People who have been married and divorced 3+ times

Yes. I used to work with her. She IS NUTS. She was on victim….err….husband number four last time I saw her. She was an ex of a friend of mine. She is attractive, but beyond her looks she is a huge mess. Hooked on a cocktail of pills to function, can’t handle finances, is self centered and likely borderline. She is an insufferable disaster.

A former co-worker was on her 3rd divorce and about to become a grandmother when she was still in her mid-thirties, when I transferred to another department and lost touch.

She was a nice person, a good-natured person who worked hard and was good at a job that paid good money, but she'd come from white trash and kept getting involved with the kind of dirtbags she'd grown up with.

My ex's sister was on her third by the time she was 30. It was weird. She was pretty mousy, not very good looking, from a middle class family, worked as a journalist. Seemed that she's one of those people who go from relationship to relationship (serial monogamist) like a lot of people I know do, except she was getting married for all of them.

One of my oldest friends (we met in kindergarten) has been married and divorced three times.

He falls for the same kind of woman every time - and they inevitably get sick of him and dump him.

He is an odd duck.

LMAO

Other than both of my parents, I don’t personally know anyone else who has been married and divorced more than 3 times.

Of course. Of the examples I know, most are relatively young, and of those most I would say started on the wrong foot of marrying too soon, by middle-age they have a few marriages behind them. A smaller group of older people whose marriages occurred many years apart.

It seems to me more an American thing than a European. In Western Europe the average age of marriage starts at a couple years later than the U.S. average age of 28.9 years, from about 31 to 36 which makes a difference I think. In theory there's that much more time to see that it's what you want, yet it doesn't translate neatly into longer lasting marriages. The divorce rate in the U.S. is 50%, in Portugal 61, Spain and France 55, Italy 42, though just from personal observation it seems that fewer who divorce in Western Europe remarry -- they are happy with a later partner without being married.

The real difference seems to be in the high rate of marriage in the U.S. (6.5% in 2018, down from 6.9% the previous year), almost twice that of Western European countries. You even see this on Data Lounge where (jokingly and more often not) someone will question how some male actor can be "30 or 31 years old and never married - Is he gay?", as if there were a proper sell-by date for marrying off.

[quote]The long-term trend in the European Union shows that the number of marriages is decreasing, while the number of divorces is increasing. Since 1964, the marriage rate in the EU has declined from 8.0 per 1 000 persons in 1964 to 4.3 in 2019. At the same time, the divorce rate has more than doubled, increasing from 0.8 per 1 000 persons in 1964 to 1.8 in 2019.

[quote]In 2019, the EU countries with the highest number of marriages relative to the population were Cyprus (8.9 marriages per 1 000 persons), Lithuania (7.0), Latvia and Hungary (both 6.7), and Romania (6.6). These were followed by Slovakia (5.4), Denmark and Malta (5.3).

[quote]In contrast, the lowest marriage rates were around 3 marriages per 1 000 inhabitants, which were reported in Italy (3.1), Portugal and Slovenia (both 3.2), followed by France, Spain, Luxembourg (all 3.5). [SOURCE: Eurostat, "Is marriage popular in your country? " 13/05/2021]

One female friend has been married 3 times, the other 4.

Interestingly, they’re both excellent cooks.

I always wonder what somebody is thinking when they marry somebody with two or more divorces behind them.

R8, I'm with you....I'd have to ask too many questions. It's a red flag from me!!

A friend of my cousin's. and a charismatic, charming individual with a big personality. Cut a swath through the local female population, married and divorced three times, and then suddenly...the right man came along and Mr. Womanizer realized that he wasn't as hetero as he thought he was. The story ends happily with the two guys still together fifteen years later.

DL icon Vivian Vance, of course!

A guy I knew in fact a neighbor from when we were children turned out to be handsome charming and smart. A lot a friends very popular worked for Morgan Stanley. At 50 he was on his third divorce. It was the first time he had a kid and his wife was freaking out about being a single mother. He had a large portfolio and a 2 million dollar insurance policy. She claims he came home one day not feeling well and the next morning he was dead. Wife was a haitian so there were lots of suspicians. Like voodoo or something like a secret potion. His sibling were pissed because she wanted no autopsy and overnight she was a millionaire. I just couldn't figure out with so much going for him why did he go through women like Hitler going through Poland.

Yes, I know someone, and while I've known her all my life, I would never have guessed that she'd be the one to marry and divorce three times. She's well-educated, seems down-to-earth, but she is a bit insecure and hasn't chosen partners well. She's actually back with the last man she married, which is going to end in disaster as he's a sex addict. I thought that was a condition that only happened in films, but he's had a proper diagnosis and treatment. I'm not convinced he'll stay faithful; he used to fuck literally anything.

My mother married at least 4 men.

Technically, I can’t remember if she married the third guy, but I think she did. Watching the antics of an old high school friend on FaceBook. She was always a little chubby and not terribly pretty, but she has a large bubbly personality. She had a weird upbringing, wealthy hippie parents. She was a pampered princess when I knew her, then embarked on these weird marriages. Basically she reinvented her whole lifestyle and identify with each man. Now in middle age, she’s with a woman. Honestly, I don’t expect it to last.

^^ identity

My mother was only ever married to my father, but all of her siblings were married more than once, including two aunts with four husbands each. They all seemed a bit jealous of my mother’s single long and happy marriage to my father.

My sister has been married 5 times, though she did marry the same guy twice. Her whole life has been a complete disaster. I feel terrible for her, but she's someone who would just pull you right down into her misery, so I keep my distance.

R17: I came from a town where for a very long time the only divorced people were doctors.

My parents never divorced, nor my siblings, nor their children, nor my aunts and uncles, nor any of my cousins (21 people in all.) As a kid, divorce seems interesting, exotic.

