Marriages don’t last anymore because..

If you have small (infant) children I still think it’s best to leave because staying models a poor template for healthy human relationships. I left my husband when my daughter was 3, precisely because I knew it would be harder if she was 12 or 15.

This exactly. My ex became abusive as soon as ds was born. The contempt and undermining started in the maternity unit, to the point the senior midwife asked "if there was anything I needed to tell her". I was stunned. By the time ds was 1 I knew we were leaving. No way was ds growing up watching that.

My parents were married for over 60 years. After the gloss wore off, they realised they really weren't suited to each other at all. Mothers didn't work in those days or maybe a part-time job when the children were teenagers. It was just economically unviable to split up. Men stayed because they didn't want the mother of their children and their children to be left near destitute as there simply wasn't enough money to run two households. There weren't the social welfare benefits that exist today.

My mother was part of the generation of women hooked on valium - our local doctor had most of the unhappy housewives in the suburb on some cocktail of antidepressants. When a new GP took over, I can't imagine what he felt when he realised what he'd taken on - most of his client list were simply on another planet. He said rather weakly to my mother that she should try to cut down. My mother did eventually get off them but it wasn't easy. She was pretty much legally stoned for many years and had memory gaps.

My grandmother probably had it much worse. She died in her forties of tuberculosis. I am not sure where my grandfather was but it was my uncle, her then fourteen year old son who was with her when she died and attended to reporting the death of his mother and the death certificate. I imagine my grandfather was on a bender at the time and I don't think it was grief about the death of his wife either that caused it.

I think people leave now because they can. In the old days, if he kept a steady job, wasn't incredibly tight with money and didn't beat you, you were considered lucky. And divorce wasn't that easy to get in those days either - if a woman was divorced for adultery, she would likely lose all custody of her children. The mother of one of my contemporaries never saw her two sons from her first marriage ever again. My mother encouraged me to qualify for a well-paid job, keep my own money separate and marry when I was older than she was when she got married at 21. I got married at 29 and picked a good one. I think your friend OP is very ill informed about the "good old days".

But you still have to look at the dynamics etc. Why isn't marriage as common? Are those getting married taking longer to commit, i.e. living together beforehand which is now obviously more socially acceptable, so only the fully committed couples are getting married these days, so obviously more likely to stay together. Whereas a few decades ago, did people "rush into" marriage without being fully convinced they were right for each other, because living together was frowned upon? Also how do same-sex marriages fit into the comparatives as, of course, that was legally impossible until relatively recently, so current marriage/divorce statistics including same sex marriages can't be reliably compared to, say, 30 years ago when it wasn't legally possible.

It was 10 years since meeting until me and DH got married and we'd been engaged for 5 years. We didn't even live together. We bought our first house together to move into upon marriage and started planning children once married. Yes, very old-fashioned - that's us! But we've now been together 38 years. For, I'd say, 9 of those first 10 years, we were definitely "together" in all ways just short of marriage and living together. We did literally everything else as a committed couple. We were 100% certain the "marriage" would survive, because we'd survived all sorts in the early decade (close family deaths, redundancies, serious health conditions, etc). Looking back, pretty sure that we could have married, bought a house and had children 5/8 years earlier and still be together.

During those 38 years, we've seen our siblings marry and divorce, neighbours marry and divorce, work colleagues marry and divorce, and the one thing in common with nearly them all was going head long into committment without properly knowing eachother, i.e. my sister was engaged after 6 months, married after a year, and then suffered a decade or two stuck with bringing up kids until she finally left and divorced her husband. I told her at the time he was wrong for her and they were moving too quickly, but she batted me off saying she was "innn luuuuvve"! DH's brother did exactly the same - almost indecent haste to get married and then it all fell apart within a couple of years.

I think it's a good thing that it's now socially acceptable to live together before marriage as it gives more "breathing space" to get to know someone before committing to marriage. Though I don't really think that buying a house together nor having children together too soon is good as having children together is a more serious commitment than getting married as children are for life and you're stuck co-parenting with someone for your child's entire life!

