I (32F) am scared to leave my partner(46M) and go through second divorce in 12 years.

Because you said you had a very religious upbringing, it might be time to ask how much of this ideology comes from that background. Women who get divorced twice are....what? What's the moral judgement on that? You say it like it is automatically a bad thing, but what bad thing is being implied? Two very serious relationships? I don't think that's a moral stain on your character.

What about being 33 makes you less loveable to a man your age? Is it okay in your mind for a man who is also 33 to really want to date someone who is 26? Doesn't that make him the gross one? A healthy man in his mid-thirties is going to be looking for a healthy, interesting, adult woman his own age and anyone not looking for that is a bullet you're actively dodging. Avoid those creeps. Any man who thinks women his own age are too old might as well broadcast that he's disqualifying himself and you can gently return him to the discard pile.

I didn't know this in my early twenties, but I feel like I know it now. Life is just a series of starting over. I am never done, it would seem, starting over again. This is a big one, a divorce and a single life after these long relationships, but still, it is just a part of life. You have one life, but really you have a lot of little episodes and eras, times where you were one person or another. If you don't like where you are now, the only way forward is to be willing to risk that blank slate of building another normal where you are happy. I wish there was an easier path, but I don't know of one.

/r/relationships Thread