Marriages don’t last anymore because..

What you wrote:

Women can marry the state instead and be supported by the taxpayer instead of a husband. So women are enabled to make poor decisions in choosing the father of their children, and men can walk away from their responsibilities knowing the state will pick up the tab.

You are stating there is a binary choice..

I didn’t actually say that. What I wrote and what you’d like to think I said are two different things.

The women who do neither are not the issue, and no concern of anyone.

Dear God….

The bar is in hell.

You said women live off the state or the husband.

I am questioning your misogyny and why you seem to not realise that women who do neither, exist.

The legal mechanics of acquiring a divorce may be easier now, but that doesn't mean the emotional strain, the financial costs, and how hard it may be on children may be any easier.

It's a bit of a family legend that a cousin of mine got married in the late sixties, very early seventies, and my poor aunty was beside herself, she knew this was not a good marriage in the making. It lasted 12 weeks. In the seventies.

What is exactly the problem with that?

Why should being married be seen as a tickbox of success and people be made to try harder for a marriage they no longer want?

Marriages fall apart for a myriad of reasons. Why make it harder if one party doesn’t want to remain married nor wants to fight for the marriage? Why saddle the person who does want to remain marry with someone who doesn’t want them?

People change, some for the better, some for the worse. Agreements made at the time of marriage can be broken, boundaries crossed and things people used to just grin and bear refuse to do so.

Plenty of spouses say their partners changed after xyz events, several begged to go to marriage counselling and therapy for months, years while the other refused until divorce is on the table and then they want to work things out after the one fighting has given up.

Why do you care how long people choose to be married or divorce being easier than it used to be?

It really isn’t anyone business but those involved including their reasons, and from what I’ve heard and seen it is rarely on a whim.

It is much easier generally to get a divorce now.
You dont even have to have a reason anymore.
I'm talking about the ease of getting one.

You can’t “just do it online” unless the two people getting divorced are able to amicably agree a fair split of assets and residency/ visitation for the children between them and any required maintenance payments for children, neither needs legal advice, both parties willingly and honestly disclose all financial information and valuations for assets such as houses and pensions are easily obtainable, neither obstructs the process.

And even if the whole legal process can be done online with an amicable and fair agreement, it is still a huge decision, a huge upheaval for both people usually involving moving house, both inevitably adjusting to much poorer financial circumstances, potentially having to move children to different schools, dealing with the emotional fallout of it, having to explain it to children and help them to cope with the psychological impact of it and establish a good co-parenting relationship that works for the children…. Etc.

Your post is ridiculous. Nobody takes these decisions lightly, particularly when there are children involved.

@Horsie

I'm not sure how I feel about your reasons for divorcing. On the one hand, if you have a decent partner who is willing to put in the work, then it's hard to see why divorce is OK. But on the other hand, life is very short, and I don't think people should spend their one life feeling unhappy.

Clearly this is a "how long is a piece of string" question: there's a huge gap between divorcing someone who is decent and considerate but boring when you have a settled life because you fancy someone else and divorcing someone because you genuinely hate one another and it's making the family environment toxic.

The first scenario is selfish and probably unnecessarily disruptive, the second probably self-preservation.

I don't really believe in "putting in the work", either. All marriages involve give and take and compromise and sometimes ignoring irritants. But I don't believe any amount of "work" can turn around a relationship which has become defined by hatred, contempt or lack of respect. I just don't think people are like that.

I suppose my broader point is that I don't accept the idea that a durable marriage for its own sake should be a goal that always takes precedence over individual happiness. There is usually some trade-off between the needs of the marriage and the needs of the individuals. But if the marriage makes both parties miserable then its internal logic has collapsed.

Closeted gay.
Trying to 'save' his mother, which he couldn't when he was a kid. (ie controlling)
Child molester.

There are a whole heap of nasty things a woman may have found out after they were married, esp back in the goode olde days.

@NeedANapAgain Plus the line of “one in two marriages end in divorce”, ie you had a 50/50 chance, is a complete fallacy.

