The Million Mistakes Made in a Marriage

One day, you meet someone and it feels different.

You’ve dated enough to know what you’re looking for (and what you definitely want to avoid) but not so much that you’ve become jaded or worried you won’t find it.

This new person seems like they might be someone with potential. It appears that their values and goals are similar to your own. They seem interested — nay, excited — about you and you are feeling hopeful.

The first date goes well. Conversation flows and you lose track of time. You’re not sure if it’s a love match, but you enjoyed yourself. At the end of the evening he says, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” and oddly enough, despite all the people who play mind games and make empty promises, you believe him. Even more oddly, he actually does call the next day.

You start texting back and forth and make plans to go out again in a couple of days. Your dates go well, and while you think this might be a really good guy, you’re finding yourself holding back ever so slightly. You’re not sure he’s the guy for you, but he seems all-in so you know you need to figure out how you feel pretty quickly.

Two weeks go by and you’re enjoying the attention. Valentine’s Day, a day where you usually roll your eyes at the commercialism, rolls around and he makes a beautiful steak dinner for you. There is a vase of the largest red roses — each flower head the size of an apple — in the middle of the table. He’s lit candles and laid out several different flavors of chocolate bars that you mentioned you liked. You’ve never had someone go to this much effort for you and you’re touched. It will turn out to be the only time he goes to this much effort for you.

A month later, he talks about moving in together. And while you feel like it’s still very early in the relationship to make such a commitment, he tells you he has a lease on his apartment still for three more months and if he moves in now, you can give it a try without either of you feeling stuck since he can always go back to his apartment. You own your own house so it makes the most sense for him to move in with you. You hesitantly agree to this logic and tell him he can start slowly moving a few things over. Perhaps a toothbrush, deodorant, and a change of clothes.

The next two days are a flurry as he moves his entire life into your personal space. You’re rushing to clear out drawers for his shirts and underwear, and making room for his Dopp kit under the bathroom sink. You feel panicky at this new sped-up timeline that you didn’t agree to, but you don’t say anything to him about it. This is your first mistake.

Fast forward to three months later. You’re engaged — yes, it seemed very early in the relationship but you were on a whirlwind trip through Italy and what better engagement story? — and he is mad at you. He lectures you loudly for 19 minutes (you’re watching the clock) without ever once making eye contact with you or pausing for verbal or nonverbal feedback. Finally, he runs out of steam. You apologize, but by then you can’t remember why he was mad. Maybe for something financial? Your finances aren’t yet comingled. Did you buy a new pair of shoes with money you earned? You don’t recall. He tells you that he won’t marry someone who is financially irresponsible, and keeps haranguing you until you promise to change and be more conservative with your spending. This is your second mistake.

A few months later, you’re newly married. You no longer have a well-paying job, but now work as a pastry cook in a restaurant making $10 an hour. He has completed his doctorate and has a job working for another doctor. He decides one day that he doesn’t like the clinic and doesn’t want to be there any longer, so he quits. Without a plan or desire to hustle to get a new job. You tell him how anxious and scared for your future this makes you feel, but he brushes it off by blaming the toxic work dynamics in the clinic. He tells you that you have enough in your Roth IRA to pay the bills for a while. He tells you that you have enough in savings to carry you. He tells you that marriage is sacrifice and supporting your partner. You have a moment where you think, “My God. What have I gotten myself into?” but outwardly, you reluctantly agree with him when he tells you that it will be fine and things will work out, and you don’t ask him if he has a plan to help. This is your third mistake.

Six months later, you’re foreclosing on the house you were so proud to buy on your own in your mid-twenties. You’re moving into his dad’s basement room in a new town. You feel disheartened, but he tells you he never liked living in that old house anyway. He complains about the commute he’d had from that house (back when he had a job.) You keep silent since you know he will tell you, “You’re being too emotional about a logical decision.” You’ve had this talk 13 times before, and nothing ever changes, so you bite your tongue and stuff it down. This is your 17th mistake.

Mistakes 18 through 8000 reside in the way you emotionally tiptoe around him daily over the next 13 years. He’s complained about not feeling well, but refuses to go to a doctor for a diagnosis, “Since it won’t change anything anyway. I’m smart and I know how to research,” he asserts. He tells you that he’s changing his diet and only eating meat, so you buy steak and chicken and burgers and bacon and learn a dozen different ways to cook each of them. Then he tells you he’s bored with meat and wants something else to eat, so you spend the whole next day making him vegetables and a gluten-free lasagna with scratch Bolognese, and proudly present it to him. He looks at it with disgust and berates you for not sticking to the meat-only cooking plan. You bite your lip and eat the food cold by yourself, sitting at the kitchen counter with a book as your only company. This is your 8,001st mistake.

You lose your sense of optimism for connection and love and relationships. You feel depleted like your emotional reservoir has been sucked dry. On a rare whim, you try to communicate this with him and he shrugs from his lounging spot on the couch and tells you that this is just what marriage is. “Love is self-sacrifice,” he says. This doesn’t comfort you. You begin resenting his indifference to you, but don’t change anything about your situation. These are your next 2000 mistakes.

By the time he unilaterally decides to walk away from a $100,000 loan that you are also paying and this affects you and your financial future, you no longer talk to him about your fears and anxieties. You no longer feel that closeness or the ability to allow him to see your vulnerabilities. You’ve had the same argument dozens of times, each ending with him listing the ways you need to change to make the relationship work. You’ve contorted yourself to adhere to what he says you should be. You’ve smashed yourself to bits against his hard edges and nothing has changed, except that you’ve lost pieces of yourself in the process.

You’ve made a million mistakes in the marriage, the foremost being not having boundaries, not communicating nor protecting those boundaries, and allowing his continued treatment of belittling and berating you.

Don’t make the million mistakes in your marriage that I did. If you are struggling, if you are keeping quiet about the things that hurt you or letting your partner steamroll over your boundaries, please get help.

Talk to your strongest, most self-aware friends. Learn about boundary-setting. Talk to a therapist. Discuss the needs you and your partner each have and what tangible actions help you feel like your needs are fulfilled. See where you can meet your own needs or have friends meet your needs so all the pressure isn’t on your partner. We are each responsible for our own happiness. Now that I’m no longer married to this man, I have a better handle on steering mine.

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