We were both terrible people. We were 19 when we got married and enjoyed playing house for a while. We instigated each other at every opportunity. She cheated, we decided to make it work. Then we found out she was pregnant. I told her if she has it and it’s not mine then I wasn’t interested in taking care of her and the kid. She chose to have it (I was mad at the time, but in hindsight and with a lot of therapy behind me I realize that’s not really why I was mad, but I still made the right decision) so I made good on that promise.

She would hit me almost daily. I was severely emotionally abusive. I’ve grown since then and so has she. We’re not friends exactly, but we do periodically email each other to say hello or laugh about the actual good times if something reminds one of us of the other. Because there were plenty of good times.

We were 19 and in love with the idea of being in love. We both came from broken families and fucked up situations. And I think if we met today instead of back then we would be really good friends.

He (now she) came out as trans. I am bi myself, but I had been attracted to him for his male qualities, and I did not find her attractive as a woman. That, and she deserved to have the life experiences of dating/living as a woman that our marriage could not provide. There were signs well before the divorce, and we did try marriage counseling before we called it quits. We were married 7 years and thankfully had no kids. The divorce was amicable and we are still friends, still hang out and text regularly.

I already had trust issues, but I definitely trust people even less now. I had many people say things like “Oh, but isn’t it nice that she trusted you enough to come out to you?” like that’s some sort of consolation prize for my marriage ending. There is not much support outside of immediate family for the ex-spouses of trans people because so many assume we are all anti-trans because of the divorce, when that’s so far from the truth. If you love someone, you set them free, and that’s what we did for each other by divorcing.

There’s a very fucked up community that call themselves “trans widows”, which is full of angry ex-spouses hating on all things trans. I get their anger, but at the end of the day, it’s the individual person and their particular actions and not the trans community that they should be angry at. The situation is difficult, and I know my ex carries guilt about it, and I could not relate to the “trans widow” community at all.

What can my experience teach you about your own relationships? I dunno, man, probably nothing good. That my paranoia and assumptions were ultimately justified leading up to her coming out? That you can’t trust anyone? That everyone has something to hide? That giving yourself to someone fully isn’t worth the risk? I dunno.

We were both in the military and got married at 20 and 19 years old. She got sent to Korea for a year and since I was due to separate I didn’t go with her. She came home to visit after 6 months and something just felt off. The day after she left I was on my computer and noticed some files in the recycle bin. I restored them and found videos of a guy jerking off and talking dirty specifically to her.

So, then I started digging. I got into her email and found all the correspondence with a guy she met in Korea. The crazy thing was the things she was telling him were completely BS. She had basically made up an entirely different life, but with all the same people. I was apparently her asshole brother-in-law. And she came to Texas to buy a house with the “inheritance money” she got from her uncle. Needless to say she had no such uncle or money.

This then got me thinking about stuff she’d told me throughout the years and when I tried to put things together the more they didn’t add up.

So, ultimately I decided to leave her because of the lying. The cheating was bad don’t get me wrong, but the fact that she made up these entire different lives was just too much to come back from.

First one, we were sexually incompatible (both tops) which only got worse over time. We opened the relationship which doomed it.

Second one, in progress: we’re both addicts, I got sober, he’s still struggling, but I think he won’t get clean until I am actually good and gone. Enablement is sometimes not something you can avoid doing once the systems are built… resentments the same.

We didn’t love each other anymore

My wife started fucking a coworker she supervised, another woman, so she had me arrested, lied to the police and child services, then send my terminally ill mother to the hospital to die so she could move the lover into my house, emptied my bank account, maxed out my credit card, stole my work computers, posesiones, most belongings, and truck, Then blocked me from seeing my child, one I raised as a stay at home dad while she worked/fucked around. I am $18k in debt, with a bullshit arrest record and sleeping in my car.

Do I win?

There were no obvious reasons. An accumulation of life factors, like deaths in the family and job insecurity, led us both into a detached survival state, and her survival instinct is to run. There wasn’t much warning, and it happened when I was away for a family event.

This hit me so hard that I bet everything on giving her space to see what she was missing and find the way back. That turned into years of no contact. When we did eventually get in touch again, it was clear that I made a mistake. Life had not been easy for her. We had both likely been going through some kind of breakdown, not knowing the other was experiencing the same.

We’re now very close again in a lot of ways. I think it’s fair to say we’re more honest and trusting with each other than anyone else. We’ve both grown and matured significantly.

Unfortunately, distance from her family, and I sense some guilt over the whole thing has made it hard to fully reconcile. Now we’re on opposite sides of the world. She’s still struggling but determined to tick off some big life goals. It’s no secret that I would go back to our old life together in a heartbeat, but having so much already weighing on her makes it difficult to even think about relationships.

I’m not sure what the lesson is there. I guess it’s about remembering to look out for our own mental wellbeing, because without it we can’t fully look out for those we care about.

My wife came to realize she needed to date women. That, and she had very bad anxiety that she began to refuse to treat. She had multiple screaming and crying breakdowns over simple social situations with my family. She couldn’t leave the house for months. I was working two jobs, taking care of our animals, and doing all the housework. She would lay on the couch and doomscroll all day.

I spent 40 hours on the phone with Kaiser Permanente trying to get her a therapist. When we finally did get her a therapist, the therapist told her that she was autistic, that the anxiety she experienced was just who she was, and that other people should just accept it.

