Shagnasty, if you feel your wife constantly criticises you, I can see how that would wear you down. The question is, have you done something about it? Do you still “like” your wife? Are you willing to work it out? Have you asked her why she feels the need to criticise you? If she is “nagging” and crushing your soul, you and she both have a duty to figure out why this is happening and correct it, provided things are not beyond repair. Sincere good luck.
I agree. If it’s not about having all the wrong expectations, it’s about trying to change people.
We’ve been married for 3 1/2 and living together for six years total.
Shagnasty that doesn’t sound like a marital problem in general, that sounds like a personal problem. It sounds like your personal problem.
Did you ever love you wife and want to be with her just because of who she is, or were you eyeing her uterus the entire time? No wonder you’re miserable if all you wanted was a nanny and instead you got somebody who expects to be your partner.
Do you even see her as a woman with her own identity any more? And if you do, do you even like that woman? Really, if she left, could she just be replaced by a nice English nanny who will serve the exact same function?
Wow. I willingly exchanged complete freedom for loving commitment, knowing that meant that I would have to take into account my husband’s desires and needs. It didn’t seem like that big a sacrifice to me, compared with our mutual gain: a happy marriage. We both knew that
I’ve only been married for two years at Christmas, but we’ve been together for nearly six. We have had occasional fights, but we’re very happy. Right now, I think I know at least six happily married couples. Three of them have been married for over twenty years. I don’t think I know any actively unhappily married couples.
Wait- one of my best friends has unhappily married parents. I forgot about them. They’re really nasty to each other all the time.
One out of maybe fifteen couples isn’t bad, though.
I don’t want to hijack, so feel free to ignore me if you want, but your experiences seem absolutely in-line for the thread. Unless you and your partner can expect to pull up roots and leave at any time, then your relationship is equivalent.
I’m very happy being married, and I hope my wife is, too. We’ve been married about a year and a half now.
Daniel
I and my SO have been living together for 12 years. After 5 mortgages, I think that’s close enough to a marriage to count for this conversation. He was my friend before we moved in together, and I can’t imagine not having him around. Yep, we have disagreements, and we enjoy time alone also. That doesn’t mean we aren’t happy, it means we are 2 different people. Just because we spend time apart doing different things doesn’t mean we aren’t happy.
Of 21 close friends/family marriages, 7 ended in divorce, 6 within 3 years. 3 of those were the same guy. 2 are currently what I would consider unhappy or strained.
So 67% still married. 86% of existing are happy.
I wonder if many of the “I’m going golfing/hunting/fishing/shopping to get away” marriages are the results of miscommunication as to what being married mean to the 2 people involved. Do they each understand what the other things is involved? Chores/kids/time together/time apart/money/family…
Been married or 9 years, female. I would say that we are very happy indeed, and it has gotten better with time. As one elderly lady said once, “it’s the first ten years that are the hardest.”
I have a bunch of brothers and whatnot (total of 5) that are now married, and they all seem quite happy. My folks are happy too, 35+ years. I would say that the majority of my good friends are happy. Thinking through people I know well enough to know something about the state of their marriages, I don’t know anyone who I think is having serious problems, though I do wonder about a couple of people. Oh, except for DangerDad’s coworkers–two of them just got divorced.
I have wished in the past that my friend would treat her husband better, but happily she does now, and I think they are doing much better than before. I know a woman who, when I first met her, was separated from her husband and thought they would end up divorcing, but he made some major changes, she did too, and now they are happier than before; she says it’s like a whole new marriage.
I don’t know what percentage I would say are really happy marriages. I am pretty sure that that 50% number in the OP is misleading. I have read (possibly from Cecil himself) that while 50% of marriages may end in divorce, that does not mean that 50% of married people in general will divorce, because there are people who divorce two or more times, thus claiming a bigger hunk of the statistics. Serial marry-ers account for a lot of that number.