My parents divorced in the 1960s. I think two competing, demanding careers were part of the reason. Childcare was never easy.

Divorce was a big thing years ago, you just didn’t. You married for life and that was it. not always a good thing, but then I do believe couples worked through things rather than give up. I know some things can’t be worked through, I divorced my first husband. I was really made to feel bad about it from my family they didn’t like having a divorce in the family even though he hit me, and then cheated.

people live together rather than marry, so just split rather than divorce.

i do think a big reason though is that people want the perfect marriage, they believe that everything will be wonderful and partners will always be loving and perfect. They watch media feeds about the perfect supposed life others lead and assume they will have the same. When they find that actually life does have its shit bits they are angry and instead of working to improve they just throw in the towel and walk away

basically, marriage is like everything else in life these days - disposable

My DH worked more hours than me and eared more. But he also sacrificed my career for his. He wouldn’t pick up the kids from childcare (I’d ask and he would forget). Couldn’t manage basic parenting of the kids he had begged me to have.

Then one day I needed to be picked up from the hospital after a general aesthetic and he wasn’t sure if he could manage it (I checked his work diary and he didn’t have that much on). He wasn’t indispensable, just extremely self centred.

Working long hours doesn’t excuse anyone of basic decency towards their loved ones.

Today, marriage is an uneccassary legal prpcess that shockingly still removes women's rights to be married

What?

This. It was only 50 years ago that the law changed to allow women to have a mortgage on their own. When my parents married in 1959 they opened a joint account. The bank manager looked at my father and said " Do you want your wife to have access to the account" . My father was at teacher training college at the time so wasn't earning a salary. My mother was a legal secretary ( they lived with her in laws) so the only money coming in was hers and it was perfectly legal for the bank to stop her having any access to it.
My mother's cousin married in the 1970s. His wife became pregnant very quickly so almost from the start of the marriage she was preparing to stop work and have a family. She still to this day doesn't have a bank account of her own . Her salary as a nurse was paid into her husband's bank account from the start and now her pension is paid into his account. They are in their 70s. She has no idea about their finances. Horrifying to us today but perfectly normal when they started.

@RhaenysRocks

But those two things, especially the children, are massive. Would you still have your own happiness as top priority if you had children who would quite like to grow up in a together family that rubs along ok?

Its a fair question.

On the economic point: I think staying with someone you don’t like or respect for money is always a bad idea. If that’s what is keeping a marriage together there’s no question that its always better to leave. Find your own economic path, even if the material rewards are far lower. This is why I believe becoming a SAHM is almost always a bad idea. It makes you so vulnerable.

The second question is harder. If you have small (infant) children I still think it’s best to leave because staying models a poor template for healthy human relationships. I left my husband when my daughter was 3, precisely because I knew it would be harder if she was 12 or 15. I can see there is some merit in sticking with a boring or unfulfilling but otherwise OK marriage until children have left home.

But for me those are the only two real justifications for legally yoking two people together for life.

Oh, the 'better choices' argument! Please tell me oh fount of wisdom how I could have predicted at the time of my marriage that my late husband would react to the death of his parents (who didn't by any means die young, it was just life!) by diving into the bottle and becoming abusive to me and our DC?

Other than CB, I didn't claim any benefits - because I have always worked and paid my way. Not everyone is that fortunate. Your post reeks of misogyny.

And all the divorces that happened before the launch of TikTok in 2016?

I’m a bit surprised that anyone who posts on MN hasn’t come to the conclusion following even a cursory glance at the relationships board that there are a lot of women still trapped in truly terrible marriages simply because they can’t afford to leave.

There have, to date, been no divorces in my family. I’m not foolish enough to believe that hundreds of years worth of long marriages is because all those people were happy, or “worked hard at it”.

