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...

There’s a different between cheeky banter and unhappily marriages

I tell my Dh I’m trading him in for a younger model and one with a hairline however I’m in a very happy marriage.

Most of my circle are in happy relationships.

Thought that joke was quite funny. Shall be telling 'im indoors.

I think a lot of women have very low expectations for a marriage. Even on this thread some women's idea of a happy marriage, has a very low bar.
Your relationship should make you happier. It should not need lots of work or selflessness. Just the usual compromises you have to make if you are living with anyone.

But my point is the general low level dissatisfaction and warring that you tend to hear about. I think it's incredibly sad.

I think it's incredibly sad that some people have been raised to think of this as normal. I also think it's sad that some people believe that all marriages are really hard work.

Nobody knows more than a limited sample of people which may or may not be statistically significant.

Also, people often use stereotypical language which may not have a lot to do with their actual feelings.

I found when my children were small that it was considered polite to agree with other parents who talked as if children were always frustrating and exhausting; suggesting otherwise made you seem stuck up and unsympathetic. So we all went along using the same expression, because they weren't actually saying anything about our relationship to our children: they were a way of reaching out to one another.

A lot of the ball-and-chain language may well be doing the same.

Even on this thread I feel a bit awkward pointing out that not only is my own marriage of 25+ years very happy but most of the marriages in my family and among my friends seem to be, too: the ones who weren't happy got out and are now in happier relationships. On a thread where so many people have admitted to feeling unhappy, saying what I just said makes me seem a not very nice person.

Most people I know are happily married. It never ceases to amaze me that people can make a choice early in life and stick to it, but many do.

"Marriage isn’t meant to be fun"

I absolutely 100% disagree with this. The problem is people caring about a load of stuff that doesn't matter - wealth, status, looks - instead of the stuff that does - kindness, care, thinking and behaving alike on most issues.

The pattern I see a lot is one of middle class marriages destroyed by materialism. There is almost a script:

1. two people meet and fall in love. They begin living together, they go on holiday together, they go out a lot to restaurants and bars, and generally have a fabulous time. Life is good.
2. Time goes on, things get serious, they decide to get married and spend a great deal of money on a wedding, accruing shared debt.
3. They get promoted, and have enough to buy their first flat together.
4. In their late 20s/early 30s they decide to have children. By this time, some of the youthful fun has already gone, and they've started to become more involved in careers and more hard-nosed about life, sometimes even a little bored.
5. To accommodate their growing family, they decide to upgrade from a flat to a house, and they buy at the top end of what they can afford.
6. A couple of kids arrive, and the woman in a heterosexual partnership takes a bit of a career break or does reduced hours to care for them when young. By this time, dissatisfaction with work has started to creep in for the man, but they are locked in with him as the sole wage earner, so he pretty much has to swallow it down and keep on going, sometimes very miserably.
7. The house is loud, messy and chaotic, they are both tired, and they argue continually. Both people are barely coping. For some reason, they decide that the answer is to buy an even bigger house, and to bury themselves with an even bigger mountain of debt, apparently for the sole reason that their other friends who have done this, and because of the kudos that attaches to a random set of letters in a postcode. They wrestle with their consciences and decide that their children really deserve an expensive private education. They also get a big car, generally on monthly payments, because there has to be some compensation for working this hard and struggling so much, right?
8. The bloke is stressed and can't talk about it. The wife is stressed and can't talk about it. The debt is a millstone around their necks. The man starts to spend more time at work - there are excuses for staying late, and a hobby starts up that takes him out of the house for long stretches - cycling maybe, or golf. The woman is stuck at home with the kids a lot, feeling resentful and taken for granted, and wishing she was back at work at times. They barely see each other any more.
9. A younger colleage in the office starts to approach the guy for advice, and career help, and he's flattered by the attention, an by the chance to talk to someone about what he's going through. A guy at the school gates is there with a sympathetic ear, to listen to the woman's misery, or she goes back to work and meets someone interesting there who seems caring and sweet and not indifferent and absent.

10. ...

Seline

Are you the poster who’s husband is head of the household and ‘that’s the way it should be’?

Because if you are, I’m not sure many people agree with your ‘happy marriage ideal’ measure.

I love my husband. My marriage is I think happy. I wouldn’t have any other man/husband.

But I still sometimes joke about the freedom from family life. Not being a wife and mother. Wanting to date young hot hunky men. But that last bit isn’t real, it’s reminiscing about being 20 again. I’d hate to be dating in reality.

@IdaBwells why is going to the pub with friends a sign of a bad marriage?

I think there are plenty of reasons why people stay in unhappy marriages.
The fact men live longer when they are married says it all. Married, happy or not, means they have an easier life. There is a reason why men seem to leave a relationhsip only when they have another one lined up.
Women, on the other side, are often finding themselves financially dependant in those men. Plus they have been raised to think that if there is a problem, it’s up to them to solve it and that they are somehow responsible. Aka they do all the emotional work in the marriage.
The consequence is that they feel responsible for ending the marriage. And scared to end up with no money (eg because they don’t have a career anymore, will end up raising the kids alone with no money form the ex, so will end up in poverty etc etc). Basically the result of a still massive powerrr imbalance in the
On paper, we live in a era where you can get divorced, be single etc etc and have a freedom that people didn’t have before.
In reality, we still don’t have ‘real’ freedom to do what we want and we still do a lot of trading up (eg not that happy but I have someone looking after me or nitbthat ahppy but less financial worries etc etc).

