What’s the best marriage advice you’ve received? For these Capsule readers, the biggest learnings they’ll be taking into their marriage, is actually something they’ve learned from being married before. So, what would they do differently next time? Here’s the most common answer, plus some interesting other takes!
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What’s the one thing that divorced women and men would do differently in their next marriage?
The number one most common thing we heard back from Capsule readers who had been married before, was some version of “communicate and go to therapy, before things got bad”.
There were many, many messages along these lines, from people saying they wish they’d communicated their needs more clearly, voiced their feelings more, made more time to talk one-on-one without the distraction of kids/tv/phones, or sought help from a therapist/counsellor in order to communicate more constructively both before they entered marriage or during marriage.
“I wish I hadn’t waited until we were in crisis to see a relationship therapist,” said one reader. “By the time we went, it was too late. We couldn’t take back the things we’d already said to each other.”
“Next time I marry, I’m going to go straight to a therapist before things get serious,” says another. “As soon as we talk about moving into together or something, I will suggest pro-active therapy. It won’t come as a shock because hopefully we will have talked about our attitudes to therapy in the past. If he’s afraid of going to therapy one day, we won’t have made it past the first few weeks of dating.”
But although it was a very popular response, not everyone said that communication/therapy would be the one thing they did differently in their second marriage. Here’s some of the other great pieces of wisdom that people who have been through a divorce say they’d never do again in their second marriage:
“I’ll have more honest financial discussions. My ex and I had very different approaches to spending and fights about money is what broke us up. I’ll either only be with someone with a similar approach to finances, or would go to therapy to discuss immediately.”
“I won’t take our marriage for granted! When I got married I thought that was it forever. My ex-husband and I used to joke about how we were ‘stuck with each other now!’. We were joking, but there was a seriousness to it too. Now, I wish I’d tried harder and not taken our relationship for granted. I’d say please and thank you a lot more. I’d go on more dates. I’d tell him what I appreciated about him.”
“I’ll ride it out. In my first marriage we had a bad patch and we split up. Now I’m in my second marriage and we know that not every day, week, month or even year in our marriage will be wonderful and perfect. There are peaks and troughs and we know if we weather the trough we will make it back out to the peak again.”
“I won’t be so afraid to leave. I want to stay married forever but I know it doesn’t have to – or can’t always have a happy ending. In my first marriage I was too afraid to leave. I stayed too long. Next time I won’t make the same mistake. I won’t spend years being unhappy.”
“I’d forgive him if he made a mistake and was very remorseful. My husband cheated on me and I didn’t give him a second chance. I let my ego get in the way. In hindsight I know he was so remorseful and really did make a one-time mistake. He wanted to fix things and go to therapy and anything I needed but I was so humiliated and upset I refused.”
“Next time around I won’t make the same mistake, because it would be impossible! The biggest mistake I made in my first marriage was getting married so young. We started dating when we were 15 and got married at 22. It seemed young, but we’d also already been together for seven years. We thought we knew everything about each other! But, we only knew each other as we were right there – we were still forming. We didn’t know who we were yet. And the people we ended up being were very different to who we were at 15 or 22. I’m 44 now and engaged. Now I know who I am (although maybe a 65-year-old will disagree) and know who is a good match for me.”
