I Married My Rebound & It Was The Worst Decision I’ve Ever Made

I grew up dreaming of a big, lavish wedding to my own personal Prince Charming. What I got instead was a disastrous union with a guy I only started dating to get over my ex. As you can imagine, it was a big mistake.

  1. I fell for my rebound way too quickly. I’d just gotten out of a nine-year relationship that was a little rocky itself. Then I met my rebound and fell head over heels pretty much immediately—you know like in every TV movie love story. I certainly wasn’t thinking about marriage, but I’m unsure if my brain was even functioning at that point.
  2. We only lived together for two months before we got hitched. I know that a lot of couples don’t live together until they’re married these days, but I’d advise against that trend. It’s important to share a living space with the person you plan to spend the rest of your life with before you make such a huge commitment official. I moved into my rebound’s home a month into dating and then two months after that, we were married. Yep, we got married three months after we started dating.
  3. We had totally different approaches to money. Although I don’t necessarily think prenups are necessary for every relationship, I would advise working out a financial plan and ensuring you’re on the same page about managing your shared cash before tying the knot. In the end, money was a huge source of tension and arguments between me and my (now ex-)husband all the time.
  4. I was more in lust with him than love and that became apparent. The honeymoon period of every relationship is pretty great. There’s constant steamy sex, you want to be together 24/7, yada yada. Not to state the obvious here, but that fades. Especially when your partner is constantly dropping his dirty clothes on the floor in front of the hamper rather than in it or leaving his dirty dishes piled sky-high in the sink when it would take five seconds to wash them. It was a serious problem.
  5. Jumping from one relationship to another quickly is never a good idea. I didn’t just do that, I jumped from relationship to marriage. I had no time to be myself, party it up, have a one-night stand, go on girls’ nights, etc. I never mourned my last relationship. They say it takes half as long as a relationship lasted to get over it, which means I probably should’ve rolled solo for a few years. People take longer getting over a ruined pair of shoes than I did getting over my serious long-term relationship.
  6. My family was in shock. I think I might’ve given my mother a small heart attack. I broke up with a guy, dated another guy, moved in, got a matching tattoo, and married him in a matter of months. I’ve never been the kid in the family who followed the rules, but I think this one might’ve gone a bit too far. My family didn’t have time to adjust, and they probably needed it as much as I did.
  7. Our wedding kinda sucked because it was thrown together last minute. I didn’t need a big fancy wedding with hundreds of guests. To be honest, I don’t even like 100 people, so that would’ve been a lie. Still, having more than a month to plan anything would’ve been helpful. It wasn’t horrible in the end, but some planning time would’ve been nice and made it a bit more memorable. I don’t advise the stress of putting together a last-minute wedding to anyone.
  8. I didn’t even have a bachelorette partyI didn’t need men gyrating in my face in a thong to throw away my single woman status, but a bachelorette party would’ve been nice. Since I jumped into things so quickly, however, there was no time to plan that. No shots out of belly buttons, no bride-to-be buttons or shirts, and certainly no hot, sweaty men were to be seen days before my wedding.
  9. We got bored with each other pretty quickly. Like a new car, a new relationship loses that initial excitement after a while. Being with someone day in and day out can get old, especially if you haven’t reached this point before getting married. The routine set in and we fell into a rut, leaving both of us miserable.
  10. We stuck it out for eight years but splitting up was inevitable. I’d known for a while that eventually we’d break up, but I held onto it for a while for reasons I don’t really understand. The hardest part of getting divorced was people tell me that they knew it wouldn’t last because we jumped into it too quickly. Thanks for telling me that, guys—it’s super helpful now!
  11. I didn’t get my fairytale ending. In the fairytales, the princess meets her prince, falls in love and lives happily ever after. In real life, this doesn’t happen often. My prince turned out to be a frog I married on a whim, and my happily ever after ended up being a house of my own that I bought myself and getting a puppy.
I’m a 35 year old single mother who found herself in the midst of a separation this year. I’m finding myself and life again. I work full time during the day with at risk youth and freelance write at night.
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