To think most people are unhappily married?

[Seline]

Something I've been thinking of. How widely accepted men's jokes about a weekend with the lads/night out etc to get away from "the misses", how people describe marriage as a ball and chain, jokes like "single women are skinny because they see what's in the fridge and go to bed, married women see what's in the bed and go to the fridge,".

I've never understood why you'd marry someone you don't enjoy spending time with and I've started to think most people perhaps don't actually like their husbands or wives...

My parents were divorced before I was born, I have no memories of them ever being together. My mother hates me and has made that very clear numerous times over the years. My grandparents were married for over 75 years before they passed at a grand age of 96.

I’d been in a few unhappy abusive relationships but when my now hubby came into my life everything changed.

Together 18yrs married 10. Got 4 kids ( 21, 17,14,13)
He is my best friend, we have never argued we share so many hobbies, interests and even work.
We make an excellent team. Yes at the beginning it was all going out, having fun and all that, we then put our lives on hold and put everything into our family. Now ( we are in our 40’s) the kids are old enough and we have a life again, it’s ace. There is so much now that we want to do and go, where all them years ago we would have never have thought of it. We love each other just as much if not more than when we first met. We laugh we cry but we never argue. We have balance. We still have a good sex life and we have so much to look forward to for our answer to some things is ....... why not. Which is why I’m now learning to ride a motorbike.

I met my husband when we were 19, married at 21, two kids by the time we were 28. Still happily married 20 years later. He is my best friend as well as my husband. He doesn't always pull his weight with the domestic stuff which annoys me, but I am not perfect either. Now that the kids are grown up we are making an effort to find new interests together because I don't want to end up like my parents who got into their 50s and found out they didn't actually enjoy each others company without the kids to focus on.

I would like to think that if my marriage was unhappy I would walk away.

I don't get this i have been married for 37 years and he is still my best friend.We have some interest we share such as our love of football.He loves cricket i cant stand it.We have the same sense of humour and realise that sense of humour is the most important thing.We never go to bed on a argument and do not take life to seriously.I always think i won the lottery when i said i do to my husband

Oh for love of god - get over yourself.

DH once won some land on the moon for saying he wanted it to get away from the wife. I was really upset at the time. He was actually saying what he thought people would expect. Why stay unhappily married? What's the point in this day and age? We've been married twenty years and are embarrassed about it. People are upset if we mention it; they think we are either being smug and rubbing their faces in it, or are lying to ourselves about how miserable we must be.

Apologies if it sounds cloying but I married my best friend and when we fight, it's that sort of argument you have with a good mate that's easily made up because your friendship is stronger than anything life throws at it. We're really happy together most of the time. I've been in relationships where you almost have a sign saying how many days you've been argument free and been miserable. I know that I am genuinely happily married because if I wasn't, we'd part ways.

I was happily married then suspected an affair, I questioned him he denied it and I left it alone for the sake of our DD. He was pretty shitty to me during a bereavement, people were genuinely shocked at his behaviour yet he could see soothing wrong with it (until a marriage guidence councillor told him he had been shitty) but the damage had been done. I hung on, I tried because I did love him deeply but always in the back of my mind I felt he’d been unfaithful. He got nastier towards me and I gave up and left. It was hard, heartbreaking and will always be my biggest regret that I just couldn’t make it work. He’s on his own and is probably a lot happier as he can do as he pleases. I’ve met someone and I’m doing ok. It was a 24 year marriage so I did try.

@Dollymouse

I am 95% happy and 5% full of rage. Sometimes I want to stab him in the face - but more often I look forward to spending time with him

I love this!!! 😂😂 such a great way of putting it. This is so true for my relationship also.

I also just think majority of blokes do it for 'banter' to be one of the lads

Is it wrong to feel bad for you if you think Marriage isn't supposed to be fun??

I have been married for 10 years now, lots of kids, and still fancy the pants off my husband, and we make each other laugh every single day. My marriage is loads of fun, I wouldn't stay in it if it wasn't lol. x

We have a lot of crap to deal with parent wise atm, but maybe because we work hard, have no family around to help us, we have grown to trust and depend upon one another, and we are truly one anothers best mate. Stuff that has happened to us has shown us life can be cruelly way too short.

