re: For divorced OTers: Do you ever wish you go back and change things?

Did your ladies turn crazy or where they already turnt and you didn't want to see it?

Some people do. I have seen a few divorce, look around, and get back together. Not uncommon.

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I'm certainly better off with wife #2 than I was with #1. But I wouldn't be better off had I not been with wife #1 first. I learned a lot from that first marriage: successes and mistakes, priorities and "who really cares", the importance of communication and how to hold my ground on things that really matter to me, heart break and sorrow and what really matters in life.

I'm a better man for it, even though it sucked arse going through it.

BUT, when I think back on those two kids who met in college, fell love, grew from there, got married, and planned to spend the rest of their lives together, just to have their paths diverge 10 years later, yeah, that makes me really sad for them. If I could go back and change things so that those two stuck together in an alternate time line, but still have my life as it is now, hell yeah I would.

Life isn't all roses, and the only thing that's guaranteed is that we are going to royally frick something up along the way. I just hope that I've made it past the worst of it.

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Incredibly well said and mirrors my thoughts almost exactly

It took some time to realize that both me and my ex were in the wrong on some things. My kids are doing fine (me and their mom are applicable to each other).

I have an amazing GF now who adores and loves my kids and who I love and I couldn't be happier.

I was married for 27 years. Apparently she was planning the split for a couple of years, hiding money, looking for a job in Florida, emailing ex from college. She just waited until Lithette #3 graduated from High school. She left a secret yahoo email account open. I found out about the money and everything. Well she's upside in her house, her ex now bf again got pissed and took her dog back to the pound and when she went back to get the pup, it had been adopted.
She's a MD and doesn't pay any tuition but does give the Lithettes a small allowance.
In all I think Karma has smiled on me.

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Apparently she was planning the split for a couple of years, hiding money, looking for a job in Florida, emailing ex from college

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Mine had 3 different hidden email accounts. She also hid money, but in an account that she had long forgotten that I was part of...when divorce was mentioned, a friend suggested I watch the money so on that account I set up the alerts which dinged me every transaction. She had no idea I knew...

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ust curious to see if ya'll could change things would you?

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No

My former spouse and I were together for 29 years and married for 27 of them. There were good times and there were bad times. The job of getting our two children out on their own fell to me after their mother left. Did I ever think I would have to restart in my 50's? No, but I survived it. Were there things I could have done different during our marriage? Sure. There are things that everyone could have done better on ..... looking back. Some of my later relationships hit the skids because I was still trying to make them my ex-spouse. Do I still care about her? Having spent that much time together and having two children, there will always be a special place in my heart for her. That said, could we live together again? If we tried that we would be simply setting ourselves up for failure and more misery, and there has already been enough of that, perhaps too much. At some point you have to understand that it takes two to make a marriage, and if one is no longer interested, there is nothing that is going to change things. Also keep in mind that outside things can impact a marriage, sometimes to the point of no return (financial, health, extended family, in-laws, etc.) and the marriage simply cannot survive it.

What you have to understand and accept is that the person you once had is gone for good and things will never be the same. You both change when exiting a relationship.

Us males are notorious for replaying these sorts of things over and over in our minds, but at some point we really have to move on unless we just want to live our lives in emotional hell. A female early middle age and younger frequently has an easier time of finding another mate. Let's face it: it's one of those law of nature things. She can have sex whenever she chooses. There will usually always be a willing partner to accommodate her. Males frequently have a harder forming a new heterosexual attachment that is healthy and successful until they are able to put the past marriage behind them and emotionally move on.

There are three tasks that have to occur in order for that to happen:

A.) You need to forgive your ex-partner. Not so much for her as for your own emotional well-being.

B.) You need to forgive yourself. For males, this is frequently the most difficult task. We are frequently prone to beating ourselves up mentally and emotionally over the failure. What we have to remember is that we do not have exclusive ownership of that failure. The failure is actually owned by both parties.

C.) Finally, ONLY after you have accomplished the first two tasks, you then have to let go in order to move on.

Professional literature suggests that usually the recovery process from a broken marriage takes one year for every five years of marriage.

It is my hope that you will eventually find peace and success in this journey. Once you pull it off, a happier life awaits you my friend.