Please do. I’ll participate.
Yeah, Leaffan, that could be an interesting separate discussion.
For now, I’ll say it’s pretty clear to me that the notion of lifelong fidelity is a pretty recent notion, and perhaps won’t last another few centuries. Expectations of lifelong fidelity have certainly never applied to men for as long as they have to women.
The first time was because we married too young. We both realized it, parted and salvaged a good friendship out of it.
The second and third times, my wife screwed around on me.
SWMBO and I have been together, unmarried, for 17+ years now. That’s longer than her marriage and almost as long as the sum total of my marriages.
Anyone watching Perfect Couples? That’s what that story reminded me of, Chase and the other girl.
Yeah, from your first post I was wondering if that was the case, as it sounded like she was being a tad unrealistic about the situation.
Wow. Have any of your friends’ parents also actually gotten divorced over this? Are there any other Dopers out there (or their parents) who are having/have had similar problems? I’m morbidly curious because I want to know what I have to look forward to 
My aunt confessed to my mom that she didn’t really care for being with my uncle anymore, but they’re 70 and the house is paid off and the grandkids come to visit and she thinks that at that age, what do you do? You just continue living on as you did for the last 50 years. If they did divorce and sell the house, the proceeds wouldn’t be enough for them to maintain separate households in retirement.
I wonder about all my aunts and uncles - they’re in their 60s and 70s and divorce was only socially acceptable for abuse back when they were younger. Would they still be together if divorce was more socially acceptable then?
I certainly don’t think my Aunt is entirely to blame; LA does a number on anyone’s brain after awhile and there’s always someone living a nicer life than you. My aunt isn’t a shallow or kept woman either; she’s a professor. But she enjoys her sushi and her blowouts and LA to my uncle was a place he ran his business and nothing more. It’s not just a “where are we gonna retire” decision; they’re probably going to live into their 90’s because of their genes, so it’s “where are we gonna live 30 more years?”
No, none of my parents’ friends have actually gotten divorced (I suppose the jury is out on some, as friends’ younger siblings are freshmen inc ollege), but the stats do show an uptick in divorces after the kids leave. Most it seems did the “live apart” for awhile - one spouse lives with a sibling or parents or in a nearby second home. Some simply stopped sharing a bedroom for awhile. Some did couples therapy.
One friend had the most bizarre parental situation of them all. He’s a junior in college, living at school. They moved for dad’s job (while mom went back to grad school, a decision he encouraged) and lived with his paternal grandmother “just till they found a house”. We’re talking went from a spacious 5 bedroom to a 1200 sq foot 3 bedroom filled with furniture and assorted crap. Dad was a noted tightwad, but never to their detriment. 18 months go by and his dad keeps making excuses (they’d sold their old house too, no cash flow problem at all) and his mom literally had to move into a rented apartment to get the father to do anything. My friend was pretty stressed out about it; he normally went home for a week or more over Christmas but ended up just going there for the day. They finally bought and moved into the new home and are now perfectly happy. Dad just wanted to wing it and live on the cheap with his mother and hoped his wife wouldn’t mind too much. ETA: This was really the only “one person in this situation is horribly wrong and needs to comes to terms with it” situation.
These were really low maintenance couples too; always balanced, happy, the women had similar levels of education and worked outside the home so there were no power struggles or balance of power issues. Most of the time it’s just strictly a difference of opinions about the future, with no quantifiable answer.
You get married when you are relatively young. You have a lot in common. You are in lust and infatuated - as well as possibly in love.
You have kids. For the next two decades your mutual lives revolve around raising kids and funding kids. You work a lot, so you don’t take time for each other because between work and kids, there isn’t a lot of time. But the kids, you have them in common.
The kids leave. You look at each other after 20 years of conversations being “can you take conferences on Tuesday? Can you drop off the kids at soccer?” Your interests have changed since you were 25. You gained 30 lbs and he lost his hair. You now have all that money you were pouring into the kids, and need to prioritize how to spend it. You have all the time you were spending on the kids.
Fast forward a few more years, and you face the life changes of retirement. After 40 years of marriage in which my father traveled and worked, he is now IN MY MOTHER’S SPACE every day for 24 hours a day. Well, he isn’t because my mother developed a hobby to keep her out of the house (house cleaning my house, and helping my sister with her kids 250 miles away) and my dad spends a lot of time at a friend’s cabin fishing. Or they’d kill each other. And I think my parents actually have a fairly solid marriage.
Make long term plans for these life changes. Invest in each other even when the kids are little and the job is busy. Maintain and develop common interests. Talk throughout your marriage about what the future looks like - beyond “getting the kids through high school” - into "when the kids leave home and when you retire. Also be respectful of your spouses non-shared interests. Give space and yet maintain closeness - its going to be a hard thing to do when your calendar involves somehow being at soccer, gymnastics and piano lessons, plus a meeting for work, at the same time. But its better than trying to make up for lost time later.
That’s true, but misleading for these purposes. The reason life expectancies are so different now than in the past is that infant mortality is a fraction of what it once was, so the average is much higher. People who make it to adulthood live a little longer than they used to, but not by decades.
I’ve actually had this talk with an OLDER family member of mine. I’m not going to reveal their relation to me (but I’m going to say it’s not one my parents). This person has a habit of entering courtship where the other person has children. The other party tends to be a hot mess (drinking or drug problems). Their first marriage ended. So, I talked to them about not staying with their current spouse, before the person became their spouse. I was told where I can go if I didn’t accept who they wanted to be with and their children. Now, said relative is on the brink of divorce.
Hard to put a finger on but I guess it could be boiled down to incompatibility and or immaturity (long time ago). Married before we really got to know one another. But at the time it seemed a mercy killing. We just weren’t getting along. What I did was wrong and what she did was wrong. Two different counselors (both of which we thoroughly flabbergasted), a years separation, three trips to court over that period and - Voila!
