AIBU to ask you for signs a marriage won't last?

[Hofty]

m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/signs-a-marriage-wont-last-according-to-wedding-photographers_us_5a871dfee4b05c2bcaca8db9

I was reading this^ earlier. I think these 'signs' are largely nonsense, but it got me wondering... has anyone got any signs a marriage won't last they'd like to share? Has anyone ever noticed any 'red flags', so to speak, and been right?

DP and I are getting married this summer, but this is not in any way inspired our relationship, I'm just reading a lot on the topic of marriage at the moment.

I'll share first, it's probably an obvious one. I think a sign a marriage won't last is if either party is entering into it through a sense of obligation, for example when my grandparents married (at 16!!) they were expecting a baby and social norms at that time meant that they had to get married. They are the least compatible couple I've ever known and both openly admit they would never have done so if my grandmother hadn't been pregnant.

Well I have 2 red flags here. MIL hates me, told DH he was making the biggest mistake of his life, and we were both under 30. However a positive is I really wasn't bothered about the wedding itself at all. We're still together 17 years in. Best friend married her cousin the month after us, she's on her 3rd DH now. I don't think any of us are twats (she says hopefully) but best friend does love to be fussed over, she's got bored of her previous DH and has already had a brief trial separation with no 3.so I'm going for the going into the wedding more for the event than the lifetime thing!

I'd say a very expensive wedding that's more about the photographs than the promises

I worked with someone years ago who couldn't stop going on about her wedding. She invited all the pretty young white women in the office to her wedding even those she didnt know that well. we suspected so the photos looked good and didn't have her only niece as a flowergirl. She was mixed race. Her husband was shagging someone else at the time of the wedding and they split 6 months later. Nobody felt sorry for her. Karma bit her on the arse.

What do you define as a very expensive wedding?

Anything that's all for show really.

What do you define as a very expensive wedding?

Anything you can't pay for immediately. Say, anything more than you'd spend on a routine week's holiday.

We had (past tense) some friends who spent roughly the deposit on a house on getting married, and then whinged to anyone who would listen that they didn't have the deposit to buy a house. Those of us that had nipped down to the registry office and had a curry afterwards just didn't understand how expensive it was to buy a house. No, we did understand, all too well. Which is precisely why we hadn't pissed the deposit away on a buying dinner for a hundred and fifty people we barely knew just because our parents "expected" it.

My dp spent 18 k on their wedding to his ex 😮 The marriage lasted 3 and half years. It sounds like it was all show for her family and friends. They also had a wedding where the brides guests were considerably more than the grooms. Not because he knew less people but because her side took over.

I have known s few weddings like that...

For me, obviously not talking about abuse etc, but a general massive red flag would be lack of humour and fun in a relationship

I’ve been with some seriously dull people that on paper were my ‘perfect match’ but I was bored shitless. Now with dp on paper we make zero sense and everyone always says ‘you two make such a weird couple’ but we couldn’t be happier. Mainly because we have such a laugh!

When I see people being very serious with each other all the time and then hear from them that they are like that most of the time,I think it’s probably doomed.

None of those signs were present at our wedding. We spent the ceremony looking into each other eyes and ignoring even the priest.

We went around the tables greeting people together, holding hands. We danced a lot, my MIL was complaining about everything and anything but we just ignored her. That wedding was all about us.

We are very well divorced, we don’t even speak to each other at all, don’t expect we ever will and I am pretty sure that we are both absolutely fine with it.

Lack of every day kindness and respect when you see them together (or apart).

Couples where one party has ishoos of some kind and the other is always looking for ways to hide it / compensate for it / fix it. Embarrassing to be in their presence.

We all know that Dave is an alcoholic, Janet, your attempts to cover for him fool nobody and make you look lame. Fred, everyone can see that Barbara thinks you are an ill-educated moron and she wishes she had married someone like that Sebastian.

The fact my dexh was far more interested in the colour of the napkins and the flowers than I was.. Should have been a red flag to me... Took 18yrs of marriage to work out he wasn't just being interested in the wedding he was in fact very far back in the closet

I can only go on personal experience as I'm recently divorced.

1. Lack of Communication- is massive. In the early loved-up days his lack of communication hurt me loads but I was very young and just thought that's what long term relationships must be like. I would hear important life-changing news from his mother or sister before he spoke to me about it.

