To ask those in a 2nd marriage what you just do differently this time...

[RedSundown]

I'm in my 2nd marriage, we've been together 10 years. First marriage ended and although, looking back, it would always have ended, I see so many things my younger self would do that I just don't do in this relationship.

This relationship is so different. Of course I'm older and wiser 😉.

I guess it comes down to prioritising my partner now and doing things just to make her happy. Like planning things, dates, inviting her family over. All things I didn't do with my ex. Looking back we argued about such minutia , like Christmas and who to invite. This time around we just invite everyone ! I look back on myself and wonder why I invested so much effort in being right instead of making us happy.

Congrats. Glad it is a happier time for you

I think if you have to work at anything or overthink anything too much it isn’t worth it - not saying you are but I think for me (I’ve been engaged 3 times and married twice, in my second marriage now) I’ve become more “take it or leave it” about things. I won’t bend over backwards to please anyone the way I did first time round. Thankfully dh and I are on the same page and are very happy together. I am very much “this is me”. I think that’s really important.

I just chose more wisely 2nd time round.

I think as you get older you are also generally more relaxed and ‘comfortable’ in your own skin. I look back at my first (short - 2 years) marriage and cringe at some of the things I said and did. Although I was 23 when I first married I do feel that is too young, you still have so much growing up and maturing to do. My second marriage has lasted over 30 years, I wouldn’t say we are ‘blissfully happy’ all the time but our relationship works well and, for us, we have time and space to do our own thing as well. I don’t expect my happiness to come from my DH, I am responsible for my own happiness so I would suggest you be wary of overdoing things just to make your DW ‘happy’.

I ways say the first marriage was just a practice

I don't bottle things up or put up with anything I know I shouldn't. We take the piss out of each other when we do or say something silly, instead of letting it annoy us.

No relationship will ever be perfect but it's good to learn from previous experience.

I think, from my personal experience, my first husband was very young, as was I, we hot together at 21 when we were both party animals. We thought we were settling down but he really just needed someone to be his mother and I stupidly wanted to be a housewife.
My husband now had been single for 12 years due to career choices, I was on my own emotionally most of my previous marriage and I didn’t live with my now husband for several years after my divorce. I think having a sense of not needing each other but genuinely wanting each other is the key. In this marriage my husband and I both know full well we would be fine on our own but I think that’s good because it means we are both in this for genuine reasons and we don’t ever feel the need to prove it to each other.