Years:
1 : 80%
2 : 60%
3 : 40%
4 : 30%
5 - 10 : 40%
10+ : 50%
If the percentage is really so low, then why do we always see those studies that correlate greater physical health, longevity, or financial success to marriage? It must have something going for it.
Wow. My husband and I have been together for 15 years, married for 7 of them, and I’d call us happily married. Most of our friends are mutual friends. We figured out very early on (like in the first few months of dating) that each of us needs a bit of “self time” and we’re good about letting each other have that. He’s my best friend, a sweet, gentle, and loving guy. Coming home to him at night after work is always a great feeling.
Happy. Will be 10 years in June (and we shacked up for two before that).
Deleriously, walking on air happy. No. Well, sometimes. Well, often, actually. And very occationally unhappy.
I did have an unhappy first marriage, so wasn’t willing to settle. And had some realistic expectations, as well as a first husband who though sleeping around should be permitted, so perhaps my comparison bar is low. 
Married for a little more than one year.
Surprisingly happily married.
I don’t agree with the ‘soul crushing’ comment - your marriage is what you agree to. My husband and I both have just as much freedom as before - but then we were living together after knowing each other only a week. To tell the truth, half of the time I don’t know where he is on any given Saturday morning. shrug I hope he’s doing something fun, but it’s usually a hardware store or doing a project with his dad.
We’re also good companions. My favorite type of evening is watching him play a playstation 2 or computer game (if I’m not playing one myself). I was looking for a man who would like games as much as I did, and I got lucky!
We’ve done a few things that most people would consider well ‘death’ for a marriage - dabbling in ‘the lifestyle’. So far it’s only made us more committed and a stronger couple.
However, we have no children and that could definately change things!
As for my friends, I would say half are happy, half are not…or half I can see headed into unhealthy patterns…
Define “happy.” No, seriously–if we’re talking about people who are delirious with joy at the prospect of coming home to their partner every night, that number’s going to be significantly lower than if we’re talking about people who are contented/pleased with their marriages.
I’d say the percentage of people who are just hanging on for the kids/because they don’t believe in divorce/hoping to outlive the bastard is pretty low…maybe ten percent of the surviving marriages. There’s maybe another 10% that are on the rocks but not quite so dire as all that, so I’d guess 80% or so of all surviving marriages are at least contented with one another. Maybe 5% are delirious with joy, with the bulk of surviving marriages falling somewhere between content and delirious.
Re: bitching about your spouse. Bitching doesn’t mean your relationship isn’t a happy one. It means you’re both human and get on each other’s nerves sometimes. Everybody’s got little habits that annoy the crap out of their loved ones. My husband, for instance, is congenitally incapable of closing a cabinet door or putting a new roll of toilet paper or paper towels in the dispenser. Drives me batshit, and yeah, I bitch about it to other people. It beats the hell out of picking a fight with him about something so trivial, especially since it’s also something that’s unlikely to ever change. There’s probably a dozen little things I do that irritate him but not enough to pick a fight over, and I’m sure he bitches about them to his friends. Near as I can tell, we’re pretty happy most of the time. Not delirious, because we’re both often tired and stressed and don’t get to see each other when we’re awake all that often, but still happy.
And about this whole “loss of freedom” thing–of course you’ve lost some of your freedom, because now there’s someone else’s needs to consider and those needs limit your options. The same thing happened, and probably to a larger extent, when you had kids. When you’ve got a spouse, and especially when you’ve got kids, all your decisions affect them in some way, so you don’t always get to do whatever you want whenever you want. If having your options limited by your family’s needs is soul-crushing to you, then you’re clearly not suited to marriage and especially not parent-hood.
Oh, married just shy of two years, together for just shy of 10.
Happy after 23 years of marriage. The last 10 have been particularly fun.
Unfortunately we don’t know many couples like us.
fervour, you’ve been together for 8 years. You may not have a marriage certificate, but I’d called you married.
If you don’t want to be married, of course, um, sorry. You’re married. 