I'm married for immigration reasons, otherwise I'm fairly certain to have gone through life unmarried. But the people who always have to be in a relationship were always curious to me. I've certainly known plenty of gay men who always have a partner, and when one moves out of the picture you can almost hear the moving company driving across town to reinstall the newly single man with, surprise, yet another partner. And each time they approach it with that plucky optimism of "I really think this is The One!" It always seemed to me that arbitrary cooling off periods between partners seemed as almost as loopy as serial monogamy or serial coupling of whatever sort.

The people who don't feel whole for ten minutes unless they're a half of something, I just can't imagine it.

It’s a sign. A sign of instability.

Yes, my cousin was married to a guy who had been divorced 3 times previously. He's not a bad guy, but my cousin said he's a very rigid and controlling partner. He would nitpick about every single household thing. Finally, she got sick of it and left.

My friend's sister is on marriage number four or five now. We don't talk to her anymore after there was a family falling out. She is batshit crazy.

“The triumph of hope over experience.”

Larry King and Zsa Zsa Gabor managed 8 divorces each. What's up with Billy Bob Thornton too; he's had 5 divorces and is on his 6th wife now..

The Guinness Book of World Records says that Linda Wolfe holds the record for being the most married woman in the world (23 times).

I posted a "story" on another thread last week about guy I work for. Can't find the thread. Anyway, he's mean, no one likes him in the industry he works in. Been married 3X, attractive, but controlling as someone else said upthread. He's known as a cheater. Married very successful women then divorced. He's very very twisted, prone to emotional angry outbursts on the phone. He's always on the prowl to find wife #4. He has no friends he once told me. I could go on.....

My sister.

Her first husband was a dopey derp to begin with, and turned out to be a severe drug addict - I think she just married him to get out of the house.

Her second marriage lasted less than a year and I saw that husband at the adult bookstore about 6 months after they got married.

The third one is still intact, but he's a sour old racist blob and I'm convinced he's part of the mafia.

Both of my parents and one of my two siblings.

Yet they thought I was the troubled and unfortunate one for being gay. My life isn't perfect, but I've been with the same SO for 21 years, which means I've outlasted many of their marriages put together.

I don't think I know anyone who's been divorced more than twice (and only three of those, off the top of my head), but one of them was widowed by a second husband before remarrying (and later redivorcing) her first husband.

I think people should just stop after the second divorce. By all means, have sex, have romance, but just forget about the whole marriage thing. It's clearly not for you.

This thread made me think of Phil Hartman. He was married three times and should have divorced his last wife, but he had children with her and he didn't want to be a "three-time loser." She was a drug addict but he was no prize himself, he appeared to be emotionally abusive and probably never should have married. Anyway, we know how that marriage ended.

R19

My mother's parents divorced when she was three (1941). When I was a kid, it was wierd having a step-grandmother (though I didn't meet her until much later). My mother's sister married her first husband at 25 - he was 17; my father was her divorce lawyer (ended up annulled). Before I was born, but a family legend; she is still married to her second husband at 90, he is 85. When I was in elementary school, there were a few kids living with divorced mothers, seen as sad.

On my father's side, his sister and brother were both married 3 times. On my mother's side, her sister was married 3 times. I guess it's in my genes.

My sister in law has been married only three times SHE says, other people say five times. Yes she is batshit crazy, no one seems to warm up to her at all, one of those organic natural everything types and gluten intolerant of course, pushy bitch who tries to run everything.

My good friend (very attractive) from high school: married & divorced 3X. We've been out of touch, so she may be married again. Husband # 2, she got really angry with. He was an immigrant from Australia of all places. After the divorce, friend felt used and either "reported" him to Immigration or called the IRS and told them about his bad tax-paying habits. I don't think she really had grounds to do the Immigration "report." Taxes are another story.

I had another friend who reported an ex-BF to the IRS. Moral of story: beware.

Two women friends (both married to now-retired military guys):

Friend # 1: Is military guy's Wife # 4. Marriage seems happy.

Friend # 2: Is military guy's Wife # 2 or # 3. Marriage seems miserable. However, their combined incomes afford them a nice lifestyle.

A former friend of mine from my first job out of college was married four times, and engaged for a fifth when it went south. I used to be pretty close to her. As the years went on, I realized she was a creator of her own drama. It was almost like she wasn't happy in her marriages unless there were constant battles and drama going on.

The older I got, the more I just couldn't put up with her constant drama. I called her out on it several times. She identifies with a victim mentality. All her divorces were the ex-husbands' faults. I told here there was one common denominator in all those marriages--her. I'm glad to be free of her. I wonder if she got married yet again?

A co-worker was married 4 times! After her 4th husband committed suicide and blamed her in his suicide note, she lost it and left NYC for some rural area in Idaho.

My in-laws; my MIL is on marriage number four and my FIL is on number six. I could see the current marriages lasting but only because for one it’s a toxic and co-dependent relationship neither party wants to take the step of leaving and for the other they’re old and probably won’t live much longer.

A cousin of mine has been married at least three times, I lost touch. After marrying her high school sweetheart because she was pregnant, she married twice more and somehow ended up falling out of the middle class and into a White Trash lifestyle and that includes multiple marriages and divorces. And she was always the prettiest cousin, my grandma's declared favorite.

A co-worker had just divorced his 3rd Asian wife when he left for another job, and he was still under forty. He was kind of a dolt, apparently he had this dream of a compliant submissive wife, and it'd never sunk in that his wives weren't actually compliant and submissive, they'd just pretended to be for a while. Apparently all three wives took what they wanted from this man and moved on, and he totally failed to learn from experience. Like I said, he was kind of a dimwit.

My cousin is on marriage #4. She lived with several men between marriages, so if those are included, it’s #8 or #9. She was living with one guy, they went to visit his parents, and she ended up in bed with the father. Father divorced his wife to marry her. That was her longest marriage. He used to beat her, and I think that is what eventually ended that marriage, though they stayed close friends.

Husband #3 was incredibly wealthy. When she dumped him, she took half his money, and bought properties in a resort area for herself and her parents.

