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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think people take marriage lightly nowadays?

125 replies

amotherfuckingquiche · 05/09/2014 23:23

When I was young(er), if you got married, you stayed married (pretty much). I see so many divorces now and people seem to treat marriage so lightly, "let's give it a go, if it doesn't work out then we can always get divorced...". I'm not suggesting that you stay with someone who cheats one you constantly or abuses you, please don't mistake me. I just think that it's sad.

OP posts:

AlleyCat11 · 06/09/2014 16:07

No, it's not a good thing, cailin. Divorce is so very hard too, though. I do consider myself lucky to come from a happy family.

PacificDogwood · 06/09/2014 16:10

The only marriages I know of which split up after a very short time were by slebs. And they don't live in the real world IMO. I am quite sure that they are real people, but somehow they seem to inhabit a different universe and by different rules from anybody I actually know.

hippopootamus · 06/09/2014 16:13

I agree with several posters above that no-one 'walks away too easily'. When I ended my marriage it was after a long period of being unhappy, but thinking seriously about the consequences for both of us (emotional and practical). We did 'work at it' but if you don't love someone anymore, nothing will change that.

Everyone I know who has ended a relationship has admitted sticking it out for much longer than they should have through concern for the other person, guilt, fear, cowardice (in my case possibly!). I put it off for ages because I knew it would break exH's heart. Those are not the actions of someone taking things lightly.

windchime · 06/09/2014 16:14

People only get married for the gifts. Are you new to MN or something

PacificDogwood · 06/09/2014 16:17

Oh, yes, the gifts. And the princess dress. And to experience 'the happiest day of your life'

exWifebeginsat40 · 06/09/2014 16:18

I tried to make my first marriage work but we just didn't like each other in the end. We had a four-year-old and it was the last thing either of us wanted.

I got married the second time and thought it was for life. Unfortunately, ExH's dick had other plans. The four-year-old was 13 by then. I was devastated.

Conversely, first ExH's mother, some 40 years into her marriage, confided in me that she had been unhappy for many years but couldn't do anything about it as it 'wasn't the done thing'.

Which is better, OP? Genuine question.

HouseBaelish · 06/09/2014 16:27

"Not so long ago, marriage was (and in my book still is) a covenant between two people and God"

Yeah......I was married by a registrar

And no, I didn't take it lightly. I intended it to be forever. But shit happens.

Oh and I now have a fuck buddy, so....

AlleyCat11 · 06/09/2014 16:38

Broken family is a valid term. The number one divorce concern, in most cases, is the children.

LittlePrawn · 06/09/2014 16:42

I don't think people take marriage more lightly these days.

I think that choosing to marry someone these days is actually more significant than in the past. There is less of an expectation that you MUST get married now. People have more choice over what they do with their lives.

My idea of how it worked in the past, say the 1950s (of course I could be wrong), was that you would get to 16-21, meet someone you fancied and could get along with and after knowing them for a short amount of time decide to get married and have kids. The 'no sex before marriage' thing probably induced a lot of people to get married! I don't think that marriage was taken more seriously in the past.

startinoveronmyway · 06/09/2014 16:53

Well, I certainly took my vows very seriously. Till death do we part did actually mean just that to me.

My STBXH however, thought marriage cramped his style and suddenly 'forgot' his vows, or maybe they never meant that much to him in the first place?

Either way, I will be sad statistic because the man I loved and trusted and wanted to spend the rest of my life with, the man I supported, bent over backwards and took care of in his sickness decided 'he wasn't in love with me anymore' and rather than look deep into himself and question why that was (midlife crisis, MH issues) it was easier for him to shrug his shoulders and go 'Meh' and throw me in the gutter like a piece of rubbish.

So here I am now, single, thrown back into the pond against my will. I have to not only recover from STBXH's utter betrayal and the scars that will haunt me for the rest of my life, I also have to 'find my own happiness', 'love myself' and 'learn to trust again'. AND I have to do this with my head held high while all the while feeling like an utter failure and insignificant statistic and hope that other people don't look down on me for the mess my life is currently in.

Marriage does seem to be the latest disposable item these days, but not by my choice.

squoosh · 06/09/2014 17:03

I care not a jot if people take marriage lightly. It doesn't affect me if a couple get married on a whim and decide down the line that it's not for them.

Maybe it's something to tick off the list of life experiences.

Skydive - tick
Marriage - tick
Visit Tahiti - tick
Be a size 10 - tick

should · 06/09/2014 17:43

My first marriage was very short lived. I have no doubt that to a lot of outsiders it probably looks like I threw in the towel way too easily.

Actually it was the most miserable year of my life. My ex was very good at looking like the mild mannered postman on the outside, whilst actually being a nasty, drunk, borderline abusive arsehole. I knew damn well I shouldn't have married him but didn't feel I could call it off.

