I go through this too, I know I am the common denominator in all my bad relationships. Whatever they are or were, I chose them. Try not to beat yourself up about it though, many things cause it and bad choices sometimes start in childhood. I'm trying to learn the lessons each situation brings. Whether your ex works on the marriage depends on whether he wants to or is even capable of it. My personal situation is my exes were diagnosed as probably sociopathic which means its a losing game even trying.

Yes, I go through both the personal self-esteem questions and the relationship doubts. It helps me ALLOT to treat the two phenom separately, beginning with my own. How can I understand my relationships when I don't understand what I, myself, am contributing to the relationship?

Continued support while you sort your own, Marah. Functional relationships are complex equations, even when the relationship is *just* me, myself and I.

I'm the common denominator in my past bad relationships, two of which led to divorces, yes. However, I found that it was not because I was the one who didn't work hard enough in the marriages, it was because I consistently picked bad partners. My partner picker was what was broken, not my relationship ability. My partner picker still picked partners like the abusive people from my family of origin. It's something really common among us childhood family abuse survivors who pick what we know as adults, we go with what's familiar to us.

Don't know if that applies to you at all, but since you're questioning I thought I'd share the answers I got for me, just speaking for myself. It turned out that those answers have stood the test of time for many years since and laid my doubts about my own mental health to rest. There was a simple explanation for it all that had to do with my trauma recovery.

I had similar feelings to this during my first marriage (divorced in 16'), and when my current marriage started falling apart almost 2 years ago (now separated), I started out with similar emotions, similar questions being asked to myself. I've survived domestic violence in my childhood, my father abused my mother I saw it all (they didn't know that until I was in middle school); my father was abusive to me, never wanted me, oh and cheated on my mom as she gave birth to me. My first husband was financially controlling, emotionally abusive, and strangled me almost the point where I came close to no longer breathing (had me pinned a few feet in the air off the ground, against a wall, in a military style choke hold, strangled me because I couldn't reach and clean the corners of the ceilings. My second marriage, I started blaming myself, but stopped myself from getting into that trap. I realized, I tried to do counseling early on, I tried to fix this whole martial issue, I tried to get him help, was being supportive, encouraging, but he never sought counseling, never sought to change, never tried to change, said he couldn't in fact, said he failed me, he would speak, but he'd never act, so I stopped blaming myself, because I knew I'm not the problem, I'm not the mistake, I'm not the one to blame or who is messing up and needs to change. It takes time to realize that. You're stronger than you know.

I agree with the others, counseling will definitely help you in many ways as you experience these emotions, and these thoughts. As a victim advocate, I've seen that abusers can be rehabilitated, although it's quite rare, majority of the time they were not rehabilitated, and even as an advocate I had to carry pepper spray, a stun gun, and a survival knife, the abusers stalked us advocates to try and find the confidential locations of our SANE nurses, shelters, and were there victims were (i.e. family members). This was when I was in my first marriage I did this job, miss it tbh.

The trauma is not your fault, you did not cause it, nor should you blame yourself. Some people can change, many cannot. I hope you find a way to work through this, have better days, and move forward in a positive, healing direction. My prayers are with you and I send you many big hugs!

Thanks for the words. It’s comforting to know this is a normal place to be. Husband and I tried counseling. I’ve done counseling myself and am still doing it. One moment at a time. Today is hard. I don’t get one on one time with kids like he does. We are living with my parents. That breaks my heart. But here I’m working and he’s playing with them. It’s only for a season. I’m blessed to have a steady place to work now and eager to get us into a new routine that gives us some sentiment of quality time together. Moving forward. I’m going to keep moving forward. Thanks again so so much <3