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Not sure where this question should be, so it could be moved. My ex had a strict religious upbringing and I believe she sees marriage as a forever event(so should we all if that is our choice). She so wanted to get out from relying on her parents (housing etc.) and wanted someone to "take care of her". She talked marriage and children for eight months of our RS yet excepted another man's ring six weeks after our last split. It was an old bf long distance that she left me for and went to visit for a week. Came back in a relationship on FB with him and cheated with me. She waited six days to tell him staying in my bed all the while(WHERE WERE MY CAJONES? IN HER PURSE?) and then stayed with me when he yelled and told her off. She even went through on a previously planned 1200 mile trip to see my mother and family, only to get back and go to a dark place again when we got home but it lasted O.K for two more months(trips or "vacations" made her a little less unstable). They made up... .She is on a navy base as he's in the service so cheating is tough without two to tango, and I know discharge is possible for adultary.
She mostly couldn't let go of exes and that led to inappropriate acts(did I mention physical and emotional cheating?). She was even saying I love you to me before breaking up with her boyfriend before me  red-flag  so she may be safe(inappropriate is still her middle name), but so, If they believe marriage (she's early twenties... .I'm older but about the same difference as her parents and her husband she called a "little boy" is her age) is the end all, and she is the type to make you think it's your fault and get forgiven endlessly with no empathy back... .will she try to keep it together through control for the sake of appearances and just destroy this young boy from his core(I was endlessly discriptive with my boundaries as she trampled them for the most part). Poor kid is kinda dumb,  a past cheater on her(confirmed slander for once), and seemingly a fragile narcissist(aren't they all?). She'll lie about anything and everything she is 5'9" and beautiful, says no one likes her but always had tag alongs outside her boyfriends and looking back EVERY RELATIONSHIP WAS THE SAME. Will she be willing to stay in it if her extreme dark shadow side come roaring up?

What reason do you have for speculating about whether or not she will stay in it?

There are so many possibilities.

For me, ex and I were both very committed to marriage and giving kids an in tact home. At least that is what I thought. The only problem was that he was committed to being in a marriage where he didn't have to do much. His idea of marriage and my idea of marriage were very, very different.

He didn't leave of his own free will. I had to work through the notion that I had failed at marriage and could not give my kids a two parent home before I finally worked up the nerve to kick him out. He definitely seems to be worried about appearances and his religion and a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn't really  matter to me. He has used my values as a way to manipulate me into staying longer than I should have.

If she finds someone that can tolerate her crap, then it is quite likely she will stay in it. That might involve lots of cheating and other weird stuff. A healthy person won't put up with that stuff forever. Whether or not she stays in it, is anybody's guess as there could be a lot of confounding factors.

Vortex of confusion
I'm presently detaching and so admittedly stuck within the interest of the exes future possible trajectory. If there is change was it my fault? I do not believe someone else could have worked harder with someone so untrustworthy to gain their trust(In other words I was as delusional as they steered me to be at the end). Yes, probably there is someone more right out there for both of us, it's just I've never known someone so messed up from within a relationship that it would seem immediate marriage has to bring that out out. 6month sea deployment then 6 together seems like an interesting dynamic for someone with attachment and abandonment issues. In fact that might be an altogether separate post :thought:

I can relate to this question. I have often wondered if ex could have a successful relationship with somebody else. So far, he has failed miserably. We had an "open" relationship at the end and he couldn't find anybody that would stick around for very long. He would talk up somebody online and maybe meet up with them one time. After that, the other person would disappear and never talk to him again. I would belly ache to some of my friends and they would remind me how messed up he is and they would also remind me that anybody that would have him is probably not somebody that is very healthy. Even if he did find somebody, that person would have to be as dysfunctional as him.


I think a lot of us on these boards could say similar things. I stayed longer than any sane person would have or should have. I worked my butt off to save a relationship that wasn't really a relationship at all. It was me doing most of the work while flailing about wondering what the heck I was doing wrong. I spent a lot of time reading articles about how to improve a relationship. I spent a lot of time asking other people for ideas and things to do to get ex's attention and get him to plug into the relationship. When none of those things worked, I worked that much harder with the notion that it wasn't working because I must be doing it wrong.


That should be a very interesting dynamic. At one point in our marriage, ex got a job out of state. I wanted to stay in our house with the kids and let him go ahead of us so he could get us set up in the new state and I could tie up loose ends and prepare the house to be sold. He would NOT hear of it. He dug his heals in so bad that I gave in and lived with him at his parent's house with our three young kids. That was a disaster. He was so afraid of being away from us. I thought it was weird because I grew up in a home where there were times when my dad would work out of town or be away at different times. Nobody freaked out. Everybody knew that dad would be back. There was no weird fears. The fear and desperation that he had over the idea of us staying behind was so not normal.