I’m happily married. Sure, my husband can cramp my style on occasion, at least, he would if I had a style to cramp. But he’s my favorite person in the world. If he wants to go somewhere on a Saturday morning, or any other morning, he’s free to do so. I’m free to go, too, though he might invite himself along. We rarely do anything alone. We’re actually rather scary.
My mother has 11 siblings. 10 married. No divorces. I have over 50 first cousins on that side. No divorces. I find that remarkable.
Worth keeping in mind: It’s been pointed out before, but the percentage of marriages that end in divorce, and the percentage of married people who get divorced, are two very different things, because of some people going through multiple marriages. For example, if there are 100 people in the world, and 80 of them marry for life, and the other 20 marry and divorce 4 times each, then 50% of marriages end in divorce.
Likewise, there’s a difference between the percentage of marriages that are happy, and the percentage of married people who are happy in their marriages.
This thread reminds me of a favorite New Yorker cartoon: a couple are sitting in front of a marraige counselor’s desk and she is saying to them: “Contrary to your experiences, your actually happily married.”
My point? Marriage is, like, the ultimate place to find yourself thinking the grass is greener. The grinding points stand out and the little celebrations can easily get lost.
Married 12 years, together 14. First 3 years were very, very tough, but it has gotten better pretty much every year since then. My respect for my wife deepens.
I know a variety of married couples - some are happy and talk that way, some are fundamentally happy but bitch around the margins, some are unhappy but put on a happy face, and some are unhappy and make that very clear to one and all…
good evening frends,
count me among those are happily married. i have been with the incomparable sunflower since may 19, 1972.
i look forward to the end of the workday because i know she will be there when i get home. she keeps me warm when it’s cold, dry when it’s wet and brave when it’s frightening.
Having read all the posts in this thread, I feel a bit compelled to elaborate. Lest anyone think my wife and I are living in some fantasy land, we worked all of this out before we got married. We talked and talked about what we expected, what we hoped for, what we wished we could have, and what we didn’t want, and how we could achieve it. My parents had a rotten marriage, a large percentage of my relatives have been divorced or suffered through rotten marriages for Og only knows what reasons besides the kids. My wife’s parents have a very strange marriage and relationship - the mom is more than a bit of a nutbar, and dad, while the saner and more reasonable of the two, has some ways about him that would drive anybody up the wall. The two of them drive each other batty with their personality quirks, and none of us can figure out the real reason why they stay together.
These scenarios, combined with all the other weirdness we’ve both seen in other relationships, are why we decided that since we were drawn together for such wonderful reasons, that we should try as hard as possible to have a really nice marriage. I could not suffer through a horrible marriage, and I could not be the kind of man that would do that typical, if stereotypical, guy stuff that makes women crazy upset. We established some ground rules. Neither of us is the other’s boss. Neither of us tells the other what to do. We are free to do whatever we like that isn’t stupid or destructive to the marriage. My wife is a very smart woman; she has a lot of common sense and dignity as a person, and I respect her enormously. The opportunity to be her husband is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I treat her accordingly. She’s my best friend in the world, and I am not going to behave in ways that would erode that friendship, trust and love. I don’t know that I could ever find it elsewhere, so I am determined not to screw it up. I want to be her friend. I want her to love me. I don’t do anything that’s going to cause that to stop happening. She does the same for me in return.
It took a couple of years to iron out the kinks. We had to review the statement of purpose a few times and have some words. But we have never had a fight. We don’t argue with each other, or drive each other nuts. She knows me now, and she’ll tell you if you ask that I’m a pretty darned good husband - even though I had no experience at it. We’re not giddy happy about being married to each other, we’re comfortably and securely happy about it. When we come home each day, it’s really nice to be here with each other. There are no bad memories of ugly scenes in our home. No doors have been slammed, there has been no shouting. We really love each other and appreciate that we’ve found a partner as level headed as we each are. Considering other folks we’ve witnessed, we are each acutely aware of how lucky we are to have each other. There is not now, nor will there ever be, any “soul crushing” going on in our lives.
Excuse me, I’m going to go scratch her back and tickle her and kiss her a bunch.