So when he finally threw me and our baby out and moved his ow in, it was frankly a blessing.

I got a lot of shit for "taking his baby away from him" though

Notagainmun · 06/09/2014 17:51

Maybe some do but couples generally live together first, for the last generation or two, so they know that they are compatible before tying the knot.

I married twenty five years ago, after an eighteen month engagement and had never lived with my DH. I was probably only one of two of our group of friends to do this and we are still happily married.

Alisvolatpropiis · 06/09/2014 17:57

Yabu

JapaneseMargaret · 06/09/2014 21:01

This is one of those subject areas where you have to wonder why it bothers someone so much.

Why does it bother the OP that some people don't follow the rules like she does? How does it impact on her? It doesn't at all, so what's the motivation?

Is she bitter that she's conforming to societal norms, when other people just aren't taking them seriously enough? Does she want a medal for her efforts? Some sort of recognition? It has to be at least the latter, otherwise why start a thread telling everyone how well she's done obeying the rules, while berating others for not.

Makes me you question it a bit...

BornFreeButinChains · 06/09/2014 21:06

I agree with you OP but then its hard because staying together in un happy marriage isnt the answer either. Maybe just marriage isnt the answer or children at all.

Its hard both ways.

femin · 06/09/2014 21:50

BornFree - I am in a very long term relationship. It shouldn't be hard. It should clearly make your life better.

adrianna22 · 09/09/2014 03:13

I find it a tad bit offensive that whenever God is mentioned, the other posters would then turn this into some kind joke.

Notmymonkeys · 09/09/2014 05:30

I have observed (and I think the divorce statistics actually bear this out) the exact opposite.

A lot of my parents contemporaries were divorced by the time they were my age (late thirties). Virtually none of mine are. Probably fewer people are actually married in the first place, but I can't say I know anyone who has got married without considering it a lifetime commitment. Plenty of people who aren't married make lifelong commitments to their oh's too.

Dp and I aren't married and don't intend to be. Don't see the point and I can't stand weddings. We plan on staying together till we're old and doddery. Make of that what you will.

LoveBeingAwakeInTheNight · 09/09/2014 05:45

I'm proud that I now live in a world where a woman has a choice. Not everything or everyone is as you expect. Not everyone is who you think they will be.

CheerfulYank · 09/09/2014 05:57

Yabu and Yanbu in my opinion. :)

I think it's good that divorce is available, can't imagine waiting for someone to die just so you could be rid of them! Life is short and you should be happy.

However...I do think sometimes people are lacking a bit of perspective.

My parents have been married since they were 18 and are 54 now. That's...is that two thirds of their lives? And they could live another 40 years! (I hope :) ) That's a long, long time. And yet...they're happy still. Were they always? I don't think so. I've heard my uncle talk about how rough a time they had at first, and I remember them not getting along so well when I was a teen. But they rode it out because they still loved each other and assumed it would get better, and it did.

I wonder that sometimes with my DH. If we weren't married, I might have left him a few times. But I would have regretted it. Our partnership and living together with our DC is the foundation of all of our lives. Do I sometimes miss the excitement of meeting a new man, or being single? Sure. But not to the point where I'd ever consider being without him or disrupting my children.

Of course, if he has a personality transplant and becomes abusive or starts cheating on me, I'm gone!

PetulaGordino · 09/09/2014 06:09

The "starter marriage" phrase doesn't mean anything. People who had what one might term a starter marriage will have gone into it expecting to stay together for life. The term is either a put-down, or it's a joke that someone might use self-deprecatingly to cover up a painful situation.

I'm with femin on this thread - everything she said

Luxaroma · 09/09/2014 06:48

Marriage is no big deal, really just a financial contract, it's kids that are the big decision not to be considered lightly....you have them for the rest of your
Life.

Fwiw I'm in a happy relationship despite being married - our marriage was entered into for admin purposes - but our relationship was very important to us. My parents however were unhappily married, still are....and as a child I used to pray for the divorce that never came, living with an unhappy couple was torture.

Bulbasaur · 09/09/2014 06:57

Yeah, older people stayed married. I see alot of old people married but no longer in love. I think that's worse than divorce and it's certainly not upholding the sanctity of marriage anymore than separating would.

I've also see happy old people, just making a point that not all divorce is bad. You don't have to divorce over anything catastrophic like abuse or cheating. Sometimes people just don't work out long term, and that's ok. It's ok to do what makes you happy. YOLO and all that.

EmeraldLion · 09/09/2014 07:03

I think everyone sees marriage as less of a big deal now.

When some got engaged it used to be a BIG DEAL. Now it's more 'Oh congratulations! So anyway, how's work?'

I think part of the reason for that is how lightly people take being 'engaged' now. I can remember my friends mum telling us (we were about 18) that we'd probably get engaged a few times before actually marrying someone

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