It's apparent from this thread that for some people, being single and alone is a far worse fate than being in an emotionally and/or physically abusive relationship.

Two co-workers…

The first was married eight times to six men, but claimed four of the marriages didn’t count. They did, it was her way to justify in lowering the count. She married the last husband right before I started with the company. On their first date, he asked her to marry him. She was upset, asking him what kind of girl did he take her for. By the end of the week, she was engaged, and married shortly thereafter. Right before I left the company, she was talking about divorce. I’m sure her marriage count is higher by now, but lost contact with my co-workers. In between marriages, she “dated” many co-workers, and another male co-worker constantly called her a whore for having slept with so many. She had two daughters. Wonder if they followed in her footsteps. The oldest daughter was married to a Navy pilot; he was hot! She had a “dong cake with jizz” made for her younger daughter’s bachelorette party, and took great pride in it — showing pics of it to everyone. Yes, devoted Christian.

The second is a co-worker who has been married four times, the most recent to a co-worker. The only time he’s single is the short period of time from when he is granted a divorce to the time he remarries (think less than a week). He basically leaves one wife for the new one. Cheated constantly on his first three wives. Suspect he’s doing the same on wife #4. When he and wife #4 were hooking up during marriage #3 — and in his office, people claimed her lipstick was smeared on her face. Never saw her coming out of his office, so can’t confirm. Another who promotes his Christian faith. He’s actually a minister on the side, who has slept with parishioners of his church. When people ask him how he can be a man of the cloth but indulge in lots of extramarital affairs, he uses all kinds of biblical-related excuses to justify his behavior: man isn’t perfect, the devil is testing him (the excuse Falwell used when caught hiring hookers), the list goes on.

I know at least two people who have been married at least three times. One is a colleague who is a good friend. He's on his fourth marriage. He's an academic. He's an incredibly intelligent, nice man, and I cannot understand why his marriages have failed. I knew his third wife. She was a psychologist...also very intelligent. His current wife is a bit ditzy, but fun. My friend does not have children of his own, but he considers his current

The other person is a neighbor, who is on her third or fourth husband. He's been married once before. He has children. She does not. I do not think his grown children like her, because they're not around much, and they have kids. Instead, her family is around a great deal, and she treats her niece's children as if they were her grandchildren. They're a nice couple. He's laid back...Italian-American, but not very good looking. She's Irish-American and rather attractive. But she talks a lot...very opinionated. They both worked at the same company. She had an executive role...he more managerial.

Marrying over and over is a white trash thing, or a middle-class Christian thing in some of the less evolved Red States.

Some of them think they have to marry every person they have sex with.

My father was married 3 times. My mom twice, but had a 20-year relationship with a third man she never married...he died.

R39 just reminded me of my aunt! First was a guy she had to marry because she was pregnant. Then the second one was killed in an accident, but they were pretty much finished at that point anyway. The third was 14 years younger than she was. She had children with all of them. She’s the white trash one of my mother’s siblings: everyone else is respectable.

She’s been single since then, and now she’s elderly, so I guess she settled down eventually. She’s not a bad person, I just think she had impulse control issues.

Two of my aunts were married five times each. One was just a kook, and the other, when she got old, kept marrying old men who would then shortly afterwards die.

My family has always been divorce central - my parents, grandfather, great-grandparents and even a set of great-great grandparents were all divorced.

Do these people not understand the concept of dating?

Seriously, R48, I know! I used to say to my former friend, "You know, you don't have to marry them all." I forgot to mention, too, that she had three other failed engagements in addition to her four marriages and one other failed engagement. I think she is just one of those people who can't ever be alone. Major self-esteem issues, among other problems.

Oh, I completely forgot about this. I'm related to a someone who was married three times, but buried all three husbands.

This woman was born into an Irish-American family that was well off...upper middle class.

Her first husband became famous. He was the father of her children. He died in his early fifties. Within a year of his death, she married again.

Second husband played the stock market. When he died, he left her very well off.

Third husband (Both in their seventies) was just a nice, old gentleman. She had the money.

After third husband's death, there was another old guy in the wings, but she never married him.

She was born into circumstances and at a time, when it was expected that she would marry, raise the children, and manage the servants.

She was no great beauty, no airs about her, very charming, rather witty, but just expected to have a man on whose arm she could lean.

R26 at first I assumed you worked for Elon Musk, but then I remembered you mentioned he was attractive

My dad is on his third marriage (my mom was his first one). I don't know why these women marry him, he's not handsome, hung, or rich.

My grandmother's sister was married four or five times. She was just a plain, not too bright-looking woman.

One of her husbands hung himself in a barn while they were at a party.

My dad was divorced four times, married five.

He was afraid of being alone and couldn't go very long without being married, but he also was an ass who treated any non-controlling wife of his like shit. He had major mommy issues, and his mother was a controlling shrew, so he clung to his controlling shrew wives (numbers 2, 4, and 5). Number 2 left him for his business partner. Number 4 was such a controlling, abusive shrew even he got fed up. He clung to number 5 partly for her controlling shrew-ness, partly because he was terrified of dying alone.

Maybe needless to say, watching this unfold from wife number 3 (my mother) on has given me a very dim view of people who get married more than three times. At that point, it's obvious marriage isn't right for you.

Here's the thing: If same-sex marriage had always been legal how many of us would have three marriages under our belts?

