Redditors who got divorced within a year of their wedding: what happened? Why did you go through with the wedding in the first place?

Throwaway. Very people in my life now know this story.

First serious GF after high school, go to school in different cities we're each other's "first." After a year and a half, it's over. She met a doctor, thought me cheating, etc. I quit school, move back home.

Guy friends see I'm bummed, so they cheer me up with a party. And there's a girl from high school there (we were all graduated, so it was cool) with legs up to her armpits, skirt barely covering anything, and she can't get enough of me (turns out she wanted me bad all these years but I didn't know because we ran with different crowds). We're later making out in the hottub at the party. Dated a week. A week later, we're engaged; another week later, we're married. This was January.

March we're divorcing. We worked different shifts, and applied to work at same place. She was hired, I wasn't, and she immediately was cheating on me with the manager. Turns out she had serious emotional and sex abuse as a teenager, and seriously screwed up her ideas of relationships, made her engage in self-destructive behaviors, etc. I remember we're in her parent's house kitchen, she drops it all on me, and I go to get my coat and leave. She stops me and says, "I feel like I'm doing something bad, but I it makes me feel good too." I shake my head, and leave forever. Can't annul because it's all been consummated, but since we owned nothing, divorce itself a snap.

I went back to a different school to finish my degree, then law school, moved to a different state, then successful career, now married to a wonderful woman, with two great kids, and it's only getting better. She went on to marry the manager (20 years older than her), moved to Idaho or something, and still working for the company that hired her.

I knew it was stupid as I was doing it, but I wasn't thinking clearly. Still in rebound mode from GF before her. I was a totally different person then, insecure and afraid. The entire experience taught me I can be "devastated," and make it and thrive again, made me totally secure in myself, understand relationships better, and not be judgmental and be more compassionate with people in tough situations. I now have a marriage I chose freely, and I wouldn't have had it if I hadn't had the screwed-up one.

Thing is: Very few people know about it. I've carefully concealed it from everyone after it was done. My college and law school friends, my wife, her parents, nobody knows. It's like everything about my life before 1990 doesn't exist. My sister is tight with my wife, but she is sworn to secrecy (we had a long talk before I married the second time, and agreed the first one must never be discussed). Mom and Dad also never told, and took the secret to their graves. And I will too.

/r/AskReddit Thread