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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think none of my friends will get divorced?

174 replies

redredholly · 30/01/2015 19:18

I am in my 30s and lots of my friends are at the start of their marriages (or up to ten years in), and they all seem really happy. None of them have got divorced yet. Ok there was one person but there were no kids or property involved and it was literally a silly young mistake.

I simply can't imagine any of these real marriages breaking down. I wonder if divorce was more a thing of the baby boomer generation and not so much in mine?

OP posts:
londonrach · 31/01/2015 09:00

Give it time....sadly.

UsedToBeAPaxmanFan · 31/01/2015 09:03

I really don't think the OP is being smug. I agree that no one ever knows what goes on in someone else marriage, which is why it seems unlikely when you look at your friends to think that some of their marriages might not last.

I also struggle with the idea that 42% of marriages in the UK end in divorce. I appreciate I cant extrapolate from my own very limited experience, but hardly any of my friends and acquaintences are divorced.

I am in my late 40s, married for 20 years, and our dc are late teens. I'm still in touch with my ante natal group (6 couples), only one of which has divorced. I belong to a book group with 10 women in their 40s and 50s, only one of whom is divorced. Of my 10 closest friends, one is divorced, the rest have all been married for over 20 years. One of my less close friends experienced her husband leaving her when she was in her early 50s, which none of us saw coming. Otherwise, all the people we socialise with are married. So I do find the statistics odd and wonder whether somewhere else there are places where 99% of people are divorced!

I wonder whether it stems from the fact that I am in the first generation of people who lived with their partner before deciding to marry? I lived with a man for 4 years in my early 20s, it didn't work out so we split up. 20 years earlier I would have married him as living together wouldn't have been acceptable, and no doubt we would have ended up adding to the divorce statistics.

Moniker1 · 31/01/2015 09:08

I am in my 60s and when I was young people still married because she had become pregnant. I don't know if they were more likely to split later, I'm no longer in touch with those concerned (school friends), but now I don't think that happens much.

cailindana · 31/01/2015 09:09

I'm 32 and I've been married 6 years (together 12 years). I've been to 2 weddings of peers - one a friend, one a cousin of DH. I moved to where I live now when my eldest was 8 months and I met married people then, but of all the people I've known 5+ years none of them are married apart from that friend and one other. All my friends from school (bar one acquaintance) are single. A couple of university friends are in long term relationships. Both my siblings (34 and 25) are single, never married. So in terms of peers, it's not that I'm wondering about divorce, I'm wondering if they'll ever get married in the first place!
That said in my own extended birth family there are 15 marriages (large family) ranging in length from 3 years to 30 and not a single divorce.

Moniker1 · 31/01/2015 09:13

Statistics from Relate
www.relate.org.uk/files/relate/separation-divorce-factsheet-jan2014.pdf

From that I think that it is just early days yet, OP.

SomewhereIBelong · 31/01/2015 09:18

IF I had got married to my previous partner I would be divorced.

A lot more people live together without marriage nowadays, so that skews the stats.

My grandparents, parents and all my siblings are divorced - my family puts those averages up for everyone else!!

Preciousbane · 31/01/2015 09:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DesperatelySeekingSedatives · 31/01/2015 09:27

creambun2014 Fri 30-Jan-15 19:50:45
I think the most important thing is staying best friends, keep having fun and have a lot of physical contact. There is no reason to grow apart if you were passionately im love at the start imo.

Can I just say that my DP is my best friend and after 10 years of being together I cant imagine it any other way. And that's why I stay. Because I cant bare to lose one of my best friends. But believe me when I say you can have plenty of physical contact and be passionately in love with your best friend and they can STILL screw you over and hurt you like mine has. And it hurts a lot. I don't blame anyone at all for deciding to cut their losses when they get hurt like that.

ElleyBear13 · 31/01/2015 09:28

I'm 24, married 2 years Im in the category of most likely divorcing as we married young. Been together 8 years, we've grew up together seen us at our worst and best. I have no idea what the future holds but all i can say we've made the right choice now. However i do think its down to the couple whether they make it or not. My dad and mum (49 and 50) married young unlike us they were pushed into it, both of them wanted to buy a house first. After raising their kids they seperated and are now much happier.

Dimplesandall · 31/01/2015 09:29

Bollocks! YABU. And complacent.

crappyday · 31/01/2015 09:30

1 year ago I could've written the op. (I wouldn't have done cos I'm a realist!)
Now 2 couples who are friends are divorcing.
One- the women had an affair and basically got bored of her life. Her husband is devastated.
The other- I now know has been an abusive marriage for 10 years. I had no idea. The wife has summoned up the courage to leave.
We all thought both marriages were happy ones.
They weren't at all.

You just don't really know.

JohnFarleysRuskin · 31/01/2015 10:10

I can't imagine how you can't imagine it op ;)

Marriages break down all the time.

creambun2014 · 31/01/2015 10:17

It must depend on area paxman. Only 25% of parents are single parents is a statistic that doesnt reflect my rl. I would say it would be half, if not more, and most have never been married.

creambun2014 · 31/01/2015 10:26

These articles often have their own agenda. What about articles that say men will divorce women if they earn more/have higher qualifications as it threatens their ego Hmm

drudgetrudy · 31/01/2015 10:43

No-it isn't a thing of the baby boomer generation-although in those days living together before marriage was more frowned upon-so people married younger and if they split up it was a divorce rather than just a break up.
In fact women from the baby boomer generation were advised more to stay in unsatisfactory marriages and "work at it"-there was much less advice to LTB.
I hope you and your friends remain happy (not meant sarcastically).

