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I think I get what the OP is asking. Wayyy back, when I first found out my ex was cheating on me with men, I seriously contemplating leaving him. I even started squirreling away a little cash to buy a plane ticket back home (I moved to where he was stationed). This was in the first year of my marriage.
But I decided not to and to try and fix things... better or worse and all that. Stick to my vows.
Fast forward 13 years and he left me anyway. Sometimes I regret I didn't leave him instead all those years ago. Those 13 years were lonely and full of heartache for me. Maybe if I left him, I would have met another man who would have been a true husband and lover to me. Maybe I wasted 13 years of my life trying to make things work when it never could. There is one main reason that shuts off any feeling of regret though. My daughter. I never would have had her if I left in that first year. I can't even fathom life without her.
When it was obvious that my marriage was damaged beyond repair, I went to see a lawyer to sort of "get the lay of the (divorce process) land".
He convinced me to stay in the marriage "for the sake of the children" He insisted that, regardless of the status of the marriage, I would always have a "relationship" with my wife and therefore divorce was just an expensive formality.
WORST advice I have ever received. I ended up spending nearly ten more married years before divorcing, ended up costing me multiples of what it would have cost me originally, and cast a pall over my life that remains to this very day.
So yes, I regretted not following my gut and moving on when my heart and my head were telling me to get out!
I wish I had divorced about 5 years earlier than I did but I did not have the resources to support myself and keep the family home. Eventually I had enough money to buy my ex out of the marriage and not have to rely on him for anything.
Yes - regrets on my side even though my S.O. left me.
But that's part of the shoulda, woulda, coulda mentality and I don't like to go there! Not productive at all.
sometime it takes at least a couple of years to be able to say you give it your best shot.
also you have to remember that it is fairly difficult to get a divorce in less than one year from the point of making the decision and putting money down to hire a lawyer to finally getting a divorce decree. it can happen with a childless couple but custody issues usually drag out the property division negotiations.
anyone who throws in the towel the moment a marital crisis sufaces either had a royally bad incident that occurred, or wasn't committed to the concept of having a life-long commitment to begin with. at least that's my 2cents.
Paradoxically, divorce is easier early in the marriage, when the relationship is still fresh, than later in the marriage. Why? because the two partners haven't yet had chance to thoroughly bond and to intertwine their emotional lives. Looking back on my own former marriage, had the divorce occurred two years into the marriage, instead of nearly nine years into the marriage, the emotional suffering would have been vastly less. I still would have lost my dearly beloved, but it would have been a return to single-hood after a brief interregnum, instead of after a substantial fraction of a lifetime - a fraction of lifetime shared together.
Then there are the financial issues. Despite its present gyrations, the stock market has gone up something like 40% in the past two years. If the OP's buddy divorced two years ago, as opposed to now, he would have foregone having to split a potentially substantial amount of capital gains.
Divorce is always regrettable, but an "early" divorce is less regrettable than a "late" one.
Your friend wanted to go for a divorce but he did not but now he is regretting that he did not go for a divorce. He can go for it now. To go for a divorce is easier than make a marriage to work.
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