My father’s been married 3 times, divorced twice. He’s 76 & his third wife just recovered from breast cancer. If she predeceases him I know there’ll be a 4th. He almost married an undocumented immigrant, who had a husband in Mexico, so she could get her green card & they would keep their marriage open (on his end). That one said she’d divorce her husband without having to notify him! She was cray. Unfortunately his marrying #3 & his subsequent will caused a huge rift between my sister & him, they haven’t talked at all in 5 Yrs. She says wife deserves house only, no money. He left the house & 50% of everything to her, 25/25 of his money to me & sis. They’ve now been married 5 yrs & are polar opposites, she’s a true blue Liberal (thank god) & he’s a die hard military Repug (on fiscal issues) who still voted for Trump because he distrusts Kamala. Wonder why… In sun, Dad is a narcissist, it’s really unfunny how self-absorbed he is. On one of his trips to visit, the guy who was supposed to pick him up from the airport (god forbid he pay to rent a car) fell & broke his hip. I think he shut his phone off so as not to pay roaming. One time I called him back while he was out here & he screamed at me for calling his cell, now he had to pay like $1 for the minute we talked & it almost stretched into 2 full minutes, before he stopped ranting. The same broken hip trip, I came down with stomach flu the day he landed, it lasted 3 days. Dad told me: I’m sorry you’re “sick” but how does this affect Me? Later he said he thought I was faking it!

I was doing volunteer work for a charitable organization. Normally intake took just a few minutes. One woman took 30 minutes. She had been married and divorced nine (9) times. Not only zero embarrassment but she seemed proud. She was maybe 40. Prima facie evidence of "Cray Cray"

Elon Musk is not that ugly r51. When I think ugly I think Weinstein or Dershowitz (sp?) or Woody Allen. lol

My husband's nephew (who is a few years older than us) has been married and divorced so many times we've actually lost count. It's to the point that when we see him at Christmas with the new girlfriend-soon-to-be-wife, we don't even bother to learn her name since she'll be gone by next Christmas.

[quote]Have you ever known one of them, and if so, what were they like?

My aunt was married and divorced twice, and widowed on his third marriage. She's 89, I don't know how to say what she's like, she's pretty normal/average. My uncle was married, divorced, remarried, divorced, and then he and his first wife got remarried.

*her third marriage

My buddy's third "marriage". After two divorces, this is a hybrid where they live together in a house they bought together. Her two kids come along.

I think after many, MANY, hours of talking about their relationship with him, I theorize insanely damaged women give off a vibe. This power is radiated and received only by men who have to have a vagina in their lives, even if it is not performing all the time, and have a woman who needs constant care and attention.

This situation is not good out of the box. I am afraid he will live alone, her getting the house, and he financially ruined again, like the two marriages before.

Why don't we use the word "thrice" more often?

R52 ...how do you know whether your dad is hung or not?

The party of "family values" couldn't exist without them.

I know a woman who has been married and divorced three times. She is a very beautiful, intelligent, and stable woman. She is an attorney and a professor in NYC. I believe she teaches business law or international business. Something like that.

She met her first husband while they were both in law school. It was the 1980's and he was envious that her career was on a better path than his. He said he couldn't handle a woman being more successful than him. She thought it was ridiculous as she was bringing in good money.

Her second husband worked in a more blue collar job. It didn't last long. I think there was a class difference between the two (he wanted meatloaf and a baseball game, she wanted the opera and Bordeaux).

Her third husband drank a lot and told her she was a whore. I think he was a failing in his business.

She is not currently dating but deserves more than she got.

I know two women, former co-workers, who each married three times, both are now retired and single.

Ironically, both of their third husbands were sexual predators. One molested her grandchildren and spent time in prison, the other was arrested for lurking about yards and peeping.

Both are strong, opinionated, difficult, self-centered women who think they know everything but obviously don't. They both have outwardly gregarious and charming personalities until you get to know them and learn the depth of their self absorption. Their judgement about men is atrocious. I knew them in two separate work places, they don't know each other, but have those similar traits. I shudder when I remember how bossy they were, and they weren't even my bosses.

I took a sociology class from a guy who talked about his three failed marriages. He was a piece of work.

Yup, knew a guy with 3 divorces under his belt. He came on hard to me and I was like, oh, no no. Then like a month later he had a fiancée and moved her into the house. There are just people that don't want to be alone.

Within one year of our mother’s death (we were kids), my father “took up with” this woman he had gone to school with. She had JUST married her third husband. So my dad broke up that marriage and he and crazy bitch eventually married.

There aren’t really words to describe how awful and insane she is. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out her exact pathology.

For example, any time my dad tries to spend time with friends or his extended family, or they are scheduled to visit us (his adult kids), she has some dramatic health crisis. Every single time. Considering these outings are very rare (maybe once every few years), this can’t be a coincidence.

She runs his Facebook account. She answers his cell phone and replies to his texts. If my dad and I are talking on the phone, she gets on the phone and takes over the conversation.

She has no contact with her own family. She claims to have raised some step kids from a previous marriage, but she has no contact with them either.

It’s a fucking shit show.

R70, has your dad ever said anything?

Two women I know — both have BPD. One is now in her 60s and has been married to the same man for over 30 years (and he is a saint but I have to wonder what his issues are because she is a fucking headcase) but she was married and divorced three times before they got together. Actually she was still married to husband #3 when she started an affair with current husband #4. He is also 10 years younger than she is and this is his only marriage. She has 4 kids, one with each husband.

The other woman I know is 35 and getting divorced after a 4 year marriage that produced two kids. She has two other kids with 2 other husbands. She got knocked up and married as a teenager so no one really thought anything about the marriage breaking up a couple years later. But three divorces at 35 makes me think that she will never be able to have a successful, fulfilling partnership. Her older kids are teens and struggling to have a good relationship with her but she is nuts so they probably need to get away as fast as they can. And the first woman I mentioned with 4 kids — all are adults and three of them live in different countries. The only one who stayed close is the kid she had with her current husband.

OP said ordinary and non famous…so I’ll mention my friend Glennie.

I have an aunt who's on husband #5

I'm pretty sure all her husbands were married or in serious relationships when she started "dating" them. I know for a fact that the last three were. It plays out the same every time: she hooks a guy, goes on and on about how superior she is to his current wife/other girlfriend and how he loves her and not them. They leave their wife/gf and marry her. After they marry her, they cheat on her and then it's over.