He still leaves love notes, I still write him stoopid messages on his banana for work, he still wakes me every morning with a coffee, I still run him a nice bath and pour him a beer on a friday night, and we always surprise each other. Yes of course most things in life require hard work and dedication, but fun and happiness is what makes it worth it, and a marriage without that sounds like Hell! :-D

Have been married twice very happily.

“All a happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Tolstoy had it right.

Actually, perfect, continuous happiness is not part of the human condition and if you are attuned to that and do not have unrealistic expectations then getting to know another person in a to,errant and supportive way is the pinnacle of satisfaction.

I am coming up for 40 years with my DH. He has driven me up the wall today. Virtually everything he has said and done has annoyed me. But who am I to judge - and I love him dearly.

I genuinely don't understand why it is considered weird or embarrassing to say nice things about your DH or say you're happily married.

I genuinely don’t know anyone who is in an unhappy marriage.

Of course you do. Being aware of it is another matter.

Moaning about your partner is how we show affection up north

I married someone I loved and liked a lot. Ten years later he got a Very Important Job and changed from someone lovable into someone impossibly full of himself with very domineering tendencies. If I’d met him at that stage of his life, I wouldn’t have given him a second look. Six years later, we’re divorcing. It’s impossible to happily live with someone who’s honestly believes he’s always right.

froghead fellow northerner here....I might take the piss out of him occasionally but I'd happily shout from the rooftops about how much I love my DH

I thought I was happy with my husband of 27 years and 3 children.
I put up with the odd 'top half naked model' images in magazines I'd find in his brief case or suit case after he'd worked away.
But now there's pinterest!!!!
I've just come across his pins of hot young models and up skirt images. Mmm! Think ive had enough. Hes at ours sons house watching football, so i rang him and told him we need to sell the house. His reply why??? I say your pins on pinterest. He says 'dont know what your talking about'

I don't think most people are necessarily unhappily married, but I do think that for quite a few their marriages don't actively make them happy iyswim? I think that for many the initial passion and feeling in love soon fades and what is left turns into something functional with both sides compromising more than they like. I think many couples end up more as fond house mates raising their children together and there's nothing wrong with that.

I suppose that's what I assumed would happen to me and DH too but somehow nearly thirty years later it never has. We're still very much in love, still fancy the pants off each other, still have lots of fun. I still can't help but smile whenever he walks in the room and he still tells me he loves me every day. He makes me happy and being married to him makes my life happy

Most it a massive stretch!
Some.

I know three happy couples. Everyone else I know is not happy, not because they have come out and admitted it but because there are obvious (to me) signs:
one watches her partner to see which women he is looking at in the street;
one wants and expects more and more expensive presents;
one gives constant dirty looks to other women to see if they are flirting with her partner, because he has is a wanker has a roving eye.

Seline is either a goady fucker or a journalist.

You really must tell us all how you manage to cope with newborn twins, having a perfect marriage, MIL from hell AND spend all day writing threads on MN.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3520487-To-be-angry-that-someone-came-to-my-birth-when-I-didnt-want-them-to?

fuck off SpanielEars070
This is an internet forum, nothing is real on here anyway. Troll hunting or the funny funny jokes -oh so original-- about DM journos are what mess it up.

No-one knows what goes on behind closed doors so a survey of this sort would be very skewed.

We have been together for 36 yrs and married for 32 of them. We have had times when we did nothing but argue, sometimes we bicker a lot, outside influences have caused lots of stressful times and we have had periods where it's probably been best to leave the other alone. Neither of us are perfect but our house is a happy, calm one for the majority of time. Sometimes life is fun, sometimes depressing, sometimes tedious or sometimes just downright miserable. But we want to be together, we love each other and we have the same fundamental goals in life. We don't share many hobbies or the same taste or opinions in music, politics, etc but that makes life interesting at times. Life is full of bumps and surprises, not all good, and those are the times when you question your happiness and your commitment.

Everyone has their own breaking point and boundaries. I have friends who are happily divorced, friends who are happily married and ones who just rub along together. if it works for them that's all that matters.

What is a DF?

Never heard the skinny women look in fridge joke before... Funny, thanks