When you are young with your life ahead of you, it’s really easy to think you are in love and this is the one.  However just have a discussion with a happily married couple and you might realize you are not in your “forever relationship”.  Really taking the time to figure this out can mean the difference between a lifetime of happiness and a future divorce.  Trust me –  never say never.  I thought “oh he will mature”, “I can convince him to exercise so he would be in a better mood”, “if we just made more money”, “time will improve things”.

Yes there are people, like my parents, that meet in high school and grow up together – married over 50 years and make it work. There are key ingredients they have in their relationship that are important to note.

There are things that you need to discuss.  I mean when you are dating someone you are in your best form.  You don’t really fight that much, you can hide annoying habits, and everything is just super sweet.  Here is something you need to know – it won’t get better than those early dating years.  Your relationship will mature and you will bond on different levels but those early dating years are the high that your entire relationship is built from.  If things about them are annoying you now, it will be ten fold after you get married.  Make sure you can live with them.  Ask yourself, what is the worst that can happen?  If you can face that, you will be fine.

My first time around I had signs that my boyfriend was cheating on me.  It is a terrible feeling when you can’t trust someone.  It makes you insecure and irrational.  You actually believe it won’t happen again.  I believed that since we were just dating, it wouldn’t happen if we were to get married.  He even told me that!  When we were married I was told “I promise you one thing, I will leave you first before I cheat on you.”  Fast forward 13 years and the promise was broken.

They say divorce is usually one of the three A’s. Adultery, Addiction and Abuse.  These should never be tolerated when you are dating and even when you are married.

I tolerated mental abuse.  I was told I was fat when I was literally at my skinniest.  I was told that I wasn’t classy enough for his family.  When I converted to Catholicism so we could go to the same church together, I was told after my first confession with the priest, that I didn’t do it right.  If ever he helped out with the kids, I was told “I’m their mother, their father their everything”.

The fighting was addicting.  The partying was often.  One night he was super drunk and very strange acting.  He had been drinking tequila shots. He picked up my pocketbook and threw it into the wall, leaving a hole in the sheetrock  I was thankful he never laid a hand on me.  I was fearful of alcohol abuse.  When ever things were stressful, he would reach for a drink. Alcoholism was in our families and I was very aware of the possibility.

We went to counsellng so many times it became a joke.  The therapists didn’t know what to do to help me.  Finally the last one said ,”you are dealing with a narcissist and you need to protect yourself.” I was pregnant with our forth child.

Why did I have four kids with this person that was so awful?  Strange to believe, he was actually was a good dad when we were together.  That was one thing we did well together was parent.  He told me that he was going to have more than two kids with or without me.  When I was pregnant with our second child, my only sibling died so I decided to have more kids.  I broke the tradition in my family of just having two kids like my mom and my aunts did and went on to have a large family like my in-laws.

We also created a business together and it became very profitable.  We created a life in a neighborhood with boats and friends and other families.  We were pretty tangled up in life.  I couldn’t imagine it would end.  It was dysfunctional but I kept thinking if only we had more money, if only we had that house, if only we bought a boat, if only we had the first girl in the family after 13 grandsons, if only and so on.

At the peak of things: our business was finally profitable, we lived in our dream neighborhood, bought a boat, and had the first GIRL in the family after 13 grandsons on one side and 5 on the other. When you thought everything was finally going our way, the walls came crashing down around me.

Yes there were signs, yes I ignored them, yes I want to pass along my knowledge to keep others from facing a divorce like I did.  Looking back the signs were all there.