R74 If they will cheat with you, they will cheat on you.

R75 No, you see, they're only cheating with her because she was always "better than" whoever they were with.

Oh, she also has three kids (one with husband #1 and two with husband #2) and she sent them to live with her parents when husband #3 wasn't into having kids around. Classy lady!

In school you could always tell which kids had divorced parents. You could also tell which kids had both parents still in a loveless, violent marriage “for the sake of the children.” Neither kids were happy.

So basically, this thread’s about JLo and Ben?

R78 Alex Rodriguez deserves better than her.

Jennifer Garner was too classy for the Boston white trash Affleck

Former co-worker. A real jackass. His sister once called him at work to fight with him about childhood abuse he claimed he had no memory of. He took the call and wandered around the open office, loudly arguing with his headset on. His eldest children were in the process of aggressively ghosting him and his current marriage wasn't going well. I miss working with him a great deal.

After 2 failed marriages I think it’s time to call it a day.

Personal experience of a acquaintance:

guy is a handsome bodybuilder (not pro or top amateur size competitor, but i would consider him a bodybuilder as he could compete and did (does?) take a small amount of steroids..... he's in his late 50's, has a nice paying career, and been married 3 times..

first 2 times 10 years each, the last time? only about a year or so. each wife younger and younger, first wife 10 years younger, 2nd wife 12 years younger, last wife 14 years younger. he's back in a relationship now! one would think he would swear off women for awhile and surely surely not get married ever again! Is something wrong with him? Is it him or these 3 wives? He seems to have it all, but also seemingly cannot or doesn't want to EVER be single or alone?

oh yeah and these 3 wives? far below him in terms of looks i might add and who do not even work out? they were on the outside looking in, LUCKY to have him as a husband and in between their legs every night!...

ODD situation!.. So what gives? the last wife 14 years younger than him, had herself a recent divorce! they literally married only 8 months after her husband passed away? what kind of woman even THINKS about dating much less marrying another man in 8 months after the previous husband passed away?? is she a black widow? hooked up with this handsome 14 years older built man on the rebound to use him? and he fell for it?

I will try to keep it short. Straight male with multiple marriages: Narcissistic Personality disorder and or alcoholism. Straight female with multiple marriages: Borderline Personality Disorder.

A friends mother was married 8 times. It was her career . I'll give her this,she always married up and always walked away with a nice tidy sum. She's in her 70s and has never worked a single day in her whole life yet is pretty wealthy . My friend is her only child (and gay) so they spend most of their time traveling and redecorating one of her 3 homes. Suzanne Sugarbaker didnt have shit on Barbra !

I have a friend who's been married three times but the third time stuck. The first time she was too young and left when she realized he was a selfish prick who spent all his time lifting weights. She went off on adventures and met #2 who ended up cheating on her. Left him and married again in her middle 30s to a stable, hardworking, and reliable guy. 25 years later they are still very happy.

I have a co-worker who just divorced his 4th wife, he is barely 50 years old. A very nice guy, extreme pushover in fact. I think he likes to be dominated, his most recent wife absolutely terrorized him and was very bossy. She actually tried to frame him and have him arrested, when he finally stood up to her and left. He is very needy and likes the stability of marriage, even a bad one.

I have a cousin who is on wife #4. He is also very nice, well-educated and professionally successful. His first marriage was right out of college, everyone told him they were too young but they were headstrong. It lasted 3 years. He married his rebound, that lasted a couple of years. His third wife was the one we hoped would stick, she was his professional equal with a big career of her own. Alas, she decided later she didn't want kids. Splitsville.

He is now with wife #4 who is a dozen years younger but they seem to get on. They have three sons, so that is probably the big investment that keeps him working on this one. So far so good. I think he made bad choices the prior times, and didn't want to stick out what he knew would be miserable failures.

R54 basically told my father's story too. My dad was married four times, couldn't be alone, was basically a charming man who had mommy issues and married women with daddy issues. They systematically stripped him of any assets he had and he died alone and broke in a hospice. His 20 years younger wife had to be ordered by one of his friends to visit him because he wouldn't go and was hanging on. She flew in from the ranch he bought her nd he died a day later. . d

Gorgeous Mexican professor married four times. He was apparently romantic and impulsive, but hard to live with. His last girlfriend left him for a woman. I think some ultra-beautiful people find it difficult to manage the attractions that befall them.

I have a good friend whose family is open and gregarious, kind of messy but lots of fun. They treat me like family (her mother calls me just to chat). I was visiting once when the older sister came in and announced that she and "Bob" were going to be married -- he was to be her 4th husband. Everyone was a bit stunned. Later, we were cleaning up after dinner and she said to me, "Number 4. Can you believe it?" It caught me up, and I replied truthfully (but a little tactlessly), "Well, no, I can't." Things have been chilly since. I mean, she's like 44-45. I've had a number of relationships, and *many* more hookups, but I just can't imagine going through the legal hassle of a divorce when the emotional part of breaking up is so difficult.

I give it 3 years

My sister in law is on her 4th marriage, this time to my brother. She's 49 this year.

I really like her. I think she's a more together person than my brother. She's a hard worker, had her own business and sold it, works in educational development now and makes good money. She loves to entertain and is super friendly, generous and outgoing. I often wonder how it happened.

Her first marriage was at age 17 to the father of her high school baby. That one lasted a year.

The next one was to a gay guy. She didn't know it until they'd been married 3 years and found him having sex with the neighbor man, also married. Actually, her gay guy married another woman.

Number 3 was to a guy who became abusive to her, and she found out he was embezzling money from her business. My brother was her neighbor at the time this was going on.

My brother and she lived together for about 12 years before getting married in 2016. She told her friends that she didn't know why my brother didn't want to marry her. But she never asked him. When my brother was asked about this, he said, I wouldn't think anybody would want to be married a 4th time. But she said she did, and they did.

