Should I go back to my ex-husband?

However, our marriage is falling apart. It's become toxic with lots of emotional abuse and repeated infidelity from him. I moved out a few months ago but he keeps saying he wants me back. I still see the red flags of excess rage, entertaining many women and emotional blackmail from him when we interact. Should I try to make the marriage work?

How come your courtship relationship lasted longer than the marriage? This is a common phenomenon that results after you date wrong. In summary, you showed up at the dating market, and instead of moving around to try to find what suits you, you fixated on one person.

You stayed with them for many years, saying you were learning them. This is one of the most common misconceptions about dating. People think the longer you stay with one person, the more you get to know them.

The truth is that you only get attached and lose perspective. You start offloading privileges that were meant only for marriage.

The purpose of dating is character analysis. It's not proving that you can be loyal to one person over a long time. When you date right, you never have much time to spare anyway.

Getting married is the most life-altering decision, and no conscious person can stagger into it casually. The most expensive mistake is to be led by feelings and to get into exclusive relationships just because you feel love for someone.

Love is not enough, and it's not even the most important trait for the longevity of a union. The most important trait is who a person is. Their values, their moral compass, and their mind-set.

This is what will make or break your union. A person's character tells you where they're pulling their life towards and if you share direction with them.

Also, a person's character tells you what they won't allow themselves to do. Will they have sex with just anyone out there just because they think they won't be found out?

Sexual infidelity is one of the leading causes of marital breakup, and everyone knows it. Your man is not cheating. He's just living the life he has always lived. He has been having sex outside of marriage from the beginning, and you knew it. You even participated in it and somehow thought you'd change him.

The only way to test if someone is capable of something is to watch them do it. Sexual discipline is hard and one of the toughest virtues to develop. To restrain oneself and stay true to one's partner is not inborn but rather ingrained.

If they complain that you're keeping them deprived, that's a confession that they don't practice sexual discipline or delayed gratification. If they term the lack of sexual indulgence as a dry spell, they're telling you that they have been and will continue getting it every time from whatever source.

Remember that you can never be available for your partner every moment. There will be seasons where you can't give it to them for health-related reasons or being inconvenienced by other factors. If they have never learned self-control, they'll get it from someone else.

Nothing has changed as you can see, and going back will only start the cycle again. This is one of the most time-consuming things, and it's also very damaging to your reputation.

You shouldn't be talking about what he wants but rather what you want yourself. You're the victim here, and you're the one to set the bar on what you'll accept.

Serial cheating and emotional abuse through excessive anger are not things to ignore.

You seem to lack clarity on what you want yourself or you'd never be negotiating with such deep character issues as these. You have never taken the time to define what constitutes a good man for you.

You should retreat and grieve the years you've wasted dating wrong and losing so many opportunities to date and marry right.

You should also forgive yourself.

After you've done your healing through self-discovery and therapy, you should date again, this time intentionally rather than impulsively.

Keep the cookie jar locked away until you're legally married. You'll upset many sex pests masquerading as suitors, and they'll storm out complaining that you're too rigid but know that you'll never lose the right person by doing things right.

A man who wants you for decades can never leave because you refused to give him your body for one night.

Those who say they need to do a road test on your body are already telling you what they’ve been doing and what they’ll continue doing even if you marry them. You can never trust such a person, so there’s no point continuing the conversation from there.

Some people think that they can sleep around during dating and still marry right? That’s delusional. In life, what comes easy cannot last, and what lasts cannot come easy.

If you want to make a sober decision, you have to maintain sobriety throughout the process of searching and settling.