How can a couple get divorced after a year of marriage?

[googlenut]

Ok put this here because not sure where would get a response. Close family member lived with her partner and had two children, big fancy wedding just over a year ago and have now announced their divorce. I'm genuinely trying to understand here, not be judgy. How could this happen in such a short space of time. No other people involved just said they were arguing too much.

@Sparklymommy.... yes you are being judgey. Most couples don't give up easily. In fact, many of them put up with years and years of misery because they are told by people that, just because they have a ring on their finger, they have to expect to 'go through the mill', 'take the rough with the smooth', 'work at it' and other well-meant rubbish. When DCs arrive this pressure to stay together at all costs increases and mostly that pressure is aimed at women.

Anyone can make a mistake and marry the wrong person. It doesn't have to be a life sentence.

My husband's best friend split with his wife a few months after the wedding. She was seeing someone else but married our friend because hherkids preferred him. He was devastated.

A friend of mine asked for a divorce less than 4 months after getting married. She was sleeping with her boss at the time. She then got bored with the boss and went back to her husband - she's now pregnant again and they're still together.

I think a lot of people run as soon as things get tough, and a lot of people jump into marriage while they're still in the honeymoon stage, then get a short slap of reality and don't like it. Obviously, some marriages end because of abuse or infidelity, but I think a lot of it is laziness and an unwillingness to stick at it.

'Stick at it'.... Another one of those death row phrases. Marriage should be a pleasant thing. Name any other enjoyable activity that you have to force yourself to 'stick at'.

As others have said, there can be many many reasons.

Too many people though, want the fairytale wedding and plough all their time and effort and money into organising that ONE DAY, without having considered what happens AFTER the big day. They have not talked at all about their desires for a family, how they will sort their finances, housework, where they will live, having independent spending money/hobbies/social life, regular commitments to visiting ILs etc etc

if both the partners have had their own set ideas of what it will be like, but have not discussed it, or even worse, have assumed they can get the other person to change their minds after the wedding, then you have a recipe for a disaster.

I actually think that the longer you spend planning a wedding and the more you spend on that one day, the MORE likely you are to split up TBH. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but for so so many young couples the "dream" is too focussed on the day, rather than the happy ever after, and that a relationship needs both people to work on it.

Sorry, but I think sometimes "stick at it" is valid.

Nothing is perfect 100% of the time. DP and I have been through some rough times and I could easily have said "you know what, fuck it", but I didn't and we've come through it happier and stronger than ever. You often have to through the bad times to get the good - take sport. If you take up, say, running, and you're unfit, you'll spend a few weeks/months suffering and feeling sore and tired, but power through it, and you'll be able to go further and be much better off for it.

Yes, obviously, some marriages are just shit and sometimes leaving is the only option, but I do think a lot of people just can't be bothered to work through the bad times and expect it to be perfect when it can't be, because humans aren't perfect.

I knew someone who divorced because of her husband's affairs. She said afterwards that she'd known subconsciously before they'd married, but felt that she couldn't leave him without getting married first.

Sounded a bit weird, but it takes all osrts.

We have been married 8 months and it has been pretty hard at times. We have been together 7 years and half of that has been saving and planning for the wedding. We had the big day just as we wanted it but after those years of planning and counting down, you return from honeymoon and realise that you have been living for a wedding day for the past couple of years and you forget how to live a 'normal' life again.

Even for couples who have never had any doubts about each other, it is still tough. I'm happy to say though that our future looks rosy

100% agree with winterwonderland - well put.

I am one of those novice runners! From being incredibly unfit and overweight in September I can now run 3 miles twice a week, and feel so much better for it. Didn't mean I found it easy and God yes once it was dark wet evenings it would have been far easier to jack it in and stay home in the warm.

No one is saying you have to stick with a DP for life like women used to, accepting all the abuse, physical, financial or emotional......accepting their cheating because "men need sex" or the children need a father, but really I do think many many relationships end where they need not have done if only the people involved would talk more and not sulk/storm off/be unable to see another POV/put someone else first

I know six couples who got divorced within a year. Every single one of them had lived together for ages before getting married. 7-11 years, actually.

I think when you've been together that long, wanting to change something by getting married is a bad sign. Because marriage really does change something. Can't put my finger on what exactly, but you can guarantee it won't be what you're hoping will change. If after seven years of (presumably happy) living together, someone has a reason for wanting to change things, so it is hardly surprising when the marriage doesn't fix what was wrong.

