Are you sure it was really working in the first place.....many people thought that of my marriage....including my H.....he thought I would continue to tolerate all the problems for the rest of my life.......it wasn't working from even before the marriage....& I had even told my mother I didn't want to get married & to cancel the wedding..but was talked into it by her.....

Those problems that I recognized before I got married were exactly the same problems I left because of 33 years later & the only reason I tolerated it for so long was because I had my career to hide it....when I lost that I realized just how BAD the marriage was...only then I was financially trapped in it.

H never listened to anything I had to say about the problems in the marriage....& at the end.....he was totally shocked that I would leave.....& he was living in the same marriage that I was living it.

In reality....one doesn't spend that much time getting to know one another in all honesty.....they just usually walk through life with their expectations of how they want it & sometimes in their own dream world play pretend that it's really what their expectations are.

I was miserable in my marriage from before I got married....& it never changed because he never grew up & became responsible because he never wanted to......& sometimes the time one spends getting to know each other in the marriage shines a light on the real problem the person has that wasn't known while they were just dating.

There are usually some really VALID reasons why relationships fail & it's good if there can be a learning discussion afterward to realize why.....

but most of the time the break-up is so adversarial that no one wants to talk to each other.....I have had to limit my communication to emails with my stbxh because of all his lies.....everything has to be in writing so I can throw it back in his face what he said because he was always saying he didn't say something.

Unless a couple really wants to work a relationship out.....BOTH agreeing to it.....there is no recovery & it's best to just walk away.