I’ve been very happily married for nearly 3 decades but if my lovely DH lost his mind and suddenly cheated on me, beat me, did drugs or any one of the thousand terrible things we see on the relationships board I would walk without question.

I love and adore my DH but I’ve spent my marriage ensuring that I was always able to financially support myself and my children if I needed to.

My very happily married Mother taught me that and I’m passing the lesson on to my daughter. Lack of income or earning potential makes you really, really vulnerable.

I think another thing besides what has been mentioned is the internet and social media and mobile phones have made it easier than ever to be disloyal when you get bored, but also much easier to get caught and for whatever reason many women in particular ‘want something concrete ‘ to leave for and to justify their reasons - just being miserable for some women won’t be enough - I remember when I split with my 1st husband at 28 and my gran saying ‘I don’t understand you, he doesn’t hit you, he brings good money in’ - that honestly was the criteria for many of us now in our 60s as our grandparents saw it - ironically I don’t think she liked my grandad much at all

The welfare state wouldn't have to pick it up so much if the CSA had more teeth, worked closely with HMRC and really went after fathers hiding their money or otherwise not meeting their financial responsibilities, or there were custodial sentences for it. It should be akin to defrauding the taxpayer, as they are, and more importantly their own children.

Well - my mum stayed with my dad because we’re catholic. None of the other stuff you talk about. She should have left him though.

It’s actually a mix of reasons but the main one is people are no longer chastised for divorcing and women can have financial independence.
He is also right when he says people no longer fight for their marriage , some people are to selfish to actually be able to see others perspective , often people get married already knowing they can divorce so it’s no longer seen as a massive for life commitment.

Depends though doesn't it. A lot of disrespect is not illegal but it can be damaging for the children to see. I hated seeing my mum doing all the chores and working and she was exhausted and miserable. My father was constantly jokingly disrespectful and putting her down. I did not even know the impact it had on me until I was an adult in terms of taking disrespect myself in relationships and the workplace.

I think you are right about cohabiting. Because so many couples do not marry now, it is very easy for both men and women to walk away at the first sign of difficulty. When that happens, the woman is often left with very little, especially if she has taken on most of the childcare. That kind of split never shows up in the divorce statistics so it creates a misleading picture.

People who go on to actually get married probably have a better chance of staying together because they have made a conscious commitment and it is harder to separate financially and practically.

A quick look at the data supports this. In the UK, the projected lifetime risk of divorce for newly married couples has been falling. It is around 35 percent now, down from around 44 percent for those who married in the late eighties and early nineties.

If you look at marriages that end within the first decade, fewer couples who married since 2000 are divorcing within ten years compared to those who married in the nineties. So the idea that marriages do not last anymore is not really reflected in the numbers.

People generally take longer to get together these days and have a much better vocabulary for healthy and unhealthy behaviour. That probably means the marriages that do happen are better matched and more resilient than the ones formed after a few months of courting and a quick wedding. In the past those couples were often tethered for life whether it worked or not.

You are correct. Women were completely trapped by marriage and financial dependence on a man until recently.

But those two things, especially the children, are massive. Would you still have your own happiness as top priority if you had children who would quite like to grow up in a together family that rubs along ok?

I think it gives comfort to many people to think if they do the right thing they will get a good result therefore those who did not get a good result should have chosen better.

I am sorry for you. It is so unfair.

No, the divorce rate is declining as a percentage of the people getting married, not just as a number.

Would you like a list if the women I know who were with their partners or husbands for years before having planned children that were then abandoned by the man when family life got too dull and someone a few years younger and thinner came along? I know one whose husband begged her to go through IVF and then fucked off. And all the single mothers I know, me included, work full time and don't claim anything except CB.

It was much easier to get legal aid until recently. Now I imagine a divorce costs an arm and a leg . I never seem to hear much about divorces now as I did when I was in my forties . I read online that a survey was taken and it concluded that if the finances were in place 75 % of people would leave . It must be awful being stuck in an unhappy marriage because there is no where to go .