I only know a couple couples who've had successful marriages after living together for long periods of time. One is the most rational couple I've ever met, and very happy. The others got married for an external reason, eg one moved for a job in Saudi and if they weren't married they couldn't live together, another married when one had major surgery and they wanted to ensure legal rights.

I used to think people should stick at it but now I think life is far to short

I know someone who was with her boyfriend for over 10 years, had a huge wedding, 2 week safari honeymoon then left him for the best man on the day they got back!

Thanks for all these replies - it has really helped me to understand the situation more. I genuinely think no one else was involved but both have gone on to date new partners. Interesting point about the expensive wedding phenomena as they had a huge expensive bash with designer dress etc.

How to children so young understand the new partners thing? In particular the 7 year old strikes me as old enough to understand there has been a massive change but not old enough to process each of them having new partners.

Got loads of life experience but just hang out with crowds of friends who have all been contentedly married for years.

Yes I agree it must be very hard to turn the tide of a big wedding and call it off. I imagine there was a bit of that going on.

It happened to friends of ours. They'd been living together for ages and I think she'd got entirely caught up in the idea of a wedding getting him to propose, then spending a couple of years planning the perfect (gobsmackingly expensive) wedding that it was only after the wedding and honeymoon when the dust had settled that she realised that for all she'd wanted to get married to him she didn't actually, now she came to think of it, want to be married to him, because he was a self-centred arse who was always going to take advantage of her. Other people had been telling her that for years, but I think at some level she'd assumed that it would all be fine once they were married. She left four months after the wedding.

Our priest swears blind that the more lavish the wedding, the greater the odds of divorce. Rather "curse of Hello!"

I was with DH for 10 years before we got married. We lived together and went through a fair few stresses - especially financially and with me being quite ill for a prolonged amount of time. After all that i assumed a wedding wouldnt change much but was the next step and we both wanted to take it.
My first anniversary was just over a week ago. I love him and we're together and happy, but the first year was so much harder than I expected. We dont have DC yet but almost as soon as we were married, we got pressure from all sides to have children (made harder as i have fertility issues but havent told anyone this except DH), being a wife made me feel different and took a while to adjust to and my dh has felt a strange pressure to ''ook after me and provide' which neither of us were expecting.
We know a few couples who's marriages didnt last but most of them were getting married to fix something else (man delaying having DC so he proposed, showing commitment after one of them cheated etc) and those marriages dont work for obvious reasons.
Its a shame when marriages end after such a short amount of time but after the ups and downs of our first year, i definately understand how it can happen.

Our priest swears blind that the more lavish the wedding, the greater the odds of divorce

Well that's me and DH together for a long time yet. One Saturday night in August we decided to get married asap. 3 weeks later was the day after our wedding. We planned it all in 2 weeks. Simple registry office ceremony followed by a buffet in a nearby pub. Will be our 10 years anniversary this year. I have to say though that nothing changed when we got married. I've often heard people say that things change. It was only my name, but it didn't feel bad or wrong.

Can't comment on marriages that end quickly as I have no experience or know anyone that does. Have to agree that life is too short to spend too long trying to make something work that maybe you know just won't.

I think that people who say things like "people give up too easily" have never been in an abusive marriage, or got divorced. Divorce is heartbreaking, expensive and completely tears you apart as a person and you end up more selfish, more cynical and more bitter.

I also remember that when I was going through my divorce and afterwards, lots of my friends - some who I thought were very happy and had actually envied them - confided in me how unhappy they were. Sometimes it is like people are frightened to admit to other, presumably, happy married couples that they have problems. That could be why some people in genuinely happy marriages think that people give up easily or whatever. It's not their fault and they are lucky that they have found that and can work through things. It also means that those of us who weren't so lucky, who had horrible, terrifying and abusive marriages feel that they are being smug and judgemental.
There are also people who just want to marry and be a wife or a husband - but forget that marriage actually means you spend your life with someone.
Then there are the people who can't see past the wedding.
Others who meet as children/teenagers who don't understand that people change as they get older and sometimes they become someone different.
I could go on....there are a million reasons why marriages split, but generally it happens after a lot of thought, soul searching, late night conversations and tears.