Do you feel cheated?

10acity

See my problem is judging the individual. I always look for and expect the best from people, and have a tendency to ignore the warning signs. After my marriage fell apart, I went through a long period of counseling, and finally felt that I knew what to look for. I ended up entering into a long-term relationship. Initially, it seemed like I had finally found the right one. But as time went by, more and more about this person came to the surface until I know longer recognized him as the man I first fell in love with. Then, I had to go through the painful process of ending that relationship (and I still haven't really cut ties completely).

I just feel disheartened. I wonder if I am even capable of a truly life-long relationship (what I consider to be lasting). Not because I can't carry my responsibility in the relationship, but because I fail to find someone else who shares in that responsibility. I'm beginning to feel, at my age, that the pursuit of that type of relationship might just be pointless. But then, if I were to meet that person, I don't want to ruin it because I have become so cynical and doubt the survival of the relationship in the first place.

I feel for you, OP. What you're saying sounds so like several people I'm close to. Do you have close relationships with your family? Good, trustworthy, close friends? I really think some people just struggle with discernment, and for those people the advice of others who know them well and have their best interests in mind is invaluable. I am, of course, not suggesting you don't make your own judgments and decisions, but it's a great thing to have a trusted advisor or two.

yoovie

I dont think marriage was supposed to be for life. I think that you should partner up with someone and promise to be together for as long as you both benefit from it, want it, love it, need it and for as long as it takes you both forward- through personal evolution and incrasing your experience and maturity. It is highly unfair to force someone to stick to a decision for life that they made in their early twenties before they knew anything about who they really are or what they will need when they are older.


If marriage is for procreation, but women can only have kids until about 40 (just picking a general number, pls dont effing go off on me about scientific breakthroughs) then why should she have to stay with a man who can still procreate until he dies, if she is no longer of use once the children have been raised? Is he no longer allowed to procreate- and why not? He didnt come with an expiration date. She did. Why should she have to stay if she is miserable, not in love, not helping procreate (since christianity is the hardest on divorce and the biggest on marriage being for procreation), not allowed to be independent ever again?

not allowed to be independent ever again?

Prahasaurus

Don't be bitter. Time to move on. Feeling cheated is a form of self-pity. You don't want to go there.

Sure, I see happy couples and wish for a sec my marriage could have turned out that way. But in my particular case, it was doomed from the start. My only mistake was not ending the marriage much sooner.

On the bright side, I have two beautiful kids. That's what I focus on now.

And you do learn a whole lot from a failed marriage, at least if you pay attention... ;-)

Getting in shape is probably an answer to your "cheated" question. In a way, I'm trying to cheat time a bit, to be able to go back and perhaps get a "do over."

--Prahasaurus