AIBU to think some marriages fail because people want more from life?

Ex-DH and I split up because we wanted more from life.

Our youngest child had flown the nest to university; we were both in our forties.

Fortunately we're still very good friends.

I'm really enjoying flirtations and carefree romance at my age. It feels fun and liberating.

Of course, that's a given and I don't think anyone can "float through a marriage". But on a lot of these threads someone will pop up and say their marriage is in difficulty. The invocation is often to "work at it", as if it's something which can be project managed.

By the time people get to the point of posting that their marriages are in trouble they have invariably tried the talking, the compromise, the forgiveness, the support and it's run out of road. The suggestion often is that counselling, or talking to one another, will fix this. Sometimes it will, and it's certainly worth trying.

But when you get to a point in your life where your kids no longer depend on the stability of a united family, you've tried the basic marriage maintenance and you're not getting enough out of it, I don't think believe you should grit your teeth and put your nose to the grindstone and "work" yourself through the declining years of your life.

Life is short enough as it is.

What do you feel you’ve missed out on? You could both take on new challenges and stay married

I don't really understand your position, OP.

Yes, getting married young has limited your options in life. But there is no undoing that. Getting divorced in middle age doesn't give you that back. If anything it limits you further, with financial and childcare considerations.

What exactly is it that you want to do with your potential freedom? Be honest - it is hooking up with someone new and exciting, isn't it? That's fine, but be honest with yourself.

No it's not my impression of marriage, clearly good marriages aren't like that, even most marriages aren't like that.

But people keep pointing out that you can spend time with people other than your spouse: of course you can (and should). But your spouse is someone you are legally and financially tied to.

Leaving aside the considerations around finances and children I just don't understand what the upside is of being legally tied to a person who isn't among your favourite people. It just seems like a waste.

A lot depends on what you mean by “work.”

This just semantics, surely? I don’t think people literally mean they’re doing hard physical labour every day just to be able to tolerate the sight of their husband, breathe in his general vicinity and resist strangling him with his own tie 😂

What they mean is that living with one person for a long period of time inevitably involves moments where you have to compromise, support each other, forgive each other’s flaws and annoyances (because we all have them!), make sacrifices, communicate rather than descend into pointless arguments, and generally not live your life as though everything is about me, me, me.

That can absolutely feel like “work” at times, because our natural human tendency is to want things to go our way.

The idea that you can just float through a marriage without ever having a cross word, while bluebirds permanently circle around both of your heads, is just a load of Disney bollocks!

All relationships require some degree of investment, effort and willingness to compromise. Whether you call that “work” or “compromise” is largely irrelevant -you’re describing essentially the same thing.

Exactly. If I'd married my first proper boyfriend who I met at 19 I'd now be an extremely bored rural housewife without qualification, a career or life experience of any kind. There but for the grace of God etc.

People always trot out the story about their parents/friends who met and married at 17 and are still "madly in love" at 65, and maybe some of them really are, but I can't help wondering how they can really know, given that there's no counterfactual. If you settle for the first person you ever loved you have no way of knowing what the alternatives are (and I'm not talking about sex here, I mean alternatives in the sense of people with different competences, interests and capacities).

It's the sunk cost fallacy. People don't want to consider the possibility that they may not have chosen their best life.

A long time? I've been married 39 yrs and together for 5 yrs before that. Seems like no time. Had jobs where a day seemed like a week and jobs where a day seemed like 10 mins. I think the trouble is that it can be hard to know if a person is right for you, and there's a lot of luck involved.

@beaglescurleduplikebagels

Of course a marriage requires work
It shouldn’t be exhausting or difficult but it does require effort - you need to make the effort to spend time with each other, to prioritise each other sometimes, to make time for each other.
You can’t have all the good things on your list without putting work in to make it happen!

A lot depends on what you mean by "work". A marriage or LTR undoubtedly requires thought, effort and consideration. You do need to make the effort to spend time together, consider one another's needs, not take one another for granted and compromise sometimes. But I wouldn't call that "work", I'd call it basic day to day maintenance.

There should be a fundamental bedrock that you are comfortable and happy with one another. If you're constantly arguing, you're having to struggle really hard to make conversation or to grit your teeth to tolerate being in the same space as the person you're married to, then it's not improving your life. If your marriage feels like "work", it's not really enhancing your life.

I've just become a bit allergic to this phrase "work at the marriage" which is used a lot on here an IRL: very often I think this is code for "put up with a lot of shit to keep the peace" and is usually an invocation to a person (usually a woman) to paper over the cracks and ignore poor behaviour.

Again, it's very dependent on the period of your life. Couples in young families raising children often don't have the luxury of making time for one another and that's very understandable. But once you're into late middle age, the kids have flown the nest and you're still basically avoiding one another in your home in my view that's a pretty strong signal that it's not worth the candle.

Only source of emotional support, intellectual stimulation and company, so that you're cut off from other opportunities and have narrow horizons sounds very like an abusive relationship. I've seen my friend disappear into such a relationship. Years later she killed herself. If this is your impression of marriage then it isn't marriages you've seen but torture.

Surely this is the danger of settling down too early? I was a completely different person when I was 18 vs who I was in my 30s. Like night and day.

But whenever you mention this on MN you get shouted at by people huffing that they married their partner after knowing them for 30 mins at age 15 and they're perfectly happy 70 years on thank you very much. Ive seen this weird cliche trotted out every single time anyone suggests it might not be a great idea to marry the first person you date

I think people get bored basically. Pretty sure that is really what happened in my first marriage, 20 years is a long time

Just because there’s nothing you and/or your husband want to do that you can’t do together, that doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. In plenty of relationships, one person needs ‘more’ and the other person doesn’t. That’s when it becomes an issue.

