Marriage Advice from the Unsuccessful

My life has been more than a little trying lately, so I decided maybe I'd take on someone else's issues this week instead of writing about my own. 

Disclaimer: I've been married and divorced twice, so take the following with a salt lick.

Tonight I read a lovely blog post from a recently divorced man. In his essay, he gave twenty stellar pieces of marital advice to the still-married men of the world. He said he learned them too late.

Well.     Yes…   too late.

It’s very easy to say things like “always choose love,” and “marriage isn’t about happily ever after. It’s about work,” and “be vulnerable,” and “give her space,” etc., etc., etc…   WHEN YOU’RE NOT MARRIED.

 

It’s very easy to figure out what you should’ve been doing all along when it’s after the fact. It’s lovely to be brilliant and insightful when it doesn’t matter anymore.

His wife probably wished he would have been so brilliant while he was still her husband.

Or maybe not.

We don’t know his ex-wife. Maybe he snores a lot, or chews with his mouth open, or can’t balance a checkbook to save his life, or maybe she has a boyfriend and she was happy to get rid of him. Who knows?

They’re nice pieces of advice, but really - I’m sure if she wanted to stay married to him, she probably tried to tell him all of those lovely things and he didn’t listen, so maybe the number one thing at the top of his list should have been:

LISTEN TO YOUR SPOUSE.

Not one of his twenty tips for a successful marriage mentioned listening.

Huh.

Maybe he’ll have to get married and divorced again to learn that lesson.

You can follow me on Twitter: @CeceliaHalbert