To have reminded DD that marriage is a serious commitment that shouldn’t be ended on a whim?

[CSalts]

DD married 18 months ago and has dropped the bombshell to me today that she wants a divorce and asked my advice. Apparently she’s been feeling this way ever since the excitement of the wedding wore off but had tried to put it to the back of her mind. DD and SIL have been together for a long time, since they were both 18 (she’s 27 now). SIL is lovely and very much part of our family. We are close with his family also and always celebrate Christmas and birthdays together. Both families would be shocked and devastated if things were to end. DD says just doesn’t think she loves him anymore. The only real reason she could give is that she thinks she met him when too young/wouldn’t choose him now and is tired of carrying the mental load (he can be a typical man at times, a bit forgetful and messy around the house). I’m told that poor SIL knows how DD is feeling and is desperate to make things work

I pointed out to DD that there are men far worse than her DH and that if there has been no infidelity or abuse, she should be prepared to work at the marriage as she has made a very serious commitment which shouldn’t be ended recklessly and turn their lives upside down. AIBU? They don’t have DC yet but have committed in many other ways, for example they own properties together.

DD is now upset with me for not being supportive, yet she asked my opinion. Should I have lied? Her view is that she doesn’t want to waste a minute longer in an unhappy marriage and wants to move on and find someone else before wasting her time further. All I ever want for DD is for her to be happy, but I don’t want to see her making a terrible mistake which can’t be undone... I’m all too aware that the grass isn’t always greener.

If, after 9 years of relationship, she doesn't love him any more, there are no children yet and she doesn't want to be married to him any more, she shouldn't be advised to stay in the marriage only because there are worse men in the world, her family loves him and the two families get along well together. None of these are reasons for someone to stay married to someone she doesn't love and want to be with. Especially not at 27!

@messolini9 I think you’ve misunderstood. By SIL I’m referring to my son-in-law, DD’s husband.

The family can all see that what DD and SIL have is very special

How can they see a relationship better than the two people in it?

It's been 18 months. That's long enough to have reached judgement about HER relationship with HER partner. How can anyone else tell her how they think she ought to feel? It's not their relationship.

And what's exciting or fairytale about being single again?

@messolini9

DD did not marry her SiL

In this thread SIL stands for Son in law, not sister. I found it hard at first too.

Ok

Have name changed for this.

HOW FUCKING DARE YOU OFFER YOUR DAUGHTER TO THE ALTAR OF PROPRIETY.

I felt like this two years after I got married and stupidly confided in my mother, I got the same shitty answer you have given your daughter. I tell her nothing now.

We got past our blip because work started to take him away four days a week, and we have settled into something that works and whilst not rich we are not poor, would hate to be pissed off and broke.

The older we get, the duller he gets and whilst as I said it now works I still resent my mother 28 years later and will hiss as much into her open coffin when she dies.

Stop with your pearl clutching and wondering what the neighbours will think and get on with supporting your daughter.

I am so angry on your daughters behalf I could spit.

And yes I still feel like that 28 years later.

The family can all see that what DD and SIL have is very special

She's been unhappy and wanted to leave him for the best part of 18months and you think it's very special. YOUR daughter has been unhappy with a man who doesn't pull his weight, for 18months and is going to have to deal with feeling responsible for breaking his heart and also disappointing his family who she undoubtedly close to as well as the personal feelings of failure and embarrassment most people feel when a marriage breaks down, and all you can say is poor SIL.

18 months of feeling this way is not a whim. You only see them in public, no-one ever really knows the reality of a relationship behind closed doors - she's telling you she's unhappy and wants to leave, that's all you need to know to think what they have is NOT something really special.

Did she actually ask you whether you think she should leave, or did she come to you and say she's decided she wants to leave and asked you for advice about that? I.e. how to go about it. Just telling her that the difficult decision she's made, is NOT supportive. YABU

You should ne fully supporting your daughter. Can you imagine the courage she's summoned to have shared this with you. You're her mother and should have her back no matter what.

The family can all see that what DD and SIL have is very special

But if she's not happy, this is totally irrelevant.

She sounds sensible and wants to end the marriage now - even if it's not what you want.

You can remain friends with your son-in-law and his family after the divorce, OP.

You've known them a long time after all.

It sounds like you're going to be very embarrassed by your DD's actions - but that is neither here nor there.

She has come to this decision alone and is not happy.

You must be about my age (I have DC about the age of your DD) and divorce was not frowned upon by our generation at all.

This isn't a generational thing. This is a difficult situation for your DD because you personally are intransigent about divorce.

Have you got any other children?

Is there someone else you can talk to IRL about this? It has obviously come as a shock to you.

The only real reason she could give is that she thinks she met him when too young/wouldn’t choose him now and is tired of carrying the mental load (he can be a typical man at times, a bit forgetful and messy around the house). I’m told that poor SIL knows how DD is feeling and is desperate to make things work

That's a very good reason for her to want to end the marriage. They've been together 9 years. She's had 9 years of carrying the mental load and has had enough. How messy is messy? If she can't live in a mess and SIL isn't prepared to pull his weight that must be a real strain for her. I was with a partner for 6 years and had to do all the mental work for both of us (eg. remembering appointments, organizing finances) and he was a messy slob who just threw his clothes on the floor because he couldn't be bothered - he always claimed he had nowhere to put clothes he wanted to wear again. Wasn't interested in coming up with a solution either. If you have to live with things like this over a long time the resentment builds up and you get ground down by it all - even though the things in themselves seem trivial. It's about one person not wanting to compromise and not do their fairshare of the work.

