To ask why so many women are in unhappy marriages?

[jennie0412]

Not victim blaming, a genuine question! It's overwhelming over on the relationships board how many women are utterly unhappy in their marriages. Why is this happening so much? it makes me not even want to try with relationships because I'm worried I'll end up being 23 married to a 47 year old bloke who won't touch me!

If you read the posts here on MN - the key reason is mostly money!!

Women stay at home, don’t work or only part-time and have zero savings or job security to leave.

I will never understand why women put themselves in this position.

Yeah I'm not saying there aren't problems but you aren't going to get a genuinely representative sample. Those of us in very happy marriages don't tend to start threads about it.

Sometimes you can wait, be careful and fussy, do the work, have the therapy, face every relationship challenge with positivity and be firmly on a self-growth path, with very realistic expectations of what a long-term relationship can be like. You can have every person who knows you both sigh over how well-matched you are. You can even have the ‘perfect’ kid in the mix, and really think you’re set for a life full of companionship, teamwork, laughs, sex and joint goals.

Then one day he announces he’s changed his entire philosophy on life, sees great merit in a more religious and politically right-wing conservative life. Falls down a Men’s Rights internet rabbit-hole. Decides work is shit so quits. And bang, there goes your sexlife, any chance of balanced calm conversation, your financial future and any decent co-parenting aspirations. Your friends start pitying you, and your kid is embarrassed to have their friends over.

The shock and disbelief at how your life seemed to go to fuck overnight is unbelievably hard and paralysing.

Point being, sometimes there’s no ‘red flags’ at all. We are just all living so much longer that there’s more opportunity for people you knew well to do multiple ‘about-faces’. That’s my opinion, anyway.

If I was starting out again, I’d see relationships as 5 year contracts, with the option of extending another 5 years if both agree. And keep my finances far more seperate. Jump in with joy, jump out with no shame if things go bad.

I would suggest that it is because those women who are happy in their marriage don't go to the relationship board to voice it. So you are only seeing one side of things.

Similarly on a finance board you are likely to see mainly postings from people who are having difficulties rather than those who are OK.

Or why are so many of the people in hospitals ill?

I'm not likely to post for advice about my loving, happy relationship.

You get a skewed view here.

Children.
That's why they stay.

Because it’s a myth that marriage makes people happier. There are just as many happy/miserable people in long term relationships as there are in marriages.

Agree with @Mintjulia and @Nikori- financial security.

It's almost impossible for a woman to leave when she is financially dependent on her husband and maintain the children's lifestyle. Women still earn less than men in general and are more likely to have disrupted careers....

What makes my heart weep are the numbers of SAHMs who say they are doing their best for their family, and don't realise the immense cost to their own future freedom.

For a start MNers are not representative of the general population and obviously those unhappy are more likely to post.

But mainly very few marriage go through 20, 30, 40 years happy all through it. Most marriage have ups and downs and many extremes up and downs. Even the couples who appear the happiest are likely to have experienced a crisis. Many are very private about it so even those closest to them wouldn't know.

It's oy in MNs that people seperate at the slightest hurdle. In real life, people accept that relationship are hard and get better working through them.

Still about 50% will end up in divorce though so yes,any I happy women and men at some stage.

@popcornlover

The ones on Mumsnet are daft Stay At Homes Mums who want an easy life rather than earning. It comes back to bite them on the bum.

Elsewhere, I think most people are in sound relationships, so don’t use the MN SAHMummies as an example.

What an offensive post. Well done

@popcornlover

The ones on Mumsnet are daft Stay At Homes Mums who want an easy life rather than earning. It comes back to bite them on the bum.

Elsewhere, I think most people are in sound relationships, so don’t use the MN SAHMummies as an example.

Wow.

Please ignore such disgusting views OP, there is nothing wrong in being a SAHM, nor is it an easy life.

From birth women are conditioned to undervalue themselves and their contributions to life. And to view men as a prize, marriage as a goal in itself. Letting that go feels like failing.

(Not a bad life either, but this poster is suggesting it’s lazy, it’s not)

Wasn’t it Loretta Lynn who pointed out feminism was a middle class indulgence?

Fear of economic insecurity.
Fear of ‘breaking up the family’ and the effect on their children.
Fear of ‘failure’.
Fear of the unknown.
In some cases, fear of their husband.

Many of us are happily married, though. I’ve been with my husband for nearly 20 years and we have been through some shit together, but he is a fundamentally good man and my best friend. Wouldn’t be without him!

