Relationship Advice From a Guy Who’s Been Divorced Twice by 26

Five lessons learned the hard way.

Photo by brooklyn on Unsplash

This article is the story of my childhood friend — we’ll call him Tyler. Tyler’s first wife was his high school sweetheart. They started dating at 16, got married at 19, and divorced at 21. He met his second wife during the period between filing and finalizing the divorce. They got married a year later when he was 23. But they divorced just three years later. At 26, he has two ex-wives, and for the moment, he’s single.

I plan on transitioning toward marriage-focused dating instead of having-fun dating. So, I figured Tyler’s advice is probably worth its weight in gold, having lived the experience of unsuccessful marriages. So, I asked him about his marriages. I wanted to know what went wrong and what he would do differently in the future.

Here are the five lessons I learned from his two divorces.

Discern Between Relationships and Marriage

All great marriages are great relationships, but not all great relationships are great marriages.

Tyler’s relationship with his second wife was amazing. They loved each other deeply. They had fun, laughed, and cried; they knew each other inside and out. However, despite their great…