It's probably got to the stage where they've been thinking about having children and she's realized that she doesn't want to have children with HIM and wants to move on. Those types of thoughts can precipitate the end of a marriage.

The family can all see that what DD and SIL have is very special. She is risking throwing it all away for excitement or a fairytale life which in reality doesn’t exist. I don’t think anyone can honestly say they are happy in their marriage 100% of the time.

You have no idea what goes on behind closed doors. It doesn't have to get to the stage of infidelity, abuse and violence before a relationship isn't viable anymore. She could be painting a very positive picture of the marriage in the face of what seems to be a lot of family pressure because the in laws adore each other etc.
She will have been weighing up the pros and cons for a long time before she mentioned it to you. She didn't just wake up one morning and decide to leave. It might have come as a surprise to "poor" SIL but he should have been taking more notice of what she was trying to tell him earlier - eg. stop making a mess everywhere, take on your fair share of everything

If she were my daughter I would support her but I would be very disappointed. Marriage is a serious commitment and to give up on it after only 18 months is sad and rather pathetic.

I am a very strong believer in marriage though. Also, despite what some posters may say or think, divorce is still a big deal to a lot of people

You should also get him to read this one:

english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/

Maybe the family needs to butt out. Clearly it isn't special and none of you seem to have noticed that.

YABU.

You're not wrong to impress upon her that she ought to take marriage seriously but surely you don't your daughter to stay with someone they don't love, and then potentially bring kids into the mix and split down the line, just because he is well liked in the family? Surely you want her not to waste her life?

I must admit that this is really getting up my nose too, because this is exactly the way my DM thinks, and is what has ruined our relationship my whole life. She is convinced she "knows me better than I know myself" and if I only let her make all my major life decisions, I'd be so much better off. The fact is that the life she would choose for me would be so confining that I would suffocate in it, and it makes me feel desperately lonely that she knows me so little and indeed is so little interested in what I feel and think.

Had I the misfortune to find myself in the OP's daughter's situation, I suspect it would have turfed our relationship forever, and the process of leaving the relationship would have been so unnecessarily much harder and more painful.

I think you’re sadly letting your daughter down. The whole thread is about how you feel. Your daughter is telling you she isn’t happy anymore. It’s hardly on a whim as they’ve been together ages. Marriage is a signed legal piece of paper and a fancy party, I cannot believe you’re being unsupportive because of that.

She is calling for your help and all you can say is how devastated other people would be if they split up.

Marriage is a serious commitment and to give up on it after only 18 months is sad and rather pathetic.

That's a horrid and judgemental thing to say. No-one can know the ins and outs of anyone's relationship and pressurising people to stay (which this attitude is) is potentially abusive.

She's given it seven years. That doesn't sound like a whim to me.

She has grown up. Her husband hasn't.

In this situation, a good mother would offer space and support for her daughter to work it through. Be that good mother OP, it's not too late.

The family can all see that what DD and SIL have is very special

So the nice little social group know the ins and outs of your DD's 9 year relationship than she does?

How many more years is she supposed to give this? Nine years and she wants out - its not exactly a hasty decision.

Marriage is a serious commitment and to give up on it after only 18 months is sad and rather pathetic.

No. what is sad, pathetic and damaging is people like you whose attitude harms people, almost always women, who are trapped in unhappy marriages and making them feel that it's wrong for them to get out of them, regardless of how miserable they are and the consequences to their happiness and self esteem.

I'm sure you want your DD to be happy, OP, and maybe she also wants you to be happy. And that might mean she's giving you the "condensed version" of events and hoping you'll understand.

Like previous posters, I confided in my parents once my marriage was almost beyond repair — like your DD, I was with my ex for a long time before we married. My mother adored him. I was unhappy and in pain, lonely, and lost.

I divorced him after making a LOT of effort to fix things. DM was dreadfully upset and believed I had acted arbitrarily. Having shielded her from the worst of it in the first place, I couldn't convince her otherwise, and she never forgave me. We don't talk now, and the rare occasions when I try always descend into bad faith on her side and pain on mine. That is worse than the loss of my marriage, and I loved my ex.

She isn't happy and it must have taken courage to confide in you so I think you need to be supportive of her.

However, I don't think you are being unreasonable and I do agree with you that marriage is a serious commitment and shouldn't be ended without both parties trying to work out what is going wrong and trying to fix it first. You know your daughter more than anyone on these boards so I do believe you are better placed to have an opinion on this and if you think she is acting on a whim then perhaps she is.

I think the best thing now would be to talk to your daughter more. Give her a hug and tell she must do whatever she feels is the right think to do. Try not to judge - she is young and of the generation who don't believe marriage is for life. She believes that the man of her dreams is out there - unfortunately he's not the one she has just got married to.

typical man? Perhaps your daughter isn't the one with the low standards...

counselling might be worth a go to give him a chance to grow up, although if she got carried away with the frilly frock party over the actual marriage then she is not blameless. But if they aren't making each other happy, time to stop wasting each other's time.

a relationship that starts at 18 sees a lot of personality changes. That's why it isn't smart to marry that person too soon.

Marriage is a serious commitment and to give up on it after only 18 months is sad and rather pathetic.

It's not 18 months, it's a lot longer, relationship wise. She must have realised that it simply won't get better.
Many people in long term relationships who end up getting married, seem to do it for the wrong reasons, and the marriages end up being short because it strikes them that it didn't solve anything. They get caught up in the excitement of being engaged, then planning the wedding, and go through it.
When they're facing the prospect of it being forever and having children within it, then reality hits. There's no point in waiting just to make divorce more respectable. Then you get the opinions of "you've been married this long, why are you divorcing now?"
The right time is when it doesn't feel right.