2. Marrying young is a factor I think as people change so much between 20 and 40. The man I divorced was fixated with wealth and power and sex on the side. Nothing like the man I fell in love with. --

3. We had an over-the-top wedding and reception as we'd recently had a windfall but if I'm honest with myself I didn't feel as I should on the day but we had two children by then so it felt like the right thing to do.

4. Insults - these started early on, being young and quite naive I thought these were just arguments we could get over but they were very cruel and hit me to my core. I don't see how you can love someone and say such low things.

If anyone is reading this and relating to it, I say get the hell out as soon as possible.

Under 30 is hardly a red flag.

I’d see over 30 as more of a red flag (not that I think age is a particular factor, unless we’re talking about exceptionally young people getting married- say, teenagers).

Rushing everything and doing too much at once... a friend of mine had a short engagement and spent most of the time planning the wedding / graduating / moving house / getting a new job that they didn’t really sit down and talk about what they both wanted out of life/marriage because they were too busy doing “fun things”.

Despite the fact that they were together 6+ years when they got married, they separated about 4 months later.

The one I've seen the most through family and friends is

Growing away from each other through lack of communication during times of change. The gap widens and then they find it insurmountable.

Rather than communicating constantly, occasionally compromising and singing from the same hymn sheet.

One key one for me is if close friends have risked their friendship to raise concerns about the friend’s partner. I literally couldn’t go to the wedding even though it was years later - then more years later he left. Such a close friend but he was sooo controlling of her - on a happy note she is great now - he isn’t - karma sucks

Well I suppose over 30 is more likely to be a second or subsequent marriage than under 30, and those are more likely to fail than first marriages. But other than that and very young marriage, I agree age isn't much of a factor.

The average age for first-time marriers is 32 for men and 30 for women in England, beetlejizz why would you think over thirty means it's more likely to be a second marriage?

I know it's a regional thing but I'm 30 and don't know anyone who's gotten married in my friendship circle so far. A couple of them are engaged but with no date set to wed.

It's quite rare to marry before 30 these days.

The average age for first-time marriers is 32 for men and 30 for women in England

And it's rising elsewhere, as well. This is interesting:

www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/getting-married-later-is-great-for-college-educated-women/274040/

Very interesting!

It's undoubtedly a good thing in my opinion. People who have chance to grow and discover who they are and what they want before choosing a lifelong partner surely are more capable of choosing somebody they're more likely to be long term compatible with.

And those who do marry are the ones who want to be married, not legions of people doing it out of a sense of duty or because they got pregnant or it's just expected.

And it's easier to dissolve the relationship when it's no longer working. Meaning no expensive messy divorce.

Definitely better to wait until you're older and more established/settled before marrying, though you'll get the outliers of course who married at 17 and are still together or those who married after six months and are still together!

My parents married in the mid 80s. My dad had proposed because his parents and my mother expected it. Morning of the wedding he got cold feet and wanted to back out but his father made him go through with it. (Dads parents got married because she was pregnant). In the wedding photos my mum looks delighted and dad is forcing a smile through gritted teeth. They divorced 8 years later.
My mum's mother was married twice and my sister was such as a bridezilla and spent a fortune and separated 8 months later after 9 years together.
I'm never getting married

This idea that everybody gets married in their early 20s is actually a very temporary 20th century phenomenon. In earlier ages, that was usually reserved for the upper classes = people who didn't have to save for years before they could have a home of their own. Poorer people, farmers, farm labourers, servants- i.e. the majority of the population- had to wait and scrimp and save. For women of the labouring classes (especially servants) it often meant losing their job, which meant your husband had to earn enough/have enough saved to support the entire family.

Presumably though the men were in their 30s but the women were much younger to ensure they could pop out a bunch of sprogs?

Some people in the 1900s-1920s pretended they were married - my cousin has done all the family trees and research and a lady told her at somerset house years ago now ' dont be surprised if you find one or two were not married!' my nan was though. I was surprised at this too, but maybe a few just couldnt afford it or moved around for work and could just pretend they had already got hitched or something! seems very decadent to me for those days, but probably easier to get away with maybe?
I think that the upper class men usually married much younger women. the women's family had to 'source' a decent match with enough money to support them both i suppose. The working classes had to muddle through - nothing much changes.