We were going to couples counseling, too, and I said in one session that her anxiety was something she needed to work on with the goal of ultimately fixing it, because it was maladaptive and making both our lives really hard. The therapist cautiously agreed with me. Afterwards, she demanded to fire the therapist and moved out of the house. She stayed with my aunt and uncle for a month. I think she would have continued to drag it out, for a year or more, but I had no faith in the relationship anymore. When she sent me an email reiterating the same unactionable, generic criticisms she had always raised in couples counseling, I told her we should just get divorced.

The actual divorce was amicable. We had no kids and few possessions. I bought her out of most of it and we split the rest. No lawyer needed. She moved into a house with a group of lesbians and started over.

I struggled with feelings of failure and inadequacy for a few years after that: why couldn’t I help her? Why couldn’t I make her happy? It’s taken a decent amount of therapy, but I have come to understand that sometimes things end without a conclusive reason, and we don’t have full control over the outcome of our lives. I could have done everything right, and it still would have ended.

There were many good years prior to things unraveling. A blooming flower is no less pretty because it will wilt.

I could write an entire book on the reasons. The main factor was she cheated on me, wanted to make it work, I believed her, she hid the affair for 3 years (not very well) I discovered it again.

Men can be abused too. Yeah, I’m physically much bigger, but there is absolutely no way to defend yourself without looking like the bad guy, which she was well aware of.

She was also terrible in bed. And unfortunately about as sharp as a bowling ball and a few fries short of a happy meal.

Advice: Don’t marry someone just because they are hot.

We were roommates, along with 4 other people, fresh out of high school. She and I grew closer, and before we knew it we were sharing a room together. Things went good for a couple of years, then we found out she was pregnant. Fast forward like 3 or 4 years, we bought a house. After a long engagement we were finally married, though we had lived together the whole time. Idk exactly why it ended. I was deep in the closet at that time, happy to be the man in the family as it meant having a wife, a son, a house and a car. I knew she would not accept me being trans, let alone pansexual, but again I was happy with my life. We fought for sure, over money and such. I guess we just fell out of love, and grew apart. Idk. After the divorce, she hated my guts, and still seems to strongly dislike me to this day, about 12 or so years later.

We co-parented decently for a couple of years after the divorce, but that fell apart. We haven’t actually spoken to each other in a few years, and I am fine with that. I dislike her, but as she is the mother of our son, I wouldn’t wish anything ill upon her.

I’m sure I was a shitty husband in ways that I did not see at the time, and never really cared to figure out to this day. I’d like to think that I have become a better person, and I think there are plenty of people in my life now that would say so.

I should note that after we divorced, I set up a profile on Grindr, which she found out about. She did not take that well. It was like 4-6 years later that I came out as trans and decided to be my true self.

TL;DR: I really don’t know if there was an actual reason to point to to say why we split up. I guess we both changed as we grew and became adults. 🤷🏻‍♀️

There’s no central reason, just a large imaginary orb colored with various reasons.

K couldn’t grow out of weekly spending to spend, or hoping for the impossible. She couldn’t have kids, and she held a lot of it against me for not trying hard enough when I more saw it as her not facing biological, medical reality with what her doctors were telling her, lose weight and maybe, you have a shot.

With our parents aging and no one around to take care of them, I was left with a hard decision, spin my tires on someone I had over a decade of attachment to who had grown to hate me or go take care of my disabled mom.

Coin flipped, and while I don’t regret my decision, I still miss her, but I have zero drive whatsoever to have a love life. There’s too much to do, a country in political turmoil and a busy family that I don’t want to damage with someone potentially untrustworthy.

She didn’t change; she finally revealed herself. In short, her attachment type is anxious-avoidant. That shit burns down everything around it. She was jealous AND cheating, which was just rich given that we were ENM/poly. I was so busy with life, work, and my sailboat that I only had romantic bandwidth for her.

I am forever changed. I went on an intensive therapeutic and introspective journey. Anxious-avoidant people can be immensely attractive anxious attachment types like me. I identified that in myself, addressed my own life traumas, and developed my personal boundaries. These days, I’m less poly, more monogamish. I approached dating with explicitly defined intentions and must-haves, rather than just random chance. I found the partner of my dreams, and we’re about to celebrate eight years together.

Early on, there were mutual warning signs, but we both thought we had the tools to face any challenges. As I mentioned, I had poor boundaries, which now would put an immediate end to any such bullshit.

What can I offer now?

• Learn Attachment Theory and know yourself
• Read John Gottman books before and all during your relationships
• Get professional therapeutic help; CBT, DBT, EFT… you might already have all the tools, but a good therapist will teach how to use them in integration
• Learn non-violent communication and/or take a workshop; this will provide massive return on investment in all aspects of your life
• Practice meditation and mindfulness; also pays dividends everywhere

She came from a pretty messed up family. Not as bad as some but there was some pretty gross stuff going on. We dated for a long time, maybe 7 or 8 years. We got married, she was safe. And she started to grow and seek therapy. She grew into herself and it turned out we didn’t love each other anymore.

We got together when she was 21 and I was 34 and we got on a like a house on fire. We split up 9 years later. Turns out you change loads between the ages of 21 and 30, not so much between 34 and 43…

Only money and alcohol keep their promises for most of the time. And even they are not 100% reliable. Not even 75%…