Has anyone every regretted ending their marriage?

[Macandcheeseplease]

Just that really. I seem to read lots of positive stories from people leaving unhappy relationships. But does anyone ever feel leaving and starting again was the wrong thing to do? I'm thinking relationships with no abuse or anything, just one person falling out of love with the other.

Oh, and also there being small children involved.

I sure there must be people who regret not working through issues or the troughs in relationships but I think it is fairly rare as
most people take a very long time to end a marriage. It is never easy and divorce takes time so there is the window to reconcile if genuine 2nd thoughts.

If both parties are prepared to work on a marriage I think it can be helped however I would hazard a guess that most marriages end (especially when there are children) due to affairs, abuse or addictions. All of those very good reasons and unlikely to cause regret leaving.

I think if you analysed "falling out of love" the reasons will be more concrete such as my partner is selfish, lazy, empathic, uninvolved etc.

I have ended my marriage and honestly have never regretted it.
I live alone now but never lonely
I was never lonelier in my life than being married to the wrong man

My mum regretted it and turned into a very bitter person because of it. She thought she would find a new bloke (she had someone lined up but they bottled leaving their wife), and she thought she’d carry on having the same life with a different bloke.

Then she found herself single, no romantic interest from anyone, half the income, smaller house, nobody to help with the day to day stuff and a lot of friends fell away.

She was in her 60s though, maybe if she’d been younger it might have been different.

And also if she’d been the sort of person who was happy in her own skin/company it might have been different.

I guess the person you marry have traits that attract you to marry them. In time, they change or reveal bad traits or incompatibilities that make you feel the marriage can no longer work or is over. So when it’s over and you feel lonely you would miss all those things you liked and that made you marry him in the first place but it takes a lot to end a marriage. I don’t think anyone would take that decision lightly.

Imo when we miss the person / marriage, we miss the idealised vision we had. We can’t change people. If we go back, the bad will likely still be there...

I hope you’re ok 💐

@Stupiddriver1, how did your dad get on?

I think most people find that they end up regretting not leaving earlier in the long run.

Not me, but a work colleague did and was very open about it.
They divorced when she was 30, when their son was about 4-5yr. She basically said "I have no idea why I divorced him, I just felt I hadn't lived enough, and he wasn't perfect, I thought there would be better men out there". She couldn't get over how a few years layer he got into a new relationship with a woman, they were happy, and there weren't any better men out there.

I think she's happy now, but many years later.

V rare to hear a woman on here express regret. If anything it is that it should have been sooner. Often it is when the RS has been abusive or an affair exposed.
But there have been plenty of threads assuming that the men who left regretted it.

Why do you ask OP?
Where’s your head at?
What’s not working and what do you want from a RS?

Nope.

I left a marriage like you described. There was no abuse, no major blow up, we just genuinely fell out of love with each other. We were together from a young age (I was 18, he was 22) and we realised we had settled down too young. We have a DS.

No regrets at all. And actually, the fact that we were amicable made divorce and co parenting a million times easier, I fully trust him with DS.

Yep. Biggest mistake I ever made. It’s been 3 years and not a day goes past that I don’t regret it.

I don’t regret divorcing XH but I’ll admit I had no idea how difficult it would be to ‘start again’ having to factor in step family dynamics and always feeling second best. It’s been 8 years now since I left XH and 7 since I met DP and I’m still not ‘settled in a new committed relationship’ as I had hoped.

I’m still living as a single parent, seeing DP 50/50 when he doesn’t have his DC with him. He does his best to make me feel part of his family, but it’s not like it is when you’re with the father of your children. Although saying that, XH wasn’t entirely on board with the whole family thing either!

Just saying, I don’t regret it as such, and would do it again, despite it not being The Worst Marriage Ever - but if I could have somehow got things to work with XH my life would have been a darned sight easier.

I guess if any new partner didn’t have kids or an ever-present ex it would be a lot easier.

I suspect it depends a lot on why you are leaving the relationship and you expect to get afterwards.
If you leave the relationship not expecting to find another man but to first live your life on your own and then MAYBE include another man on your own terms, it will be very different than if you leave hoping to find another man to live with (aka recreate the same but better iyswim).

Imo it will also depend on what’s going on at the time and how much effort you have put to sort things out. It’s not the same to leave because your partner is a twat and is clearly not willing to make any effort to have let’s say a more equal relationship and leave a relationship in the middle of a very hard/stressed/unsettled period in your life (I’m thinking very young dc, death in the family, high period of stress from whatever reason etc...)

FWIW I think the financial issue (half the income, small house etc...mentioned by PP) is one of the reason that is keeping some women put in an unhappy relationship.

I think you regret it if you don’t feel you tried to address the issues and explore how and why things have got stale and try to recapture some of the things that brought you together. If there is no abuse or infidelity or unreasonable behaviour then things can be turned around - and surprisingly quickly when both partners recognise they need to work at things. It’s very common for one partner to grow bored, disconnected or even irritated by the every day familiarity in marriage. It’s very common that someone new rekindles those feelings and very common that they turn out to be feelings rather than characteristics of the new person.
I’d say explore what’s going on before you end things maybe?

Not a marriage but I deeply regret ending my last long term relationship. We had drifted and I think I walked away too soon rather than trying to make things work. I caused a lot of hurt and missed him a lot for many years.

@techway - my dad was in a serious relationship very quickly and soon remarried. I think for my mother that was part of the issue.

It was her choice and she thought things would be better, but for her they weren’t and my dad never looked backwards and was quite happy after the split.

Nope, nope, and I've never met anyone who's regretted it either.

I never regretted it and it really was just a case of I felt that I had grown up and changed and he hadn't. On my own I had my 2 children to look after and not 2 children and a manchild.

There were times I felt sad for me, for my children and even occasionally for him.

That was 35 years ago, we had been married 10 and had 2 children 7 and 9.

I sometimes missed being married, having support (that was never there anyway) and felt sad that the 'dream' 'plan' 'aim' or whatever you want to call it 'failed', as when I got married I intended for it to last. I never really missed him.

I have had ups and downs along the way, never met anyone I wanted to be with forever and still prefer being alone to being lonely in a wrong relationship.

I was far more lonely when I was married than I've ever been on my own.

@Kitty2020 my head is a mess!

My DH had a gambling problem which he has since sought counselling for and not gambled for some time, but it's eaten into my feelings for him. I just don't feel the same way about him any more. If I'm away from him (I have to travel for work sometimes) I don't miss him. I've started having feelings for a colleague (although I'd never act on them) and often read on here that this is the trigger for people to leave.
But...we have a nice life together. He is a great, hands on dad to the kids and we very much parent together. He loves me so much. We still have sex, although not loads and never instigated by me as it just doesn't appeal to me.

I don't know what I'd want to get out of a split to be honest. I don't feel happy at the moment but I'm not sure if I'd be happy separated either, mainly because of the children.

If we didn't have children I wouldn't be with him.

Maybe think about couples therapy? Have you spoken with him about how you feel?

I can understand that you lost something with his addiction - but do you feel any respect for him being able to turn it around?

No and wish I'd done it sooner. The longer away, the more I realise what a lazy, lying, using, cocklodger he was and still is. One of those what was I thinking moments.

Me.

We divorced.

We are back together now.

I ran away instead of putting the work in. I love him and I wish we never had those years apart.