I love that, tbh. He is having a hard time with it because he told me one of the things he loved about me was my ambition.
..eeeek.
" — "Also, if it weren’t for me coming up with things to do outside of the home, I don’t think we’d ever go anywhere. I'm also the 'default parent.' I take our daughter places, do her bedtime routine, and read to her to help her develop language.
I’m not having a great time with him, but it is what it is at the moment." — — "I do see a lot of unhappiness in my friends’ marriages, though. There are a lot of discrepancies in labor and responsibility.
I have four friends in the midst of divorce, and one seriously considering it. Some men think it comes from nowhere, but for years, I’ve heard how they don’t carry their share of the household duties/childcare and how unattractive that makes them. My good friend is teetering on the edge, and my husband keeps convincing her to go back (he and the husband are ).
I keep telling her to leave and be happy. If this has taught me anything, it’s less important who you marry and way more important who you have kids with. The friend without kids who is getting divorced is certainly sad/distraught, but they’re not wasting thousands of dollars on family lawyers.
What a mess." — — "It’s so lovely to hear that people have been together for a long time! I’d say it’s pretty rare nowadays 😌." — — — "He’s literally had to take care of me.
After my mom died, my 26-year-old husband, who had never experienced even a single death in his family, bundled me up and drove me to my doctor because I stopped engaging with life. They chose to sedate me until the antidepressant could begin to work. This man bathed me, fed me what little he could get me to eat, and drove me around in the cold of winter until I cried myself to sleep.
When my doctor told me last year I had major heart damage, I gave up — but my husband didn’t. I’m on the path to being well, and he’s the reason for it — anything my doctor tells us to do, he jumps in and says, 'We can do this!' When I say he’s brave, it’s not only the truth but an action he chooses every day of his life for us. He’s also incredibly handsome, has a beautiful smile and voice, and listens fervently to any bedroom request.
Getting married worked out splendidly for me." — — — — — "Children were the game changer. Nothing tests your relationship quite like children.
For whatever reason there seems to be a significant amount of men who don’t play an equal role in their partnership. But my husband is top-tier. Children were a test for us, but we’ve become better at communicating because of them.
We’re in the thick of it now, and hopefully, as the years go by, we get stronger and stronger." — —.
