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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think it's very hard to LTB if you're Irish?

221 replies

TirNaNog100 · 04/12/2015 22:40

I’m not disputing that it’s often right - and necessary- to LTB. I usually agree with the advice given on the Relationships board. But I think that it’s often overlooked that cultural context may make this very difficult to do, even in cultures ostensibly quite similar.

I’m thinking specifically of Ireland, where I have returned after many years in London. From what I see, there is a world of difference between how ‘broken’ marriages are viewed in the UK and in Ireland. Among my Irish circle of friends, I don’t know anybody who is divorced. Not one couple. The same applies to my husband’s friends. And those of my three sisters. I live in the country so I accept there is probably a Dublin/rural divide going on, but I think divorce and separation are also rare in Dublin.

This train of thought was prompted by recently attending a school reunion where only one out of forty women (late thirties) was divorced. And by considering my parents-in-law wretched marriage – my MIL will soon be celebrating forty years of being tethered to a violent, manic drunk. It is accepted here that women of her generation really had no way of exiting horrific relationships. But despite greater financial freedom and legal rights, I'm not sure the situation has changed that much. Would love to know other mumsnetters' views?

OP posts:
Spanglecrab · 05/12/2015 00:10

Any other English mumsnetters enjoying reading this thread in an Irish accent?

ChippyOik · 05/12/2015 00:10

Wow, that is dreadful Movember. In that case, hunker down in your section of the house and do your best to act like he's not there.

I have a friend in the UK and her x has done the same thing, absolute determination to have the children precisely half of the week. She spent money and time and energy fighting it but it has been pointless. He will have the children half the week and he consequently won't have to pay maintenance to her. He has loads of money, but embroiled her in a massive court battle.

ChippyOik · 05/12/2015 00:12

......and left her with unbelievably high legal bills so those will be deducted from her settlement.

Annarose2014 · 05/12/2015 00:13

OP I think you're just experiencing culture shock. There's certainly a low divorce rate. But its a bit paternalistic to say the rate should be higher.

When people don't marry till they're in their thirties, they may have chosen better, tbh. And very few people in Ireland marry till their thirties.

All the people I know who are divorced married young. And even then they only divorced cos they wanted to marry again, cos it costs a bomb and who has the money? Also it takes 4 years.

So its really not something you'd jump at. Being legally seperated is much cheaper and easier.

I know lots of people who have broken up from spouses but I honestly don't know if they're divorced or not. Given most are a bit skint, I'd say no.

But here legal seperation was seen as "marriage dissolution" for so many decades that tbh for a lot of people its good enough. It has a long established legal framework.

Also in the UK & Wales 42% of marriages end in divorce. I think thats why you're so shocked at the difference. But that seems like a shockingly high figure to me. Why do people get divorced so much in the UK? It baffles me, honestly. Do people marry really young or something?

shins · 05/12/2015 00:13

Fitzers yeah. I must admit I find some of the advice on the relationships board here a bit glib about children. My own parents were rather unhappily married (no abuse or anything just not a lot in common) and separated when I was an adult. Total honest truth: if they'd done it when I was ten it would have been devastating. I know that's not a popular Mumsnet view.

ChippyOik · 05/12/2015 00:16

I left when I had a toddler and a baby. It was embarrassing, because they were so young, it was like admitting, "yes the relationship was already shit when they were conceived". That was extra embarrassing. But from the children's pov, the best thing. They've never questioned it.

LucyBabs · 05/12/2015 00:17

chippy What is wrong with these cunts?! It still surprises me no matter how many times I hear of these situations. I have a friend who after leaving an abusive marriage is now divorcing him. He has promised to make her life hell and do whatever he can to ruin her life. They have two young dc but hey he doesn't care about them just once he can punish his ex!

sprangle as long as it is a Dublin accent Smile

Fitzers · 05/12/2015 00:19

ChippyOik maybe it's a timing issue, they were so young they didn't know the difference? Shins mentions she would have been devastated if her parents had split when she was ten (for example) and I could see with children that their age at the time of the split could be an important factor.

ChippyOik · 05/12/2015 00:19

In the case of that man, it was his ego, he was outraged that his partner dared to leave him. In her case it would have been better if there'd been some way of delaying all the litigation he embroiled her in as it was driven by indignation and ego. Eventually, he'll get over himself and then he'll be responsible for three children exactly 50% of the week and he doesn't want that not really.

Fitzers · 05/12/2015 00:21

I hasten to add that I've no issue with people getting divorced or separated and wouldn't judge a friend or family member in that position (none of my business and who knows what the future holds for any of us). I do find the cultural differences highlighted by this thread very interesting though.

ChippyOik · 05/12/2015 00:22

yes, I felt the first day of 'big school' looming and I felt I had to leave before then or I'd be locked in to the 'groove' or the rut and there'd be no way out.