That's a great story, R90. Sounds like she's warm-hearted and just had lousy luck until your brother.

I wonder if these people get like a hole punch in a card like at the carwash and when they go get their marriage license, the 5th one is free.

My grandmother was married three times...they all died. She was going to get married a fourth time, but decided against...said it wouldn't look good at her age...she was 80. They were all wealthy and had homes in great places.

Hoo boy. I'm Facebook acquaintances with a woman who's been married three times. All three of the ex-husbands' families hate her, for good reason, and she just sees herself as someone who has been a perennial victim of men.

She's a covert narcissist who presents as someone shy and awkward in social situations and is able to charm some sympathetic people to her side. In the last few years she's gone from co-owning a house with husband #3 to living back at her mother's home while complaining about her mother all the time. Constantly "doing my best to find a job," but she plays video games and watches TV all day. Four GoFundMes that I can remember, most having to do with legal fees (she claims) while it's clear she spends the donations on Doordash and cosmetics.

This week she lost custody of her kid to her ex-husband and is STILL begging for money, saying she has to pay off the lawyers. Just a horrible energy vampire with the maturity of a junior high girl in the body of a middle-aged woman.

R94 definitely sounds like someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). They are perpetual “victims” in their own minds.

God, how weird is this:

I come from very white trash roots. Unstable. Broken homes. Wrong side of the track type lives.

But no one in my immediate circle (two sisters and maybe five close friends I grew up with) have been married more than once. Half have been divorced, but not a one remarried. All over 40, under 50.

No idea what that means, but it's interesting.

[quote] Elon Musk is not that ugly [R51]. When I think ugly I think Weinstein or Dershowitz (sp?) or Woody Allen. lol

Elon Musk is pretty ugly, IMO. Let's face it. Any attractiveness is due to his being rich.

Yeah, a woman who's on marriage number four. She's an outgoing beam of positive energy, ambitious, and very pretty. I think everyone who meets her for the first time is struck by the amount of charisma she exudes. But then... you get to know her better and find that all this energy is exhausting, she has a tendency to commit to foolish choices and be completely blind to the drama that she leaves in her wake (and there is a lot of drama), and people end up still liking her but wanting to avoid her because so much energetic drama is simply exhausting. She divorced two of her husbands, one husband divorced her, and her current one may last simply because he seems a bit loopy, like he might be more closely tuned to her unique kind of drive and energy find it something he's compatible with.

IME, military guys tend to get married and divorced a lot. I chalk it up to being moved around the country and internationally (loneliness). You get bigger housing (or more subsidy, I think) when you have a spouse / children. On the ex-wives' side, I think it's easy to get these guys' paychecks garnisheed by the US government.

I know three military guys (one of them a close family member) with at least 3 marriages under the belt.

I have a friend who is wife #4. Very happy, long marriage. #1: he and wife had a baby that was either stillborn or died shortly after birth. The wife couldn’t get over the loss. They say death of a child either brings you closer together, or tears you apart. #2: married a woman with a wild teen. When he tried to discipline her, she said he wasn’t her father, so fuck off. Ran away a lot, trouble at school, partying, etc. The wife always sided with the daughter, so he bailed. #3: never got the story on this one. My friend and wife #1 are good friends, go out for coffee, etc. All of his kids from the various wives, including the wild stepdaughter, call my friend “mom,” and send her Mother’s Day cards. They all have a good relationship. Nice guy. With the exception of #1, just made two bad choices.

R63 who the hell says thrice?

R100 damn that's unfortunate

My brother has been divorced three times and is on his fourth marriage. He’s 69 and has four children by his second and third wives. He cheated on all of them, was a bankrupt, took out a credit card in our father’s name and kites the total to over thirty thousand dollars. One if his stepdaughters who’s affluent negotiated a settlement with the card company. He’s attempted suicide twice but has done this when he’s cornered and overwhelmed. He’s a narcissist and has a chameleon-like ability to ingratiate himself with everybody. He sent us an email saying he wanted no contact from any of us but within six months broke his silence to tell us by email that he gad bladder cancer. No one responded to him and no one believes him.

My Mom has been married 4 times (twice to my father).

1-Married at 18 (I assume because she was pregnant). I think most marriages at this age are doomed so … whatever.

2-Married to a guy who worked for my Dad. He was literally his manager at a plant. I have no idea how that happened and this was a while after they divorced. I was too young to really remember but I know they weren’t married that long.

3-Married a younger guy (10+ years younger). “Nice” enough guy but his mother always came first (large Hispanic family) and was a complete alcoholic. I will never forget how my Mom was briefly detained when she claimed she was driving when he was (drunk) and the police did not appreciate it. Again another short marriage. This was the one I could remember, and I still feel bad that both my brother and I refused to give her away (her father was dead) because we thought she was crazy.

4-Remarried my Dad, in what I suspect was convienence. She could take care of herself day to day, but never saved a dime for retirement, spent money on bullshit things, etc. My older brother later died, and it really broke her, so I’m happy I guess? She never would have made it on her own after that. Trump being elected really sent her over the edge, and now she is a two wine box a week person (still because MSNBC mentions Trump every other minute).

There are exceptions I’m sure (like R100), but I think serial brides/husbands are just unhappy people and they think marriage will solve their unhappiness. It never does.

People who can’t be alone, aka emotional sluts, are a massive red flag. Can’t be single for a week and every new relationship is THE ONE.

I do know someone who seems to be recovered. Twice divorced, plus a deadbeat baby daddy. Dragged her kids around the country more than once for a man. She’s been single for a few years and bought her first house this year so fingers crossed.

Her eldest seems to be following in Her footsteps. 22 and married with 2 kids to his high school sweetheart. And it wasn’t a shotgun.

The military tactic around marriage is idiotic. They’re basically encouraging 19 year olds to rush into marriage.

r7 I wonder if that correlation signifies or means anything? It is a curious observation.