Sadly, I agree. I know several people who appear to have happy relationships and marriages but if you scratch the surface, it's a different story. One friend is physically abused, another is emotionally and financially abused, another keeps the peace by being a surrendered wife, another is massively frustrated about her husband doing fuck all with their children, another is driven to the edge with her strategically incompetent husband, another makes it work by living separate lives and openly admits that they'd divorce otherwise, another was gaslighted and cheated on for years and is now divorced and on and on it goes.

down I think what you are describing is someth8ng else.
It’s the reasons why people in their 30s~40s are actually te most unhappy generation wise.
Happiness seems to raise back when people are reaching their 50s and children are at Uni.....

Which then brings another question. Is that people are unhappy in their marriage or is it that phase in their life that is simply harder, having to deal with children and all the responsibility, emotional, financial etc... that comes with it.

Mad - I definitely think there's a peak of stress at that age. I do, however, think that quite a lot of it is avoidable. People are basically prepared to sacrifice their marriage for the sake of living in their ideal home and driving a Range Rover. It's mad.

Speak for yourself - we are quite happily married and so are the friends I have that are married. Have you polled every single married couple to confirm your statement? What a very silly statement to make. It must be the company you keep if marriages are falling apart around you.

MadAboutWands Stats show people are unhappies in their early 50s.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/24/under-50-you-still-havent-hit-rock-bottom-happiness-wise/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5ab4c10a87f9

When people hit retirement age, happiness soars. A fact I have seen many times in real life as well.

Also amongst women, a percentage will have have very difficult menopauses and that impacts happiness a lot.
Age discrimination at work also has an impact, plus 40s and 50s is when people often start to have elderly parents who need more help, followed by bereavements.

Similarly, people don’t just sit and bleat on about how perfect their marriage is and are more likely to complain or make jokes about it.

I went out with a group of women recently (we have all worked together for 10+ years.) All married.
One left her H last year after 20 years because he never helped with anything in the house and even asked why she’d gone part time to raise their two sons because he didn’t get what she did all day...she had an affair and then eventually left him.

One has been married 25 years but had many affairs. Her ‘D’H won’t let her leave.

One has been with her DH 14 years. And had just started an EA with a colleague.

And then me. With DH 12 years. Happy for the majority. I made a comment about how I just feel kind of “what now?” We’ve bought and done up our house, got married and had a baby. I feel like my life is completely set and it terrifies me.

When I confessed to feeling kind of bored and trapped in my life right now, they all said “thank god you’re normal!” They said I always seemed so blissfully happy with DH and never ever said anything negative, me saying that made them realise EVERYONE gets bored.

Maybe it is the kind of women attracted to my area of work. Or maybe it does just happen in most long term relationships.

I love DH more than anything apart from DD. But life (I) changed when I had my daughter. It’s something you can never know or preempt until it’s happened, but I kind of came to realise that I don’t need him as much as I thought because I went through pregnancy, through birth, night feeds etc and I did it myself. It’s made me see starkly the inequalities between men and women and the differences between us in a way I never noticed before. Just being honest, I want to be with him forever but our relationship has definitely changed.

That Divorce rate in UK is over 40% says a lot. Of the remaining 60% how many are sticking around for;

Benefit of Children
Money
Think they are past it and be unable to find a new partner
Religious pressures

I think how you're feeling affects how you view other relationships. I'm happily married and seems like most couples I know are too. I know some who aren't but the majority seem happy.

It’s made me see starkly the inequalities between men and women and the differences between us in a way I never noticed before.

YY to that.
It felt like having children made us go back to the 1950s. And it wasn’t a good feeling.

Of the people I can think of;

All newlyweds are head over heels, but nearly all have separate finances and constantly instagram about how amazing they are and how in love they are. Watch this space.

The 10ish year married couples with children all lead slightly separate lives but appear to rub along ok

The ones with teenagers are nearly all completely on different agendas but probably stay together for the sake of ease. Only one couple appear to truly love each other as partners as well as co-parents

Anyone that's made it over 20 years, particularly those with empty nests are the ones who I really doubt would cope without each other, true soulmates. The vast majority fulfil traditional gender stereotype roles of man working and woman child/house keeping.

DH and I adore one another and everything is absolutely equal. We both work, do childcare and housework, all financial decisions are shared and we're honest with each other. I dearly hope we stand the test of time, we've gotten this far by trusting each other and we're very happy

Are you the poster who’s husband is head of the household and ‘that’s the way it should be’?

Don't think I've ever said that or would describe him as head of the household. I'm a SAHM and he works, again that's great for us but not for everyone.

The long term marriages I see all around me are a mixture tbh. I'm divorced after leaving an unhappy marriage. I wouldn't marry again. I like being responsible for my own emotional well being and am in no rush to hand that over to someone else.