Kids. Two of my close friends are in what outwardly look like perfect marriages, but are actually desperately unhappy. Neither will contemplate leaving due to potential impact on the children.

@MiddlesexGirl well, apparently whatever her life choices were they've made her very happy

'Even the couples who appear the happiest are likely to have experienced a crisis. Many are very private about it so even those closest to them wouldn't know.'

Exactly! A lot of people are very private when it comes to relationships and dont splash it about in real life let alone on mumsnet.

Dp and I have had a rocky couple of weeks as he dropped a bit of a bombshell on me 2 weeks ago, not an affair though.

We talk a lot and thrash things out and we're largely ok now but I didnt put it on here. No doubt if I had I would have had post after post saying ltb!

Nothing at all dodgy either or illegal lol

Popcorn, your post makes about as much senses as car drivers complaining about traffic jams

Speaking from personal experience; first I thought love would conquer all, then I thought he'd change, then I thought i could live with him as he was and I didn't mind sacrifice for family and kids, then I was trapped...

It took a lot of time to be able to leave. And still I feel guilty for splitting up the family. My kids didn't deserve this. I miss them when they are with their dad.

Its a hard thing to do.

Because there are a limited number of decent men out there, the single ones who dwindle enormously after the late twenties.

Because people are trying to fit round pegs into square holes, to fit in with society's ideas of a happy relationship.

Because some men deliberately marry quiet, happy to stay at home types without a career or any financial independence, then treat them badly. And those women then get caught between living in poverty if they leave or living in misery if they don't.

I'd never, ever marry an older man unless he was independently wealthy, otherwise it virtually guarantees that you end up nursing someone in their decreptitude while still going out to make ends meet, and years of widowhood.

I think the question of why women stay in bad relationships and marriages is different to the question of how they get into them in the first place. For that answer I think you have to look at female socialisation. I've seen too many posts by women saying "we've been together for 2 months and he's slept with an escort", "we've had 3 dates and he's called me a bitch", "it's been 8 months and he's still only affectionate when he wants sex" etc, clearly not situations where the woman is trapped in any way by finance or children but they still aren't leaving. I think that women are raised to see the goal of dating as securing a long term relationship, rather than assessing their date for areas of campatibility. So they start dating someone, discover ways in which they are incompatible (or actively horrible) and instead of thinking "OK so let me find someone different who I actually get on with" they look for ways of "fixing" the bits that are wrong, either by trying to change their date, or by resigning themselves from day one to a life with a man who doesn't meet their needs. Because they've forgotten that from their POV that's what dating in the early days should be, finding someone who meets your needs. Instead they spend hours trying to figure out his needs so that they can tie themselves in knots meeting them in the hope that the relationship will progress to marriage, whether or not that would actually make them happy. I think this is because women's worth in society is still very much tied up in how "successful" we are in heterosexual love, with the highest goal being seen as finding a husband and having children. Basically more women need to realise that relationships have to work for them, that you can leave anyone at any time for any reason, and that being incompatible with someone is a sign you should move on rather than a hurdle to be overcome before living happily ever after. I wish every woman would write down a list of non negotiable things that she wants from a relationship, no matter how obscure, obvious, or numerous. If you only want to date men who are 6ft 5 and work in a bank and wear green on a Monday then that's your right. More realistically, if you need a lot of physical affection then don't compromise on that, if no drugs or alcohol is a deal breaker then don't compromise on that, if you want a partner who texts a lot and wants to speak on the phone often then that's fine, if you have a problem with porn and don't want him following scantily clad women on Instagram then that's 100% your right. Ditto for views on marriage, children, communication styles etc etc. Depending on what your criteria is you may or may not find someone, or it may take a lot of dates to meet him, but the point is to think honestly "what things would I be unhappy with/without in a relationship?" and then commit to choosing no man over the one who makes you unhappy. Of course this isn't fool proof. It doesn't stop life getting in the way, or people changing. It doesn't screen out the manipulators who just say what you want to hear. But if more women viewed dating as an exercise in centering their own needs and wants, for the advancement of their own personal happiness and fulfillment, rather than viewing relationships as something that's happening to them, where the man has all the voice and agency and their role is to be passive and stoical on the grand quest towards heterosexual marriage and family, then I personally think we'd see more happy relationships.

Essentially this is because lots of women sign up to the myth that when you find a man he will complete you and you will live happily ever after. So they marry someone who isn't right for them just so they aren't alone. When life turns out to be messy and complicated the same women feel trapped and bored and miserable.

Obviously there are people who just make horrible mistakes and are taken in by abusive terrible people too.