What percentage of marriages are actually happy do you think?

[chewbrew]

Mostly I've probably seen people's marriages from my own perspective and assumed that the majority of people are happy and deeply love their spouse but recently a few people have said things to me which made me stop and wonder, are they actually happy after all? I don't want to go into details of peoples lives but I did google and the numbers coming up for the percentages of people in an actively happy marriage are around 17% - 30%, with other marriages either unhappy, meh or headed for divorce.

Is this really true? It doesn't seem realistic to me if I'm honest as I hardly know anyone who has been divorced but then that would suggest that as many as 70% of people are unhappy or at least not happy.

What do you think?

I think the divorce rate is about 40%

So, that's at least 40% that aren't happy.

Of the 60% of marriages that don't end in divorce.

I reckon there's a high percentage of people that stay together for other reasons besides their relationship.

Let's say mum doesn't want to leave because of the kids. Or dad doesn't want to break up because of finances or there's abuse and one member of the marriage feels they can't leave.

So if we say that the 3 .ain reasons people stay in unhappy marriages are:
Kids
Money
Abuse

And say they make up 10% each

That's another 30% of marriages that aren't happy to add onto the 40% that end in divorce so that's 70% unhappy.

Now let's say some marriages have ended but they don't divorce, they just separate. Make that another 10% for arguments sake.

Takes the total to 80% unhappy.

Now let's add in marriage of convenience or arranged marriages, I think certain religions in the UK still have arranged marriage, so let's assign those 10% each and them into the already established 'Unhappy' marriage percentages.

80% + 20%

That leaves...

0% truly happy marriage.

Can't argue with the maths, never get married folks..

🤣🤪

OP your catholic surroundings on the smaller side of percentagely usual

So if the overall statistics say 17-30% actively happy that is probably more accurate to the general population.

We don't know of one happy catholic marriage, I know of a couple of unhappy ones, that doesn't mean happy catholic marriages don't exist just not in our micro climate.

I know if many happy non-catholic and long term happy relationships. And unhappy and separated ones.

So enjoy your happy micro climate just because it isn't happening around you doesn't mean the collected, analysed statistics are incorrect.

@TuesdayWhistler It is certainly not 0% that are happy, I for one am and so are lots of others I am sure.

@frozendaisy Sorry I am not quite sure I know what you mean in your post exactly could you explain a bit further?

I'm going for 50%. You have a shit marriage with a prick you met when you were young and naive and tolerated far too much bollocks. And then you wise up and LTB.

You then meet a much nicer man and marry him and are happy.

Or is that just me?

I wonder if Catholics are more open to couples’ therapy and working through issues? A lot of the married people I know have done at least 1 form of Catholic based marriage therapy and all of them view divorce as (personal) failure.

Happy marriages are hard to define.

One if the early researchers looking at violence within marriage was doing a research study on abusive men. He wanted a separate group of "normal" marriages so advertised for people with happy marriages to contact him,

In 60% of the happy marriages there had been violence.

He excluded those from his "normal" group but did report on it as he felt it showed how at the time (I think in the 80s) people could be "happy" despite a history of intimate partner violence.

@RomeoRivers It could be, I think some couples do speak to a priest or someone else but I don't know if you always hear about this. I do think that divorce probably is seen as worse even culturally within catholic families and circles. I am pretty horrified at the prospect of divorce to be sure and probably would feel like a failure but at the same time if we were very unhappy or it really wasn't working I would consider it and I certainly wouldn't put up with an abusive partner. Luckily I have not been in that position.

I’m in my early 40s and 50% of my close friendship group is divorced. However I have another friendship group where no one is divorced. No idea what the difference is, but similar ages, children and work circumstances

@MrsALambert I think I did read that divorce can "spread" so that if one couple in a group divorce then it makes it more likely that another couple will and so on.

A quick google found this https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/10/21/is-divorce-contagious/

I

@RomeoRivers I think you are right about the sense of failure for Catholics. there is a cultural element for sure, more than religious I think. I'm just thinking now if I announced I was getting divorced I think I would be really mortified especially with extended family. I know people would be analysing and to be honest i probably would too. I think 'we just weren't happy' isn't really an acceptable reason to divorce in my circles.

That’s an interesting concept

None. 'Marriage' is an institution designed by men... in fact, in UK, it wasn't even until 1994 that it became illegal for a husband to 'rape' HIS wife - before then it was just considered the husband's normal conjugal rights which 'the wife' had no business refusing, whatever the circumstance. I can only conclude that any woman who signs up for this "fruit of the poisoned tree" (intentional Eve irony) institution does so either because they think that they can change the 'system' from within (good luck with that then, darlin') or they are suffering from some weird kinda Stockholm Syndrome, or, like those poor, misguided, suffragettes of yore, is just severely lacking in imagination. None of the above is a good look 😬

P.S. "That ain't no lady, that's my wife"...😆
Commitment and marriage are not necessarily one and the same...