Does being divorced make you feel like a failure?


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tommyboy047 is offline tommyboy047 Post #11  August 5,2009, 7:55am
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I felt like a failure for a some time after. It does help to know that the divorce rate is so high. I have 2 brothers, One 1/2 brother and sister and 2 step brothers and a step sister, ALL divorced so that makes 100% divorce rate in my family. We were the last to get divorced, thought we would beat the odds, thought we would be together forever. Looking back now I find so many things wrong and missing in that marriage, heck, I knew no better, married young to my first true love, so I thought. We have great kids though and that's forever. I will marry again, this is for sure but now I am older and wiser, something that comes with age and experience.
 
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Emme is offline Emme Post #12  August 6,2009, 6:51pm

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If it's any consolation to a divorced person who felt at all like a failure for getting divorced, I have felt many times like a failure or a defective person because I never married, even though I didn't marry by choice. Had the chances, didn't want them. But because society is so couple-dominated, to never marry is seen as some sort of personality defect, like we couldn't find anyone to marry us. Nobody wins in these games. It's all just life. Hold your heads high, everybody, and march forward. Screw the ones who like to label us. I wonder how happy some of their marriages are!
 
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flgal is offline flgal Post #13  August 8,2009, 7:57pm
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Nope...I would have felt like a failure if I'd tried any longer at a marriage that had zero chance of surviving, though. As for people who label, they're not my type anyway.
Last edited by flgal; June 21,2011 at 1:22am.
 
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knitwitleah is offline knitwitleah Post #14  August 12,2009, 6:36pm
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Only if I let it. It's still within my power to feel successful, just not so much with men. We all make mistakes, it's what we learn from them that's important.
 
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Ziterrious is offline Ziterrious Post #15  August 13,2009, 1:28pm
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Stevereno wrote :
In reading profiles it almost seems divorce is running rampid amongst married couples all over.
I dont know first hand because I have never been married and thats why I must find out more. I read that indeed coming out of a divorce makes one feel as if they have failed?! This is very challenging way to feel going in to the singles scene.......... a 'failure', anyone have an experience to share?
As its pointed out by the responses here it's all how you look at it and the circumstances involved. However being a divorced person myself i have to say that Emme and Figal have the great point of Lables....
I admit that when I first got divorced that I felt like I failed at something only because I had no other ideal what went wrong. But that quickly dissipated for I had three boys to raise and take care of.
But I don't think its really failure I felt, but more of an empty feeling that someone and something I loved for years is gone an emptiness that can not be filled by doing my job, running the house or taking care of the children. A part of me was gone forever and as a LABEL goes it felt like I failed, because i could not hold it together, but to hold a relationship together it takes two.
So i think that its just a strong LABEL that society places on us when the relationship falls apart not that we really failed at it especially if you give it your all. But a Label.
 
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justmeoverhere is offline justmeoverhere Post #16  September 23,2009, 6:08am
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Yes, lots of guilt, even though years were spent trying to make things better. He never saw what was wrong. I couldn't see how he couldn't see it. Nothing can change if there is not a desire for change and you can't make someone want that.
Sometimes feeling like a failure is there, even though logically, you know you did everything you could.
Yes, it's hard to get past. Any advice on that?
 
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Wterlily4u is offline Wterlily4u Post #17  September 26,2009, 1:23pm
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Not at all!
It was a rejuvenating for me.
It took a bit but the old me is back.
I am not afraid anymore.


I thought it would make me feel that way while I was married however
since the process is sometimes worse than brain surgery without drugs.
After it's all over you will give a large exhale out and a smile will replace
all of it.
http://advice.eharmony.com/boards/im...ies/tongue.gif
 
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Mountaintrker is offline Mountaintrker Post #18  October 10,2009, 10:31am
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The answer for me is "yes" I do feel like a failed. My marriage didn't end for easy reasons like infidelity or whatever. Just the more slow and painful growing apart as people get older. I never realized that my ex didn't "get" me. Those last bitter discussions indicated to me that I had been married to someone for 15 years who didn't really know who I was at all. So, I feel like a failure because I couldn't turn myself into the person my ex seemed to need. It's hard for me to imagine that anyone who loses such a long term relationship (for me 15 marriage + 4-5 as partner before that) could come away without feeling like they had screwed up. It should have been forever.

. I've dabbled in internet dating now that I am divorced by trying to make my profiles really reflect who I think I am. So far it hasn't led to any great matches or "success" (not sure how to define that!), but I'd hate to so mislead someone again. I am an active person who is happiest when "doing" not sitting around "waiting" while my partner is out doing his thing. I'm never going to be someone cheering from the sidelines - I want to be in the thick of it all myself. From my divorce story I've learned most of all that relationships work best when the two people involved accept each other for who they are not who they think their partner should be. Maybe that's crux of the failure of mine.
 
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nightling is offline nightling Post #19  October 14,2009, 9:30pm
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I did not feel like a failure. The relationship failed. I did everything I could for it, but at the end of the day certain things just cannot be tolerated and physical safety is a must.
 
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jayjay is offline jayjay Post #20  October 21,2009, 6:58pm
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...things seem to have gotten quiet around here.

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I'd say divorce makes me feel like I failed in choosing my partner the first time. I don't consider I failed anything other than that.
 
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