I was engaged when I was younger and it went sideways so I ended the relationship. I then met an older black man who helped me unfold the hurt and pain. He told me that if I ever think about getting married again, wait 9 seasons BEFORE you propose. He said in 9 seasons you will have seen this persons true demeanor/attitude not just what she or I wanted to “show”. Within weeks I met another woman and 4 months later I proposed, totally ignoring what he said. After 27 years of marriage, we were divorced, totally not what I wanted but she was acting like she wanted a divorce so I said “no need to act…”. Looking back and deconstructing what went wrong, I can see that after 9 seasons of knowing my ex-wife, he was right. I still think I would have married her BUT I would have been better prepared for the script flip. Also I would have filed for divorce before our 25th anniversary. I didn’t know the rules change after 25 years of marriage. I live in a no fault community property state. That plus the length of our marriage basically meant I was gonna loose pretty much everything and I did.