Twentieth anniversary and struggling with anger over the marriage ending

[NameChangeMay2026]

I've just posted about all my dead wedding guests in AIBU, but it's officially my twentieth wedding anniversary today - not divorced yet - and I need to vent!

Not to go into the whole sorry saga, but he was SUCH an arsehole after he'd got me trapped, having previously love-bombed the crap out of me. And he worked himself up into such a lather of contempt towards me that he eventually left me.

But here's the thing: Nobody could have a more faithful, more loving, kinder, nicer wife than me! I had no problem with lifelong commitment. I'd have looked after him in his old age and any illness. I never for one moment gave a thought to anyone else while we were together, and never would. I'm pleasant and cheerful to be with, and people say I'm pretty. I'm sure lots of people would love to be married to someone like me! 😢😭 I'm like a human version of a golden retriever. But it all went unappreciated. He just hated me.

I always thought things would get better, and it wasn't horrible all the time. I was determined to stick it out. But he ruined everything. For NO reason!

I can't help looking at other long-term marriages around me and feeling so envious when they go on nice holidays with their long-term spouses. It's not the holiday itself, it's that they have a reliable life partner whom they've known for a long time to go travelling with. And the fact that they are really starting to accumulate the rewards of a life together.

I HATE him for destroying my future and my stability. I hate him for being such a rubbish partner that I don't have the comfort of a lifelong partner at this age.

Normally I'm OK with things, but this twentieth anniversary has got to me. I think it's bringing me face to face with everything he destroyed.

I fucking, fucking, fucking hate him.

He didn't destroy it: you didn't have it in the first place. You thought you were married to someone you were not married to.

I don't mean that in a mean way: it's a logic I have used in the past when I suffered heart break. Was a heart broken that I was no longer with a complete bastard? No. Was I heart broken that he wasn't who I thought he was? Yes. But somehow that changes the emphasis and allowed me to move on.

You are grieving the thing you thought you had, but in fact never did have. It's really hard. Anger definitely has its place in the grieving process; and you have to go through it to get to the other side. I noticed in your other thread that you are definitely open to the idea of marrying again, which means you are still optimistic that there is a good person out there for you. Hold on to that idea.

Or turn this around a look at it that he has set you free of him - that you won’t have to nurse a man who sounds like he has been cruel to you for years.

Your qualities could also be interpreted as you being a bit of a doormat, prepared to put up with any behaviour under the illusion that you have a life long partner. But was he a partner really? Was he a loving, devoted husband?

It sounds like you are missing a future that wouldn’t have happened as you imagine with your exH.

Any hate will just steal more of your life, you need another plan. It is the summer of divorcee woman, you are not alone, perhaps seek out some media and books made by women embracing the position you are in right now.

Wear your best summer clothes just to go to the supermarket. Book a solo holiday (would advise outside of school holiday hours) - week in Greece end September, following the ancient philosophers or a trip along the French Rivera at a smaller village soaking up the light and heat as the bohemians used to do.

What do you love? Just you. Refind some of those passions. Go and look fabulous reading in an outdoor cafe.

You will be ok without him @NameChangeMay2026 more than ok. You could finally thrive. But you need to let go of the anger and hate.

Try and look at it this way - you have freed yourself from a man who treated you cruelly for many years. You can spend your time and energy ruminating about him & hating him but then you are still allowing him to make you miserable.

You have one life and you get to choose how you live it. Don't compare yourself to other's relationships, you have no idea what goes on behind closed doors or what compromises have been made to stay in the relationship.

If you want to travel, go and do it, there's holidays specifically for single travellers - you could even meet some like-minded people. There's every reason to hope that you will have another relationship and that it could last into your old age - but it's better to be single than in an unhappy relationship.

Thanks for the comfort, everyone. I really need it today. I did not expect this maelstrom of grief and anger on my twentieth anniversary. Crept up on me. Feels like the early grief anniversaries of when my parents died. Feeling bitter and twisted about all the people I know whose marriages are working. They're not better than me! Why do they get one of the best prizes in life - a marriage that works - and I don't? And you know what really hurts? I know some people who really aren't that nice, and their spouses stick to them like glue, no matter what they do. My cousin is a serial cheater and his wife found out, but there's no way she'd let him go. He's an utterly, utterly shit spouse, and yet they've been married 35 years. Why does HE get a long marriage and I don't? I'm overcome with the unfairness of it all today. And I know someone else who is truly horrible to her kids but her husband thinks she's just MARVELLOUS. I hope awful things happen to all the people who have good things they don't deserve. 😡😡😡

Your cousin's marriage is not one I would want to be in. Just because they've been married for 35 years does not mean that it is a good marriage.

I actually know very few people (that I really really know) that are in what I would call happy marriages or ones that I think are models for healthy relationships. They look good from the outside if you don't know them that well, but dig a little deeper and often it stops looking so good.

You will come out the other side, OP. You also still have time for a long and happy marriage. :)

Thank you 💖

I'd rather be strung up by my thumbs than get married again, though. Also am in my early fifties, so it's a bit late for a long-term marriage.

All I ever wanted was to have a lifelong romance. 😭

I honestly think women who are very nice do get crapped on a lot because they put up with a lot because they are too nice.

I dunno, I've told a few people some real home truths in my time, when they've deserved it. I did become a doormat to exH during the abuse. I don't think I would have done, so much, if we weren't living abroad away from my family, and if I had had more money at that time.