UsedToBeAPaxmanFan · 31/01/2015 12:04

I think you're right creambun. As I said, I imagine there must be a place somewhere with a really high divorce rate to balance out my friends!

Most of my friends are late 40s/early 50s, and most (but not all) are uni educated and fairly middle class, I wouldn't have thought that would make a difference but according to some statistics quoted by other posters it does. Interestingly, my ds commented the other day that only one of his friends has divorced parents.

Dh and I sometimes joke that, even if we fell out of love with each other, we would never be able to afford to split up. Cheapest 3 bed houses round here are £300 000+ . I do wonder if, for some couples, that is sadly a factor in them staying together.

creambun2014 · 31/01/2015 12:09

We were both teenagers, married really quickly, dh is a sahd, and I am qualified to post grad level whilst dh does not even have a BA. According to statistics we will be lucky to stay together until tonight Grin

punygod · 31/01/2015 12:31

I don't understand what there is to be frightened of, OP. Are you really that invested in your friends' marriages?

And if it happens to you, well, if you're the instigator it'll be what you want, and if it's your DH, your marriage clearly wasn't what you thought it was, and you wouldn't want to be married to someone who doesn't want to be married to you, would you?

Marriage isn't everything.

Dimplesandall · 31/01/2015 12:38

Puny, exactly!

Mutley77 · 31/01/2015 13:01

I could have written this in my early 30s. Now that our friends have two, three or more kids and life is a bit more of a slog the cracks start to show. I think as time goes on you become older, wiser and more aware of difficulties. There are very few of my friends now (nearly 40) where they haven't expressed serious concern about their relationship to me at one time of another...

flumposie · 31/01/2015 13:26

Happily married until my husband suffered from depression and left me and our one year old daughter. Three years on the disbelief is there. Have learnt the hard way that nothing is guaranteed in life.

Romeyroo · 31/01/2015 13:43

I don't know, it is really weird to find yourself in the landscape of separation and divorce when you don't know anyone who is or has been divorced. I thought in my first marriage, we were married and that meant we stayed together and tried to work things out.

I was left for OW with a baby and it was suddenly like entering this landscape where people began to talk about divorce and separation because they knew people or had been through it themselves.

It was a landscape I had never really thought about. When you are young, happily married, planning a family, who says 'think of the divorce statistics!?'. You only find out once you are there. ( I didn't read MN clearly)

I have now another marriage behind me, and I can honestly say that being married seems alien to me. Brilliant if you can make it work, but I can't see myself doing it again (besides I am still technically legally married)

worserevived · 31/01/2015 13:48

In my 30s I couldn't imagine any of my friends divorced either. In my 40s the situation is very different.

FamiliesShareGerms · 31/01/2015 13:54

All the couples I know who have divorced within a couple of years of marriage are exactly the ones I would predicted. At least three of them shouldn't have got married in the first place

I'm dreading the likely wave of divorces after 10+ years marriage where there are children and houses to have to resolve Sad

MoanCollins · 31/01/2015 13:58

CreamBun', I actually find what you're saying a bit offensive, definitely patronising and startlingly naive.

The overwhelming majority of people don't go into marriage thinking they're going to get divorced. They think they have the passion, they think they are best friends just like you.

I'm not divorced, nobody in my family has divorced and in my entire extended family only my husband's aunt has ever divorced and that was not her choice. So I'm certainly not trying to justify my own or my families divorces but I have seen it happen and it can honestly happen to anybody.

In fact, my husband's aunt was blissfully happy, had two small children a lovely house and a great marriage. They were the last people that you would ever have imagined would divorce. Her husband was in a serious car accident which she spent years nursing him back from very poor health from. She suffered severe financial hardship and when he recovered she went back to working two jobs because he needed to retrain because he couldn't physically return to the job he had done previously. He had a near death experience which had made him question his life and existence and then when he retrained he started mixing with a different type of person he would probably have never met otherwise and decided that their lifestyle was preferable to his previous one and walked out on his wife for a woman he could have that kind of life with. I'm absolutely certain if he'd never had his accident they would still be married and probably happy because he would never have taken a turn which saw him see a different type of life which appealed to him more. These things do literally come out of nowhere sometimes.

Also, I have to say, I've seen a few women who have had exactly your attitude who have had nasty surprises somewhere along the line. People who are blissfully happy, totally in love and think it's perfect then somewhere along the line they realise that the person they're married to has never been quite as enamoured of the whole set up as they are.

I hate this attitude anyway, the way some people assume that if you get divorced it's somehow your fault or that the people involved are personally defective and somehow not as good or sensible as people who've stayed together. I've seen friends get divorced and people take this nasty attitude and freeze them out of their 'couples' world and suddenly they're not good enough for them anymore or somehow they've 'failed' when often they've simply been unlucky that life has taken them in different directions.

People change, we're living longer than ever so there are more and more opportunities for people to change in ways which will make them no longer compatible. I think you're stunningly naive Creambun to think that you're going to go through life as a blissful couple.

As another poster said, I don't think there are many, if any couples that never go through a sticky patch in which they think their relationship might be at risk. And I would suspect that relationships where one partner believes that they are unshakeable and there will never be a risk to their relationship are quite probably at a bigger risk than many others.