Not all weddings end in a ‘happily ever after.’ While tension is to be expected in all long-term relationships, some couples drift so far apart that they can no longer envision a life together. Some people try to communicate with their spouse and fix their marriage. Others… well, they suffer in silence until they suddenly ask for a divorce like a bolt out of the blue.
The AITAH online community weighed in on one man’s story about how he decided to leave his wife the moment his children were out of the house. According to him, his spouse, her family, and kids were completely blindsided by his decision. Now, the man wants to know if he was a jerk for leaving. You’ll find the full story, as well as the internet’s mixed reactions, below.
Good communication is the bedrock of happy and healthy relationships. Your partner needs to know if there are issues
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This man asked the internet whether he was wrong to surprise his wife with a divorce the moment his kids left home
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You have to respect your spouse enough to raise any relationship problems and tackle them together. You can't stay silent
Look, there’s no sugarcoating this. Happy and healthy relationships require you to communicate. Proper communication, honesty, and transparency are fundamental because they lead to trust.
In other words, you want to respect your partner enough to be open with them about any issues you have. Meanwhile, it’s unfair to expect them to read your mind and ‘guess’ that you’re unhappy with your relationship if you never speak up about it.
That being said, if you have raised your relationship issues with your significant other repeatedly, but they don’t put in the effort to take your wants and needs into account, you may want to consider going to therapy or marriage counseling. Sometimes, an outsider’s perspective can be valuable and help you see things from a different, more objective vantage point.
Whatever the case, you can’t go through life without communicating with the people you care about. If you love and respect someone, you try to work through your problems together. You want to look for common ground for compromises instead of coming across as incredibly judgmental and accusatory, even if you feel frustrated or sidelined. It’s the mature thing to do.
Now, that’s not to say that you’ll be able to work out every single issue you have. Not all marriages stand the test of time. And not all romantic relationships are fulfilling. Sometimes, the healthy thing to do for both people is to get divorced, rediscover who they are as individuals, and move toward happiness with others.
As Verywell Mind explains, marriages can survive problems with help like relationship counseling. However, if both partners in the couple are disconnected or emotionally disengaged from each other, it may be less painful to get divorced than to attempt to repair the relationship.
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Your relationship might be fixable if you're both willing to put in the work, still love each other, and share similar values
Whatever you choose to do, it can be incredibly difficult to admit that you don’t love your spouse anymore. The sad reality is that, even if you still love each other, you might not be able to save your marriage.
Some of the main reasons why people get divorced include communication issues, a lack of love or intimacy, growing apart, and a lack of trust and respect. Infidelity, financial problems, low emotional intelligence, and an unwillingness to compromise are other challenges that can break apart your marriage.
If your partner is physically, mentally, or emotionally violent toward you, there’s no excuse for this, and the relationship needs to end immediately for your safety.
Less dramatically, you may come to the simple realization that you and your partner’s priorities have changed and diverged. You may have been on the same page about having kids and where to live at some point, but your situation may have significantly changed since then. Now, you may have little in common when it comes to long-term goals.
And yet, as Verywell Mind points out, some of the signs that your marriage is worth saving are things like the fact that you still love each other, have shared values, and are both willing to do the work to fix things.
What’s more, if (most of) your marriage problems are (mainly) caused by stress over parenting, finances, family issues, health worries, etc., these things are manageable. Stress, while exhausting and damaging, doesn’t have to end in divorce.
We’d like to hear from you in the comments, Pandas. What do you personally think of the way the man ended his marriage? How do you tackle relationship issues with your significant other? Let us know what you think.
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Some readers were curious to find out more details about the author's situation at home
People had incredibly mixed opinions about the way the man handled his marriage and family life. Here are their perspectives
