Don't get married.

1st marriage - I left an alcoholic and an abuser after 16 years.
2nd marriage-Alcohol abuse, PTSD issues never resolved. Only 2 years.

Not officially married but commited to a monogamous live together relationship for 15 years. Failed because I asked him to stop sucking me financially dry. I suddenly became the bitchy one, do your share, be responsible. Thank goodness I did not legally marry him, he'd run up $13,000 in credit card debt I knew nothing about. Missed the sex but not the stress of the failing relationship.LOL

Which one?

There isn't enough server space for all the reasons why my marriage failed.

There were many reasons. Let's start with the letter, A. Adultery, Alcoholism, Abuse (mental, emotional, physical and financial). There have to be some strongly compelling reasons for a conservative female family court judge to award custody of a three-year-old to the father. I presented several. That was a long time ago. My son just turned fifteen, this week.

A damned good question that I have no real answer for, only guesses and it was probably some amount of all of them. My exwife was not one to solve problems and she was impetuous. After her boyfriend mudered her I was the temp executor of her estate (her parents asked me to). I went through some of her stuff for the police and my own questions, but never for a reason.

Because she left before the wedding happened.

Because my partner found it impossible to resist attractive younger people!

We were two very ambitious individuals who were going through med school and nurse practitioner school. The stress of trying to study, earn and the day to day was too much for us. We are still good friends and occasional lovers but she has her priorities and I have my own and they just don't coincide at the moment.

The wrong place, with the wrong person at the wrong time.

It was time...

My wife was insane and we jumped into things too quickly.

I am totally aware that she will give you a different story. For example, I worry about money and sent her home to Africa 3 times out of the 12 years. She will claim we never had any money worries. It simply is not true.
I found that many people you know and work with will cut your throat behind your back. Since I am older, they did that all the time. Doubt was planted maybe coz it's just a game to some people.
The biggest thing I found is that people can grow apart and go in differnt directions over time. Some tell me it was the age difference. I disagree. Both her and I have memories of electricity coming to us for the first time. She lived with her parents then. I lived with my grandparents. The stories were much the same.
Putting my marriage failure squarely upon myself, I bit off more than I could chew. She was going to be the "forever love" that would be with me the rest of my life. Somewhere in my idiot brain I thought I could retire and she would be the breadwinner. Sorry. Things just do not work like that. Today I have a less than $200 mortgage. Hers is much more than that.
Who would have ever thought a simple plan like that could fail? Love is not only blind, it just has no sense at all.

My first wife was georgeous, had a beautiful voice and played the classical guitar. She was also bi-polar and it got worse as time went on. After her father died the problem turned into adultry. Need I say more.

My second, long term relationship (she did not want to marry and had a good reason) was to a women who was alcoholic. It was manageable at first and then she went into detox and the next 5 years were wonderful. She relapsed and then things fell apart.

By this time I was starting to get the picture. Take my time and pay attention. It's the old fool me once adage.

The short story: My ex was a binge drinker.

The long story: A few times a year he would drink to the point of puking (on various surfaces) and blacking out. Once passed out right in front of the toilet. That's when my pity for his drinking problem stopped. I asked him to get help and he never did. 3 years before our divorce, he went out drinking and never came home. I got a call at 730 am that he was in county jail he had a BAL of 0.20 and he said he barely felt that drunk. I paid his $1000 bail. He also had a few suicide gestures, with his handgun. The last time I had to talk him down from the edge, it gave me PTSD, because I told him that the next time he did that I would have to call 911, so I grabbed the phone and told him I was going to call. He told me he could pull the trigger before they ever got there.

Our kids were sleeping upstairs.

I froze for about a minute, and then told him if that's what he felt he needed to do, that he needed to take it somewhere else because our children were sleeping upstairs.

He snapped out of it, but left the house for about an hour.

The next day I turned him into his church (at that time he was working the sound board of his church for about a year) and told them I couldn't deal with this problem anymore and could they help. They did.

After that, I got into therapy and al-anon and adult children of alcoholics. Two years later, we divorced. It was probably the best thing for both of us, because then he, too went into ACA. No, not AA because he didn't want to give up the drinking. But at least he's getting some kind of help.

Mostly because I changed and he didn't. He looked 20 years into the future and was totally happy with it. I looked 20 years into the future and was completely unhappy with it. However, we'd probably still be married if he hadn't asked me the wrong question at the wrong time. New Years Eve he asked if I was happy. I said no, I think I want a divorce. Six months later, I was a single mother.

I was in a very strict cult that only allowed people in certain church groups to court and marry. With a severly restricted pool of eligible singles, I finally found a girl I had a good connection with. Unfortunately, I didn't think of her as my type, or necessarily a very attractive woman. But I felt like I didn't have any better options.

After 5 years together, things were unravelling, and I finally left the cult. We separated shortly after that, she wanted to remain a part of that group. So, multiple reasons, married for the wrong motivation, didn't have much in common in terms of interests/hobbies, and the religion/cult messed up both of us.

I can tell you why I've never tied the knot

My ex got pregnant with another guy.

It was never real in the first place and I thought with my cock and not my brain but never again.many things including never feeling part of her family and I don't believe in marriage but stupidly thought it could save the unsaveable.

#1: Schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder combined with unwillingness to receive standard-of-care treatment. Decision cemented by waking up one night with her hovering over me, trance-like, with a butcher knife. That sort of thing is clarifying.

#2: She died.

I think ultimately I was weak, unassertive, and blinded by feelings, and she was selfish, a bad friend, and downright immoral.

Yeah, don't get married, and don't put up with any bull ever. People have their faults, but take it from a guy that is desperately trying to keep his life together for someone else's mistakes: marriage makes things obligatory. Once you get married, there isn't that same threat that you aren't going to put up with their bull and leave, and obligation will have you overlooking some things you shouldn't. And if they love you, marriage isn't going to be what solidifies that. It literally changes nothing except some paperwork and maybe social status, but it shouldn't do anything for your actual relationship, and if it does, it's probably a red flag.

And as someone experiencing this as a male, let me tell you that if things go south, in terms of relationships, you're probably going be way worse off than your female counterpart even if you did everything you were supposed to do and they messed it up because many women won't mess with a married guy, but most guys do not care. Just my advice.

While I was in Australia visiting my sister he moved in his 86 year old mother for ME to take care of when I got home. Lots of other reasons but that was the last straw.

My marriage failed because I was reared fundamentalist Southern Baptist and couldn't accept my sexual orientation, gay, until my 40s. Annnd she is truly 'cuckoo for cocoa puffs'. She's #MessianicJewish now after Methodism, Baptist, Presbyterian etc. 3 of our 4 children will have nothing to do with her. They've been seriously hurt by her religion(s).