I haven’t been divorced but my mom has, three times. (And now she’s thinking about getting married a fourth time! But I actually like Guy #4 so I’m OK with it, not that she needs my approval.)
Anyway.
Marriage #1 (my dad): They were both teenagers and only got married because she was pregnant. My dad is an emotionally abusive d-bag and my mom was very immature, and it only lasted about a year before she walked out.
Marriage #2: Physical abuse.
Marriage #3: This one lasted 15 years. Ultimately he walked out on her with very little warning, and she considers this to be almost 100% his fault, but as an outside observer I can say that their marriage had been sinking for quite some time. Neither of them took any interest in the other’s activities or hobbies, they openly mocked each other in front of other people, etc. My stepdad seemed to feel that in a marriage he should be allowed to just hunt and fish as much as he wanted without having any actual family responsibilities, and my mom seemed to feel that marriage meant having someone around to do yard work and automotive repair who could be ignored the rest of the time. I think it was only inertia that kept them together for the final 5 years or so of that marriage.
I found out that my wife had cheated on me shortly after we were married, and she had even cheated on me with someone else just three months into our relationship!
But besides that, I ignored way too many red flags in our relationship in the first place. She had a very bad temper, most of my friends and family couldn’t stand her, and I was generally bored by her. I actually looked forward to my alone time much more than the time we spent together. Not that I was completely perfect or anything; she was probably bored with me too.
I did convince her to go with me to a marriage counselor eventually and I tried to save the marriage but in the end, I’m glad it did not work out. I am a much happier person now. I don’t have any hard feelings for her now though, and I do wish her the best.
We were not in love anymore. Neither of us wanted to continue in a mediocre marriage for the sake of the kids. It all worked out.
I’ve posted before, but he can’t hold a job (pre-GFC). Even post GFC, which is my business only due to the fact I’d like him to eventually pay child support ($100 in 5 1/2 years is…inadequate…) he can’t hold a job. He got a great job as a 911 dispatcher, he didn’t even make it through his probationary period. Excpet for that, he’s been out of work for three years. He sabotages himself, he’s been fired when we were married for having porn on the job, for example. Plus other things which were 100 percent him. So yeah.
On my part, because it takes two to tango and I’m nowhere near perfect, I will say I had zero respect for him after the first couple of years, and more like active contempt. I was planning to leave and fell pregnant, because I was young and stupid about birth control. Love my son, he’s not a mistake, but he was sort of a surprise. So I stayed, which was also a mistake on my part, my ex and my son would have been better off if I’d left. I say this with all sincerety, I was miserable and didn’t have as much energy to parent as I would have wanted, and my ex would have been better off living with someone who had a least a shred of respect left for him.
I got tired of being poor, being married to someone who was less educated, less dedicated and tired of not getting what I wanted out of life or the relationship. We were married 10 years, it should have been two. My son is so much happier now, although I wish his dad would put some effort in. It’s been on me to make sure he gets to spend time with his father, and I do, but still - it makes me angry and frustrated and he’s such a great kid and his dad - who has scads of time, since he’s not working and living in his mom’s basement - can’t even put the effort in to e-mail or inbox him on FB. Laziness is the root of all his problems, plus I suspect depression or other mental illness.
I’ve never been happier than I am with my current husband.
She slept with other men, started smoking, lost a job every few months, and refused to help me in fixing the marriage. Divorce is pretty much an acknowledgement of a decision she made.
Why she decided that I can’t tell you, and apparently nobody understands it, not even her best friend. But that’s my side of it. Sometimes it’s forced on you.
Am I blaming my spouse? For the most part, yes. Ask anyone who knows us… ask her best friend. Ask her family. They’ll all agree with me.
This is pretty much my story. When he left for her he said he never loved me. The biggest shock was going back in my memory and realizing it was true. In 13 years we were great friends (?) but he treated me with a disrespect that I look back on and it saddens me deeply. I was young and thought I was so ugly no man would ever love me. His behavior toward me confirmed this in my head and made me feel worse. Nothing I did was ever enough… Always a new hope to jump through. At the end I was very depressed and a shell of myself. This ultimately “forced” him to leave.
I used to say that I miss my friend but not my husband, until my therapist pointed out a friend doesn’t do what he did.
I was simply devistated at the time but I am happy now. I lost all the weight and best of all, I found the me I let myself lose so long ago.
It gets lonely of course but I wouldn’t trade it for what my life would have been.
I hung in for 26 years even though in the first days he told me to never force him to choose between me and his drugs. I had no idea what that really meant. We were young - and I’m an honourable woman so I kept my end of the bargain for a very long time. He was a compelling individual. I left when I received 5 diagnosis in as many years of chronic diseases and I just couldn’t manage any more. Stress can wear you down.
My current spouse and I offered to pay for rehab for him so he could move forward in his life. Sadly he overdosed almost two years ago.
Was the divorce my fault? Only in as much as I enabled his drug use by providing every support and strength I could muster to give my children a stable home life.
Was it his fault? Well, his behaviour was certainly bizarre a lot of the time. It’s quite likely in retrospect that he was self-medicating a mental illness. I can’t blame him for that.
In the end I can only feel sad.
My ex had uncontrollable spending. Uncontrollable eating. Hoading tendencies, especially anything with print on it. Plus she finally admitted she was just not attracted to me.
Yechh.
if you ask my ex-wife, she will tell you about my drug habit, my drug dealing, my mistresses, my use of prostitutes, and my stealing her blind.
If you ask her psychiatrist her will tell you that she lives in fatastyland and that none of that happend.
When I was fed up with anger and hatred and delusions I agreed to the divorce.