It’s not ‘a cop out excuse’. Everyone’s different and not everyone is the same as you and your husband. Presumably you and your husband need the same things from life, and you’re lucky enough that neither of you has changed much in your ambitions or needs since you met in your teens. Congratulations on that, but that’s only a matter of luck. It’s not like that for everyone. Sometimes one person’s horizons just grow a lot more than the other one’s do and compromise doesn’t work for either of them.

Do you love your husband? Or do you just care about him because he's a decent human being you happen to live with but have outgrown? I've been with my DH 25 years and I'm still excited to see him if if I've been away and love talking to him/how his mind works. If you don't feel this perhaps you do need to separate amicably but I would try couples therapy first. If you cohabit well it would be a shame to destroy that casually. You might rediscover the stimulus you crave if you look a little deeper. Also, big chunks of life can be boring and filled with responsibilities - the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence.

Will life be better if you separated?
Less money
Smaller home
Unhappy children
On your own half the week.

I think this happens a lot when you marry young. When you get to your 40s and you start reflecting on your life in general, not just on the marriage,you start thinking about what you have missed out on and whether a different career, or husband or hobbies or whatever might have been better.
A relative if mine went through this - had been with her husband since she was 17 and became dissatisfied in her 40s. She left her husband and took up with someone else who was the opposite. She did a lot of different things with the new partner, including a lot of travel and he had several interests that my relative was also interested in but had never got round to exploring herself. In the end she found that she didn't actually gel as well long term with the new partner as her husband and she went back to him.
I think that before you decide to leave each other you both think about what you really want. What is it that you feel you have missed out on? What interests do you want to explore? Can these be done individually within the context of the marriage so you both develop as individuals while staying together or is it deeper than that?
Perhaps you should look into couples therapy.

Of course a marriage requires work

It shouldn’t be exhausting or difficult but it does require effort - you need to make the effort to spend time with each other, to prioritise each other sometimes, to make time for each other.

You can’t have all the good things on your list without putting work in to make it happen!

I felt like this and like you was with someone from very young - divorced at 28 - all I will say is it’s very easy to end up with same shit different person - it’s an awful lot cheaper to have a really open discussion and if finances are ok and it’s teens that make it tough , agree to have the odd 5 day breaks alone, a couple of times a year, be that with mates or on your own - make sure you have a few interests that don’t involve them , mix it up , I find people who feel like this ( and I was one) didn’t do enough ‘on their own’ and it wasn’t that the other partner ‘forbade it’ it was they created a vibe that it became an unwritten rule - at 64 I’ve realised I think honesty is the best policy but it needs to be out their in the open

You see I disagree with the idea that a marriage should be about “work”.

I think there’s a difference between the child rearing period, where you do have to lower your expectations a bit, and the period afterwards. When you are in the throes of raising small children, yes, you crack on in the interests of the kids.

Beyond that point, no. I have enough “work” in my life with my paid work and raising my kid. My marriage (I am not married but if I was) should be about support, companionship, respect, laughter, maybe sex, similar values. Not more work.

I definitely think I’d feel I wanted more from life if I’d been with the same person since I was 18. I had many wild, irresponsible but really fun years in my 20s, many different partners and relationships. It’s not about having sex with different people, it’s about the life experience and freedom periods of being single bring you: travelling solo or with friends, figuring out life on your own, and also the life experience having different relationships with different people bring you, including dealing with break ups, moving on etc. But if you have a good relationship and are still in love with your husband and can still talk for hours, make each other laugh etc, still enjoy having sex then there’s no reason why you can’t make life more exciting now. If your kids are grown up and can afford it you could go travelling somewhere you’ve always wanted to go for a few months. Or find a new hobby separately, that’s just for you, or a change of career, try and carve out a more exciting life of your own. IME couples that have more independent lives from each other (to a certain extent, too much the other way and it can also go wrong) tend to be happier

I mean I don't see how you can spend over a decade with only one person that you seek support and fulfillment with without getting bored of each other. Of course you need other people and things that interest you and I'm very cynical about the "my little family" lifestyle. It sounds dull as fuck.

People grow apart but I agree with PP that you can't just split up and go back and do what you wish you'd done in your 20s. That times over and you have to work out what will make you happier in the stage that you're at now.

We re not the same people as we were 30 years ago but we have grown and changed together, we still have our individual interests but we do new things together too

I do get where you are coming from though I guess people have ro want to change together to start with i guess

Well, because all relationships and friendships require effort and work - either OP’s marriage is worth working on or it isn’t, that’s up to her - but I don’t think you can expect to stay in a happy long term relationship without putting in the effort to keep it that way.

As long as you are both ok with that, spending time apart shouldn't be an issue. If what you want is someone more compatible, who you can spend a lot of time with, doing things you both like, then you'd have to end your marriage, or be happy with a friendship group. A few of my peer group (55+) are dealing with one of them having health issues. Keeping communication open and having enough good times together, means it still works. In the future, hopefully, I'll be doing a lot of walking in cities like Lisbon, my DP is ok with that. It's selfish to expect complete companionship from your partner, if you aren't lucky enough to have the exact same health and interests.

Time apart is ok.

You need to individually grow as people and develop your own friends, hobbies and lives. This does not mean the end of your life together. You can still choose to come home to each other, share a life as well as the children.

What you need to think about is if you want to come home to each other? Do you still want a joint life? If not it's time to decide what you want and make steps to move to that instead.