But yes, I think what you say can be very true.

They seem to have marriages that are happy, or at least functional. Year after year, I see people who I know to be shitty people or shitty spouses going off on holidays with their spouses and coming together at Christmas and birthdays. My horrible cheating cousin is off with his wife on their annual summer holiday next month. Everything goes on as always. Not for them the million crystal shards of a broken marriage. 😡

You've got to reframe this. 'one of the best prizes in life - a marriage that works'

There is a reason that the people that are happiest and live longest are single, unmarried women. You are one of that number now.

This mythical idea of happily married couples is just that. Not real. Even nice blokes mostly turn into grumpy, snoring old blokes as they age.

I appreciate it's your anniversary making you feel this way, but really, you're SO much better off without him.

I've had 2 partners I supposedly happily went off on holiday with. They were a complete pain in the arse for most of the holiday. I'd much rather go alone these days.

One of the best prizes in life is being happy. Not being married.

For some people being married does make them happy but it doesn’t seem that was the case with you? You were always hoping he’d change and it would get better? There are lots of other ways to be happy/happier that don’t rely on another person. Take some time out to find out what that is for you.

Thank you, I really appreciate this.

I'm not normally a jealous person AT ALL, but I'm steaming with resentment against the long-married today. An unwanted divorce, where you had no control over it, brings such an underbelly to your life that the never-divorced are oblivious to. They retain a kind of innocence. They have NO idea what it's like for your life to shatter this way and no experience of how it affects the rest of your life. And they get to accumulate into a comfortable retirement - couples' perks - and they have it made, basically. I hate them all.

Yes, but a GOOD marriage is a truly amazing thing to have, and everyone I know seems to be happily married, and have been so for a long time. I know I sound about three years old, but it's SO unfair! They are not better people than me, and in some cases they're a good deal worse! But they still have their adoring spouses mooning over them, and the unbroken structure of their lives, and all the perks of marriage. 😡😡😡

It is what it is, some marriages work, some do not. There are thousands of divorced people out there as well as those who are married, there are thousands of unhealthy, unhappy marriages out there too.

it sounds like you would benefit from some counselling to be honest.

Steaming with resentment for the long married it not helping you nor is it healthy.

I HATE him for destroying my future and my stability. I hate him for being such a rubbish partner that I don't have the comfort of a lifelong partner at this age

If he was a rubbish partner he is not robbing you of comfort. None of that makes sense. What did you want to do? Live out your days with an arsehole just so you could stay married? What did he "destroy" by leaving you? He certainly didn't destroy a happy marriage?

There’s plenty of time for another long term relationship (or marriage) I’m same age as you and was married first time for 20 years, was single 7 and now been married to my absolutely wonderful second husband for a couple of years. I didn’t think I would ever get married again but I’m so happy, happiness I never had in my first marriage. You have every opportunity now to do what you want with your life.

He destroyed my dream of a happy marriage by being a shit partner. He made a choice to be an abusive arsehole. The reality is I'm better off without him, of course. But I am way worse off than I would have been if he'd chosen to behave like a decent human being and actually live up to his marriage vows.

It was nine years ago. Time to let go.

I'm divorced. Happily.

I DID have this envy a few years ago when my relationship broke down. I looked round and imagined I saw happy couples all around me.

Most of those 'happy' couples have since split up. I was green with envy, but what I saw wasn't what was really there.

I can say hand on heart, that I've only seen 2 marriages that I envy. And one of them is a relatively new marriage (older couple).

You did have a long marriage though. 18 or 19 years, if you're not yet divorced, maybe others were envying you? Maybe they still are, seeing you divorce, if their marriages aren't very good and they can't leave.
Today is a bad day as it's an anniversary. Tomorrow will be better.
Marriage is a lottery. Some of us aren't winners in that way, well most of us actually I think, when you look closely. Long marriages can just mean pure misery that no-one's had the guts to leave! Who wants that?

And what is the percentage of people have a GOOD (in capital letters) marriage? I suspect it's small. You don't know what goes on behind closed doors. That idealised version of marriage is, in my opinion something we have been socialised to believe is easy to achieve and the only true thing to aim for. In fact that's all smoke and mirrors. Marriage at the end of the day is a financial contract designed to ensure land and property remains in the family. Women have more freedom now to ensure we experience good RELATIONSHIPS of which there may be many in our lifetime. Grieve and then move on, this isn't the end of your dream.

You say on your other thread that you've been separated for 9.5 years.
In which case if you are still feeling like this you really do need to get some counselling to help you deal with this.
These feelings are meaning you aren't able to move on with your life properly and you are stuck with hating him.
This is not doing you any good at all.
I get that the 20th wedding anniversary will have made a lot of this worse, but you've now been separated for almost half of that time.

We spent the following few years trying to work on things. And he was there for mw when my ad died 18 months ago. We are not divorced yet. Even if we were, it's a huge loss. If you haven't been divorced you will not understand.

We spent the following few years trying to work on things. And he was there for mw when my dad died 18 months ago. We are not divorced yet.

He left me after ten years, then we tried to work it out for a few years. Then Covid happened, then my dad became very ill with terminal cancer and I was the only person Dad had, so I did it all, as he wouldn't have any medical staff in the house. ExH was very supportive, although we weren't together.

Usually I don't feel like I do today. But wow, this twentieth anniversary has taken me by surprise. I can't believe the anger and pain I feel. This is not normal programming.