To think marrying someone who has already been married and divorced 3 times is a very, very bad idea

[MargoLivebetter]

I saw that Earl Spencer was on the front pages of some of the papers today for marrying a 4th wife.

AIBU to think that it is probably very unwise to marry someone who has already been married and divorced 3 times? Just that. Not even thinking about all the other stories that whirl around this particular individual but just the very fact that if you have been married and divorced 3 times that seems like a giant whale sized red flag to me.

Maybe I'm missing the romance of it all - or maybe not!

Maybe he needs a new toaster?

Am I the only one who always thinks of Ross Gellar when this question comes up?!

I'm DH's 4th wife. He's my 3rd husband. We're doing ok! We kind of feel like we've made all our mistakes previously and we know what we want. And it's nothing earth shattering.. it involves honesty, integrity and good communication. Sometimes we struggle a bit with the latter so we recognise that and work on it..

We're not raising kids together in this marriage, so I think that helps. We've been together 11 years and married for five.

That was dreadful, people saying she was unhinged. However that was a very long time ago.

I hope this one lasts.

It just makes a mockery of marriage vows. What is the point of being married? Unless my husband died (when I was young), it’d be one and done for me.

True.

Absolutely. I have made no secret of the fact that if DH goes first I am never remarrying. Ever.

I'm not sure if DH is flattered or insulted by how emphatic I am on this. 😂

You are delightfully optimistic :)

Or delightfully sarcastic 😂

People are probably a lot less tolerant of behaviours in the second marriage that remind them in any way of the first.

My second husband couldn’t be more different to my first, but I had a relationship in between and it was exactly that that killed it off.

I disagree. The title of 'countess' is very seductive, and being princess Di's brother to boot!

I guess as you get older you’ve had your children you’ve mostly built your wealth hopefully. Now you’re just coasting along with a companion.

So if you are 50/60 plus on your 3rd/4th/5th you’ve skipped all the harder parts of life with this partner and can settle into your good friends who have sex and like each other stage while also getting to go off and disappear to your own respective adult children and grandchildren.

No baby daddy / mummy drama as they are all well grown. Your own parents likely gone or close to be gone so not much inlaw drama.

The peaceful stage of your life.

Life is very long (if you’re lucky) and brings lots of changes. I’m about to get married for the third time. Married xh very fast and very young with no idea who I really was. Dh also sealed the deal fast then died at 52. I’m undoubtedly pretty screwed up but years of therapy have untangled a lot and this feels quite different. I never thought I’d want to do it again but here we are. I should think the noble Lord feels the same.

I don't know. He has to come to the end of it some time, she might get lucky

Well that's quite an extreme view I think.

Yup. Leopard spots.

No accounting for free will though.

The women know that if it doesn't work out, they will get a pay out. That would explain why they are not hesitant to marry.

The issue is that Earl Spencer may have difficulty finding people who don't want to use him for his money. The fact that he didn't learn after the first 3 marriages would suggest there's something wrong with his thought process rather than the thought process of the women he married.

Well, I would agree marriage is supposed to be forever, but a massive number of people don't think divorce matters now. So if one divorce is ok, why not 3?

And I suppose it's possible one person could be a good spouse, but just be unlucky-when you look at the reasons some people split up these days, like someone was "bored" or their ex from years ago said they want to give it another go.

I imagine that he's the type of person who can be deeply charming in real life, at the sort of level which makes a woman feel like she really is the only one he has eyes on (I think Boris Johnson must be like this because I cannot fathom how else that man has managed to sleep with so many women)

I hope for both their sakes it works out but I would have certainly had to think twice or thrice about committing to a man who had been married this many times!

I wonder if divorce becomes easier, or at least less scary, when you have been through it before.

He's moved to Italy with his wife and her mother who lives with them.

I suspect he's very happy, with his daily routine which has an hour a day scheduled with his son and doesn't involve him lifting a finger.

I wouldn’t be with someone who had been divorced even once never mind 3 times.

Well, that's a bit unfair. What if it wasn't their fault at all? As in, their spouse came out as gay, or had an affair, or was just really horrible to them?

So, um, backstory: pre-marriage, Cat (Charles's new wife) sued Karen (Charles's then wife) for telling Charles that Cat has MS. But Tom (Cat's then husband) testified in Karen's defence saying that HE had told Karen about Cat's MS and that the info was already in the public domain when he did.

All sounds perfectly normal to me. 😜 Exes B cwazy!

I think that in the case of Paul McCartney we can have no doubt that, had she not sadly died, he’d still be married to Linda.

People don’t have to be fair when choosing a partner. Just because it wasn’t their fault doesn’t mean I’d owe them a chance. They just wouldn’t interest me as I’d see it as too much baggage.