Why do so many people get divorced?

[DaisyRaine90]

Seriously, and I say this as someone who was a single parent for 3 years before meeting my fiancé and having no 2

Why do so many people get divorced these days??

My whole childhood was blown apart by my parents getting divorced, but I know other people who waited until their kids had flown the nest and others still who stay married for decades

What sticks people together and what divides them? Why do we have such high divorce rates?

[lljkk]

Marriage is a strange construct. Why should it last??

[WhooooAmI24601]

Lots of factors; people have grown up over the last twenty years seeing divorce as an acceptable part of society. It's no longer something shameful.

And lots of people now realise that if you marry someone who ends up turing into an utter twat, you don't have to stay with them the way you might have in the 1950's.

And then there's the fact that social media means affairs are far more easily conducted.

I don't see divorce as a bad thing; if someone genuinely cannot see a way through, better they divorce than to remain in an unhappy situation, especially where DCs are concerned. I'd always hope that DH and I wouldn't divorce but I don't think it's a certainty that we'll stay together forever because nothing's really certain, is it? He could cheat, he could become violent, he could decide he wants to live as a gay man, I could start an affair with the gardener, I could decide to leave him and write books alone on a farm in Suffolk.

Ultimately people divorce because the people they are when they marry aren't the people they are five, ten, fifteen years later. Some marriages grow together, some grow apart.

[PortiaCastis]

Because I was getting beaten

[LEMtheoriginal]

I think it is because life is so stressful. Financial difficulties nearly did for me and dp when dd2 was born. That and the pressure from everywhere to be perfect

[Adviceplease360]

Less stigma to single parents (mothers)
Mentality to stick it out is disappearing, if something doesn't work or is too hard, leave it
More support in leading abusive relationships
Idea if you fall out of love, leave, you only live once, make most of it bla bla

[Bluelonerose]

My exdh stuck his dick in someone else so I divorced him.
I did try to forgive and forget but less than 12 months later he did it again so he had to go.

[ChangingStates]

Because it’s better to be apart than to carry on living a sad and miserable life in an empty shell of a marriage where you feel lonelier every day with your spouse than you do when you are alone.

[hamburgers]

I think it’s a more interesting question to ask “why are people still getting married?” (and I say that as a married person).

[AnneLovesGilbert]

Spend any time on here and you wonder why so many people stay in awful marriages where they're badly treated, abused and unhappy.

You sound a wee bit judgemental OP.

I married my ex with every intention of staying married but you can't do it alone.

My parents, my siblings and I were all much happier when my parents divorced. It doesn't have to ruin everyone's life. My DMs parevys stayed together making each other fucking miserable till the day her dad died. That did no one any favours and she wanted better for us than parents who stayed together because getting divorced was worse than being unhappy.

[SingingMyOwnSpecialSong]

First Marriage - emotional, verbal and increasingly physical abuse.

Second Marriage - Because it takes two people to make a marriage work and he wasn't interested in anything except making sure he had his 'cave time' and blaming me for all his issues (mental health, paranoia, narcissism).

Don't think I'll bother trying a third. Life is pretty good with just me and my toddler.

[GnomeDePlume]

I think many people idealise marriage. We expect it to be romantic, to meet 'the one'. Historically marriage was pragmatic. Securing assets or labour, securing the future. If you got on then that was good enough. Now that isn't enough.

[Mooncuplanding]

I too think it is a much more pertinent question to ask "why are people still getting married?"

[bakingaddict]

Women nowadays have more financial independence than in the 1950's so less need to stay in a bad marriage

[DumbledoresArmy]

Because life’s too short to be unhappy with someone.

[ComtesseDeSpair]

There are no prizes for being unhappy. Life doesn't have to be a slog. I like to think divorce rates have increased because more people have realised this and because there's no longer the same stigma in admitting it.

What are marriage vows anyway? If you aren't religious (and most people aren't) then the historical idea of them being vows to God as much as to your spouse is null and void and they're no different to any other kind of dissolvable contract. Strip away the legal contract of marriage and marital vows are just words. They have no sacred or higher meaning. They're just something you said at a point in your life when those words matched how you felt and actually have no more or less weight than when you were 14 and made a pledge with your best friend that you'd stay best friends forever and ever.

[fartyghost]

Because they were married to the wrong person.

[Dramallama21]

Because society places so much importance on long term monogamous relationships when they are really not that big a deal. All that happens is you get stuck with the same person. Every day. For the rest of your life.

People realise that.

[Ttbb]

Be able se they don't want to be married anymore?

[BagelGoesWalking]

Because it’s better to be apart than to carry on living a sad and miserable life in an empty shell of a marriage where you feel lonelier every day with your spouse than you do when you are alone.

^^This.

I may very well get divorced in the near future. Bereavements and redundancy took away so much from me that I can’t respond emotionally or physically like I used to. My youngest will be at university next year, if all goes well. As time goes on, there seems to be very little holding me and OH together, no shared interests really so when we don’t have the kids at home full time, I think it will be a pretty bleak existence. We haven’t exactly talked about it but, when we’ve argued, it seems that there is little love left on his side. He has supported me but I think he’s pretty fed up with it and I can’t say I blame him.

I don’t agree that divorce is easy. From the little I’ve read about it, it still seems quite complicated and drawn out.

[Brandnewstart]

Because my ex decided to shag someone else behind my back. They seem happy together.
I hate the fact that my kids have two homes and I don't get to see them everyday. I understand this is my personal feelings btw.

[khajiit13]

Women have more of a voice than ever before. In the past women would feel like they had to stay in unhappy relationships. Thank fuck times are moving on

[Titsywoo]

Loads of different reasons. If you are comparing to 50 years ago when divorce was rarer then I'd say it's down to the fact that less people are religious now/it's socially acceptable to get divorced/society has changed a lot/women are more independent.

Dh and I are very different people now than we were 16 years ago when we got together. We are lucky I suppose that we grew together rather than apart. I can see how it can easily happen though. We have certainly had our lows when we could have gone that way and it could happen in the future. I think we are pretty solid though.

[scrabbler3]

My grandmother's best friend spent 60 years married to a man who beat her up and squandered their spare money on beer and fags. He'd been badly mentally damaged by WW1, having enlisted at 15 by lying about his age.

She was widowed at 82/83 at which point it was to late to start afresh. I'm so glad that folk in the UK today don't have to put up with this sort of rubbish. I'm also glad that there's better mental health support fur veterans, but that is another topic.

Women don't have to turn a blind eye to affairs either. Men weren't really ever expected to, but women were often told not to make a fuss.

[DiegoMadonna]

Because long-term monogamous relationships are difficult and the chance of really wanting to spend the rest of your life with that one person is pretty low.