TheVeryThing · 05/12/2015 00:22

I really don't think there is a stigma attached to marriage breakdown anymore. I suspect that people in Ireland don't enter into marriage as readily as they do elsewhere.
I would like to see divorce made easier, though, as I imagine the current system is hugely stressful.
By the way, Ireland is not divided into Dublin and 'the country` you know. There is more than one urban area in Ireland.Wink

LucyBabs · 05/12/2015 00:24

thevery Yep, we ain't the big smoke anymore Smile

Original poster
TirNaNog100 · 05/12/2015 00:27

TheVeryThing
I know that Ireland is not Dubs V Culchies.I live in Cork city and grew up in County Limerick

OP posts:
Fitzers · 05/12/2015 00:27

All my friends and family of my generation who got married here in Ireland did so in their very late twenties/early thirties at the very earliest. I met my husband five years before we got married and I was one of the first of my friends to do so even though many had been with their partners for as long, or longer, than I. Children followed quite quickly though, almost as though we all waited until we wanted kids and then decided we would get married first (another possible cultural pressure?).

perpetuallybewildered · 05/12/2015 00:30

There a a fair few separated couples in my very large extended family (mainly Dublin). Not sure if any are actually divorced.
Years ago my mother used to speak of women whose husbands were 'working in England' - she called it an Irish divorce.

Original poster
TirNaNog100 · 05/12/2015 00:30

Annarose: since I am both female and Irish, how exactly am I being paternalistic?

OP posts:
TakeMeUpTheNorthMountain · 05/12/2015 00:44

Tir I'm in cork too..up de rebels!!
I think the divorce rate might be low but anecdotally I know loads if separated people and many people cohabiting and having children outside of marriage and no one blinks an eye where as we would have been in launderies or asylums before.

shins · 05/12/2015 00:45

Chippy my son was a baby when I left his dad (not married) - it's actually easier to make the break earlier on I think.

HoundoftheBaskervilles · 05/12/2015 00:48

I lived in Ireland with my first husband and upped and left him, (County Cork should you be interested), probably was a good deal of gossip, but here you go.

Took me five years to divorce the bastard though due to the Irish system by which time I'd met and had two children with my current DH...

Annarose2014 · 05/12/2015 01:06

Well firstly paternalistic isn't defined as exclusively male, but maybe its the wrong word to describe what I mean cos its late and I need to go to bed.

I suppose your post came across as a bit "I moved back and nobody I know is divorced here, but I think people should be divorced more cos the percentage is far too low - and if they're not divorced more, its repressive".

It seemed like a suspicious attitude as to why people aren't divorcing more, when the reality is a bit more mundane. Its pricey and people marry late.

Also a lot of people here simply never marry at all.

HoundoftheBaskervilles · 05/12/2015 01:38

And don't forget the fact the Celtic Tiger has come to an abrupt and nasty halt, that will probably have kept a lot of couples together in the last seven years or so.

noddingoff · 05/12/2015 01:44

I suspect the late marriage, if at all thing applies.

  • we stay attached to our mammies for longer. When I went to college in Dublin, I was afraid that it was going to be de rigeur to take lots of drugs and have sex with randomers every night. Instead we got drunk on weeknights then decamped back down the country on Friday evening, to reappear on the Dublin bus or train on Sunday night weighed down with leftover Sunday dinner roast wrapped in foil, homebaked cakes and a weeks' worth of freshly ironed underwear. Dunno if this still applies.
  • weddings are a big deal. I'm one of a batch of 11 cousins, all in their 30s/early 40s. Three are unmarried; of the rest I'm the only one who got married in a registry office not a church (my husband isn't Irish and was brought up atheist). There are a lot of more-or-less atheists in my generation now, but atheism is a "second language" to almost all of us - most of us were brought up going to church- and a big chunk of people still have a big church wedding followed by an expensive hotel reception. It's unusual to have a small number of guests. Wedding presents are lavish. The average cost of a wedding as a precentage of average annual income is higher than in the UK. So people tend to cohabit for years while they save up and contemplate the plunge of inviting all the rellies to the big day and going to those premartial classes the Catholic church make you do , so there is a better chance that the unsuited will drift apart
abbieanders · 05/12/2015 09:07

Dunno if this still applies.

It does. I pass busaras/connelly on my way home from work and I see tons of students with their rucksacks on a Friday evening.

TheVeryThing · 05/12/2015 09:40

Glad to hear that, op,Smile

I also know few divorced people, but lots of separated ones and loads that are cohabiting, with kids. I know it's just an observation but when I lived in the UK I was often surprised at how quickly people got married. DH lived in Scotland before we met and he says the same.
It would be interesting to see stats on the length of relationships before marriage, as well as age.
While I don't think there's a stigma any more, the very fact that marriage breakdown is not as common as elsewhere, might make it feel a bit more daunting.
Hound, unless it happened 50 years ago, I don't imagine anyone batted an eyelid when you left your husband.