[quote] My family has always been divorce central

Ha! Try this:

I was adopted by my maternal grandmother after my parents divorced. My birth mother didn’t want me because I reminded her of my father. My grandmother (now my mother) was on her third marriage to a man who despised me, and never let me forget it. Since they both worked, I spent the week with her ex-husband and his second wife (my maternal grandfather-although I have my doubts about paternity!). She married him twice and divorced him twice.

My mother’s (formerly grandmother!) husband had two sons. Presently they are on their…I want to say third and fourth marriages? I’ve kinda lost count since I no longer speak to either. My mother is quite close to one brother’s second wife, who cheated on and divorced him, then took up with a guy who tried to murder her and killed himself. They had a kid. We were at his house for thanksgiving a few years ago. I got to witness several of my brother’s divorces growing up.

A few years after her husband died, my mother (formerly grandmother) casually informed me that she’d had ANOTHER husband that she’d never bothered to mention in al these years. Instead of being married three times to two men, she’d been married four times to three men.

I have never been in a relationship that lasted longer than a half-dozen dates. Wonder why?

Where are you from, R108?

I'm always startled by people who want to have a big wedding after the first one. I don't attend them--I will only attend one wedding for anyone. A second wedding (or especially a third one) should be a quiet affair.

My sister has been married and divorced five times! She's bat shit crazy and has screwed her two sons up for life. My sister seems to marry people she knows will not last. I don't understand her thinking. I went to her first three wedding but not 4 or 5. She's currently single again.

R111 holy shit

R108, I want to see THAT miniseries. Wow. My family seems so dull in comparison. If it messed you up at all, though, I'm sorry. Sometimes we learn a lot from observing relatives and don't have to make the same errors.

My bible thumping bitch of an aunt was married 3 times and staunchly against gay marriage.

My cousin is on her fourth marriage. The marriage took place in fall 2020 during a massive Covid surge in her state. She’s a QAnon, evangelical MAGAt with BPD. She browbeat everyone who declined to attend her wedding. Everyone who did attend went home with a special gift. Guess what it was.

r115, a floral centerpiece?

Trump steaks, R115? A red pill? An AR?

IT WAS A BIBLE, FOOLS!

[quote] [R108], I want to see THAT miniseries. Wow. My family seems so dull in comparison. If it messed you up at all, though, I'm sorry. Sometimes we learn a lot from observing relatives and don't have to make the same errors

Eh, pity parties are a waste of time. None of it seemed weird to me since it was all I knew, and my work has caused me to meet people who suffered REALLY shitty upbringings. Dating brings out major anxieties for me: an underlying assumption that I’ll eventually be betrayed and/or dumped, so I’m forever alone, but my life hasn’t been bad, and I’ve come a long way from where I started.

[quote] Where are you from, [R108]?

Born in NYC, adopted and raised in Detroit (ugh!), now back in NYC.

The last I heard, my father (not the man I knew as Dad) was on his 5th ( maybe 6th?) marriage. He’s in his 80s now, and I haven’t seen or talked to him since the late 90s.

He very abruptly left my mother and me one afternoon in 1963, when I was almost two years old. I had occasional interaction with him over the years, usually when he was trying to win over a new wife-to-be. He was and most likely still is, a fraud.

R115 covid for the win!

I can't imagine looking at someone who's been divorced 3 times and going "Hey, I could be THE ONE!"

Bump

My oldest brother, married 3x, divorced twice. His 1st marriage was when he was very young, only 17. It lasted about 10 years.

I think when people marry young they likely end up in another marriage pretty quickly to try and soothe their sense of failure - and also to demonstrate that it was their 1st spouse's fault and not theirs, etc. That inevitably leads to another failure. Then hopefully they find a better match; my brother and his current wife are a great couple and she enhances his life to no end. I really like her a lot and appreciate her taking care of him.

Two of brothers, my oldest and my twin brother, are people who can't exist outside of a relationship. They always have to be with somebody. Myself and my middle brother aren't like that at all.

My uncle has been divorced 4x. He's very charismatic and charms women, then moves too quickly with them.

His first marriage was a starter marriage when he was very young that lasted under a year.

His second marriage was a fairly standard 2-decade one that ended due to standard irreconcilable differences and personality clashes.

His third marriage only happened because he accidentally knocked up a woman right after his second divorce. The woman has severe mental illness. This marriage also lasted under year.

His fourth marriage finally seemed to be with a woman he was a good match for, but after several years, the stress of co-parenting each other's kids and dealing with custody arrangements and stressful exes, they were tired of it and divorced.

He's almost 70 now, here's hoping he doesn't try any more marriages.

Yes, in lieu of getting them something off their registry, I get a custom t-shirt that says "You are not wired for long relationships! Stop getting married!"

1...lasted 15 years...ended because we grew apart (I was 18 at the time and they were 13 yrs older)

2...a year...they were psycho and along with their bestie/lover totally gaslit me to the point I didnt know what was right or wrong anymore. I left and never looked back.

3. lasted 8 years...then they started fucking around so I ended it.

My Pentecostal, hyper-religious grandmother has been married/divorced six times. Two of the marriages/divorces were to/from the same man. One of the marriages was to a man younger than her daughter.

People who have been married multiple times are God’s chosen people!

At least they dont give up. Try try and try again.

That pool of availables shrinks and shrinks and shrinks as you get older. Anyone of any quality has stayed married and stuck it out or got wise after the first divorce and is sitting it out. A co-worker of mine, female didn’t get serious about dating until she was in her mid-thirties. I suppose she wasn’t concerned about settling down until then and wanted a life-forever partner but it didn’t happen. Every guy was in the underclass, unemployed, druggy, criminal records, exes with kids.

My sister falls into this category now. She lives in a weird fantasy land that you can't penetrate. She will sit and rewrite history with us and we just sit, gobsmacked at the fiction she creates. She just married a loser, grifter who made her believe he was dying of myasthenia gravas and it's something that goes away over time. He's going to gut her finances and she's no longer speaking to me after I warned her. So, whatever.

