In the course of your marriage, how did it go for you, regarding your spouse's faults?

My ex-husband had many weird little habits and tics. He blinks rapidly....flicks his thumb against his front teeth...

Turned out that these nervous behaviors depicted an anxious and suspicious personality. We hadn't lived together before marrying, and were VERY young....it wasn't overly long before I became so irritated that I started to despise him.

Example of his personality:

Me: glance at him

Him: what are you looking at

Me: oh, nothing

Him: SO I'M NOTHING!!!

Sigh....

I wish I could express how those little odd behaviors were the beginning of a mentally unstable man coming apart...

I have only been married for 2 years..

I was able to accept faults and live with them but it never meant I had to enjoy it or like them. I don't think the faults lessened over time as much as I just accepted this is how he is and learned to deal with it. There are a lot of things that make me uncomfortable and I had to decide to either learn to live with them or to find someone else. And yes, I think the faults of your spouse help shape your attitude toward them but if the spouse isn't willing to work on any of their faults, there's only so much you can take. Some things are dealbreakers and I guess each person needs to decide 'is this worth getting mad over or am I going to learn to accept it?' Either way, it's not easy.

It became progressively worse . The drinking became a priority over the marriage.

He gave no emotional support during my diagnosis of cancer.

I had 4 surgeries, he did not come in the hospital with me for any of them.

He would drive me there & drop me off at the front door.

He would yell at me while drunk about the mastectomy

that was performed on me. Needless to say his faults ended the 20 year marriage.

Im not saying Im perfect but nobody should have to put up with that

Now my ex has been diagnosed will cancer ---- How would he feel now if he I yelled at him due to his diagnosis. Strange how things work out.

I could accept all his little nuances except for the drinking/drugging. I hoped that it was something he'd grow out of (we were young when we married, he was fresh out of the military - thought the partying would slow over time) but I was wrong. It's not gotten better and it's slowly destroyed my self-esteem, our marriage and our family as a whole. If not for that - I would take all the rest - good and bad - gratefully.

You know I was busy writing an answer to you about my 10 year marriage that ended 3 years ago. And then I realised in sentence no. 2 that I was done with it. No need to put any energy into that closed chapter anymore. I'm free now, apart from his fatherhood to our lovely 13 y/o daughter and our joint responsibilty. Believe me, I could write a book about that but I'm not going to.

I thought I'd accepted his, and I thought he'd accepted mine. Unfortunately, he hid a lot of them from me, like drug use and trampy women. Which, once I suspected, made my nazi-like personality that much worse. It just spiraled downward from there. With my fiance, we complement each other. Our faults are tempered by each other. We bring out the best in each other.

Arschloch

He's not perfect, I"m not perfect - we just learn to accept each other with love, patience, and compassion.