Is it? I thought it was about 43% for first marriages, and since second and third marriages fail at a much higher rate, that pushes it to 50% of ALL marriages.

I also read somewhere recently that by the 30th anniversary, more than half of marriages (I assume mostly first ones, due to the length) were no more. Eleven percent had ended because of the death of one spouse, and the rest divorce, of course. I wish I could remember the total figure, but I can't, and I can't find it now.

Exactly. Some people really don't improve with age - quite the opposite. I think men really go through a reckoning as they age and lose strength and virility...and some take it out on their wives.

I definitely don’t think that people worked harder at relationships in the past, as in actual work - like self reflection, reading books about relationships, going to therapy etc - that is all modern day stuff. I think people put much more effort into analyzing and making efforts to make changes these days in fact.
however in the olden days people had far lower expectations of their partners to make them happy and so they were more likely to plod on with an unhappy or unfulfilling partnership.

I totally agree- how many women are going to say ‘I’m fed up of his secretive porn use ‘ or ‘he’s been sexting Random’s’ or ‘he leaves skid marks in his boxers’ etc etc - especially if kids still on the scene and even then some don’t want adult children to know the ins and outs of a split -

It’s so strange isn’t it. DH says he isn’t upset I earn more but that I pay for more things. Which to me is the same thing really. We earned similarly until about 5 years ago when my career took off.

The mindset is definitely broken and as you say needs to change.

In the 1970s and 80s in the US, men who didn't pay child support had their photos put on the milk cartons! 🤣 Sometimes in newspapers and on public buildings, too.

I suppose the answer to this is, if you divorce for personal happiness, it's seen as selfish because you're hurting the other person and putting yourself first at their expense. I suppose in the instance you're describing, people think you should be trying to rekindle the happiness you once had and are puzzled as to why you can't, if your partner is willing and is a good person with no issues.

I'm not sure how I feel about your reasons for divorcing. On the one hand, if you have a decent partner who is willing to put in the work, then it's hard to see why divorce is OK. But on the other hand, life is very short, and I don't think people should spend their one life feeling unhappy.

It's definitely a less clear-cut issue than when a spouse is clearly an utter twat in some way/ways who refuses to change.

What evidence do you have for people not taking marriage seriously enough? What makes you think that most people's marriages aren't very dear to them and that they fight tooth and nail to keep them together before admitting defeat in utter exhaustion? Interested to know how you have come to this conclusion.

Society hasn't caught up yet, has it? During the time that my marriage was crumbling, I did everything possible to support my husband - he was miserable in his job, so I suggested that he find something else, probably part time, because I was in a good job and earning well and we were financially fine. He openly admitted he would not and could not do that because he had been raised to be 'the provider'. That mindset needs to go.

To be fair, though, the reason for the marriage ending might easily be something quite private and embarrassing, and they'd rather say there's no spark than tell you the truth. How do you say to your relatives "He can't get it up anymore unless it's for anal, and I can't put up with that?" or "He dresses in my underwear and it makes me feel sick" etc.

Is that really true, though? Most people's marriages are very dear to them, and I don't think having a big wedding makes that less true.

I think pay and earning is a big issue. I earn twice what my husband does (almost) and he hates it. I don’t care and view it all as our money but he gets upset about it.

What time machine?

Both people in a couple have to work hard though and if one of them can't be arsed, then it's not going to work over the long term. Sadly, there are still far too many men who think just being there and going to work is enough, and it really isn't. Women aren't wrong to expect more from their partner than that and to end things if he won't or can't deliver. Life is too short to spend it with a twat, especially a low-earning, miserable, sport/hobbies obsessed one, who's bad in bed and expects to be waited on hand, foot and finger!

Yup. One thousand percent. Porn has set women back by decades. Or made male attitudes towards women even worse than they've ever been. Remember the days when the only porn men could access was sealed top-shelf magazines? They had to have the nerve to ask for them. And what was inside them was really tame compared to today's online porn. Those days seem so innocent now. What's available online is utterly revolting and I am so sad that it's legal.