My AA sponsor has been married and divorced five times. Her 6th husband, to whom she was married 22 years, passed away last year from cancer. Shes gonna stay single for a while, she 70 now.

One of my closest friends and has been married and divorced twice. Her friends (and she) always said that she has shocking taste in men. She is beautiful, smart and funny. Just has bad taste in men.

She’s now with a new guy, also divorced twice. They seem very happy. Six kids between them.

Neither has any interest in getting married again.

My brother is on his fourth marriage. The first was to a woman 15 years older with a kid. She was beautiful and my brother was a stud. He was actually her boss and she was a supervisor. My parents welcomed the child into the family . The marriage lasted Jess than a year. He had children with his second and third wives and the second one duvirced him because he was cheating on her. The third divirced him because he was a bankrupt AND cheated on her. I don’t have any relationship with my nephews an niece because the divorces were acrimonious and the children hate their father and us too by our connection. He’s now married to a woman he got pregnant when they were in high school. The parents got her an abortion and lived her to another town. Her parents told her to stay away from my brother

R135 JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!

The only successful straight marriages I've ever seen involved a very submissive wife who bit her tongue instead of fighting. My sister has been married for 30 yrs to an asshole who talks to her like a dog and constantly implies that she is stupid. She never talks back. She and he have two very successful sons. In marriages that involve a mouthy feminist of any degree, it ends in tears. I'm in my 50's and this is what I've observed throughout my life.

My Dad was married four times, each one younger than the other. The last one was my age and couldn't deal with the old man he eventually became. He died alone. One of his friends told her she better get her ass back here (Dad bought her a place in another state where she spent all her time) because he was in hospice and wasn't "going." She came back for a weekend, he died, and she got everything.

All of my mother’s 4 sisters had between 2-5 marriages each. My mother was the only sister who only had one marriage, and it was a long one.

The youngest sister was the craziest, with 5 husbands. I thought she was great when I was little, but when I got older I realized how nuts she was. We lost touch with her when she moved away. She was with the last one for 40 years, until she died. She was already done having kids when they married and he was a lot younger…and gay, I think.

My stepmother's now deceased parents. Both married 4 times each.

They both stayed with the last ones even though they were miserable because they didn't want to be divorced at an old age.

My mom. TERRIBLE taste in men. She is over 70 and still frisky. I told her I will literally lay in front of her in the aisle if she tries to get married again.

Reading these posts I’m starting to u crests do why these elderly jackasses in costumes adore a failed tv personality and attacked the Capitol of the country for him.

Jack assert is widespread in the US. They don’t care that their hero was married 3 times because so were they. They don’t care their hero’s children have been dominated & infantalized by the father, because half the insurrectionists were brought to DC by their moms. They don’t care he doesn’t pay taxes because they don’t either. They like that he cheats & steals because they do too - on a small scale- and would love to do more if they could.

R142 did you type in a foreign language and use Google translate? Your post makes fuckall sense.

My mother. Not as much of a mess as some of the other people here - she has financial acumen and probably the most financially well off of her immediate family - but afraid of being alone and married beneath her and then got annoyed they were beneath her. She has a boyfriend now but said she's done with marriage - we'll see! My granny was married and divorced three times too.

I think I win the prize! My mother's sister was married 3 times, and her son (my cousin) was married 3 times. My father's brother and sister were each married 3 times (and not to each other).

Women make money from divorce? Right? Yeah.

^^^Especially if kids are involved. Typically she remarries plus gets child support, and perhaps marital assets. Women often make out well.

I don't know about '3+ times'... but I do have a friend that has been married several times, or at least been in long-term monogamous marriage-like relationships several times over, that have just sadly turned sour, and didn't work out. Some were complete horror stories. And yet, she's one of the most intelligent, empathetic, kind souls I've ever known...she just got a raw deal with some of the people she's ended up with. It happens in life. Sometimes people reveal themselves to be something else over time, you try to work out, and sometimes it just doesn't work, no matter how hard you try and how much you love. Life happens, as she says.

Not a psychologist here r148 but surely if you are repeating significant situations over and over again, something or someone must be trying to tell you something. In other words, what are you doing/saying to attract thse types of people in your life over and over again who leave you sad, dejected, etc. That said, some people are very intelligent but just clueless in other realms - that happens pretty frequently. But still.....

R149 This person I'm speaking of is one of the most aware, emotionally intelligent, educated and experienced people I know. Her life could be a great book or film. She just happened to deal with some people who turned out to be other than what they presented themselves as. It happens in life. Not every one and every thing can be be 'figured out' beforehand no matter how smart or experienced you are, no matter how much therapy/self-examination you've done...and she's done a lot of it. Sometimes there are just wolves in sheep's clothing...

Yeah my father. He's a flaming asshole but his first two wives died the third wife divorced his ass and now my father is dead. Good.

One, a creepy closeted nerd. Had a huge crush on our science teacher, just worshiped the guy. Started sleeping with a female teacher in high school and married her, ran off, married a second lady, she ran screaming in less than a year, married a third lady who looks like an ugly Mayim Bialyk with an even worse personality. Yeah, you heard me.

Creepy closeted nerd got a Ph.D. in science but never actually left the teeny tiny awful Kansas town he grew up in, so he is now teaching the same class the science teacher he had a crush on used to teach. Grew a beard just like that guy. Heads up the same school activities he did, and the same community activities as well.

His Facebook is all "the right mathematical equation could cure COVID if Ph.D.s in math would only listen to me" while his wife posts about cats being telepathic, she has proof.

The last time I saw him was about four years ago, I was at a restaurant with a friend, he kept trying to get my attention. Whatever woman he was with (it wasn't the ugly Bialyk wife) leaned out of her booth to try to catch my eye and went too far and fell into the customer in the booth behind her. Absolute clownery all around.

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