Are good relationships really more the exception than the rule?

[ChangingChangingChanged]

When I was younger I used to assume that most marriages or long-term relationships were beneficial for the people involved, giving them emotional and practical support, love and (ideally) good sex. I thought that negative relationships were the exception.

Looking around me now, talking to friends and acquaintances, and from my own personal experience, it definitely seems to be the other way round, particularly from the female perspective but also for many men.

(I am getting divorced at the moment so am probably biased to some degree but we've managed to stay civilised and consciously I mainly feel relief that it's over rather than any great enmity.)

I can genuinely only think of a handful of long-term relationships where both partners seem to be happier and emotionally better off than they would be single. Only my own parents and two or three other couples obviously have a "happy marriage" in which they appear to enjoy one another's company and support each other to the extent you'd expect.

Every other relationship I can think of seems to be dysfunctional and misery-generating at best and riddled with physical or emotional abuse at worst.

I understand that some people stay together "for the sake of the children". Thinking of some of my friends' parents who did this, they were amongst the most miserable families I've encountered and their now-adult kids certainly don't thank them for it. This argument doesn't wash with me.

The chances of having a positive, constructive relationship with another adult seem so slim that atm I don't know why anyone bothers.

Is this really the truth?

I'm sure it was the same years ago but it wasn't talked about. Put up and shut up was rife.

I don't think so. This is the second marriage for both DH and I and we have one divorced friend (now in happy relationship). All married friends appear to be happily so.

my experience, observations etc would agree with yours op sadly.

i know of one married couple, both now turning 50, whose relationship i genuinely admire and see as all round healthy and to the outer eye they'd seem a really odd match ironically.

I see loads of happy relationships around me tbh. It gives me hope that one day I will have one too maybe you are noticing the negatives rather than the positives due to your current situation?

IMO, yes, they are the exception rather than the rule, amongst the people I know.

However here on MN there seems to be a lot of happy relationships around.

Most long term relationships have caused me nothing but heartache. I am seeing someone now, not seriously and even that is stressing me out no end. Maybe its just me though, just not suited to relationships.

Most couples just seem unhappy to me and the ones that aren't don't know the full story of what the other person in their relationship is doing. I know how depressing that sounds but its true in my experience.

I have been utterly horrified by what people can do to each other and im sorry but in my experience, in the couples I know it is mainly the men doing it to the women. In my own marriage, my ex dh cheated on me from weeks of the wedding, near constantly for 10 years. I know a couple who only married two years ago. On the surface they seem really happy, he was shagging prostitutes both before and within weeks of their wedding and has another women on the go right there in the village they live in. Two other couples I know were created when the man cheated on his WIFE and ended up leaving her for OW. In another couple both cheated a the beginning, the man prolifically and then the woman once but now neither will let the other out of their sight and they have horrific rows on a monthly basis. I could tell you so many more hair raising stories.

Anyway I agree entirely with your title, but I have moved on somewhat from a year or two ago where I was totally phobic about the idea of a relationship with anyone as all men are b*stards blah blah blah and am now at a point where I am hoping that I might just find a good un.

DH and I and all of our married friends of our own age all have happy marriages. Certainly we have our ups and downs and fair share of fights but weighing up the pros and cons we are very happy together.

And one friend of mine has such an incredibly happy marriage and outlook on life that it makes me want to puke at times. They are both extraordinarily positive people despite having suffered numerous miscarriages and very difficult times at work with redundancies and forced job moves.

In my dad's generation i knew of the men cheating, now amongst my acquaintances, i know of women cheating.

Other than the cheating i know of, most other people are content in their marriages. I'm not, but that's because i am an idiot.

I think that unhappy marriages get a lot more coverage in the forums and in rl too. When people talk on mn about relationships it's usually because they have a problem they need to discuss. If everything smells of roses there's no need to post about it.

When you read celeb news it's always about breakups rather than "oooh look at how loved up this couple is and how long they've been together" because breakups sell more copies of heat.

It's sad but I don't believe it's the norm. I love my wife and we've been together 10 years and that's the first time I've posted about my marriage.

Most of my friends with young children have marriage problems. None so bad that they would split up but many wonder if the grass is greener. I feel that young children put a strain on all but the strongest of relationships. It's a fine line between staying together for the sake of the children and staying together to get throguh this hard time. I frineds with children that have now left home that had very strained relationships earlier on but are very happy now.

I also look at my parents generation - in some ways they seem the divorce generation. Very few were very happy in their subsequent relationships.

My marriage is on the rocks but I feel I should do everything to try and hold it together. Partly for the sake of the children, but partly because I feel he's not a bad man, I loved him once (and still may do now), and this is a difficult time with 3 young children.

Hard to say. If you're feeling a little miserable, it's probably an element of confirmation bias. However, I also think that it's easy to think of other people in bad relationships because of things you couldn't stand.

Just to give some examples of my friends and their partners
One couple to me seem boring, like really, really boring - but they're probably happy in their own way.
One friend of mine is married to a real buffoon - but they're happy
One friend of mine is married to a cycling nut - weekends are spent with him away cycling all the time - but again, I guess they're happy

It would easy to imagine they're fairly unsatisfied relationships, but who really knows?

Sounds like a 50/50 split on this question.

Bennifer: When I talk about unhappy relationships I'm not including those between people who are just boring or silly and get on each other's nerves. If I did that I don't think I could name a single happy couple!

Sadly I agree with you op, lots of mediocre marriages around me I'm afraid, with many people staying out of habit, laziness or fear of being on their own, since my divorce I've had quite a few people come up to me and say how brave they think I've been and how they wish they'd done the same years ago but now feel too old and stuck in a rut!! Makes me feel sad tbh and I've lost all faith in the institute of marriage really hoping one day I feel different.

Why do people stay in them?

I know a lot of unhappy marriages / relationships but a lot of great ones too.

My own is very, very happy but this is due to DH being anazing / a saint.

I am something of a pain in the arse, I suspect I would be very unhappy with someone else.

Ooh! Interesting thread!
I know of a few people who are only married/in relationships because they've 'settled' and didn't expect anything better to come along. They're all really unhappy.

My DH aside (counting us as happy marrieds), everyone I know of in 'good' relationships grew up in disfunctional/non-'nuclear' families....maybe us people are less likely to settle/stay around out of habit, so are more likely to shop around for the best partner?

Fluffstar ditto.

Changing,

Fair enough, I was just using those as fairly simple examples of how it might be easily to superficially think a couple weren't happy. Of the people who are in really unhappy marriages, with violence, alcoholism, real resentment, etc, I don't think there are that many. But I think there are quite a lot that are "ok", people who at least appear to me to have settled in boring relationships, but they might be happy.

Have been reading the growing "Red flags I should have heeded - share yours for womenkind" thread, now up to 13 pages. If I was feeling a bit jaundiced about relationships before, I'm now a very deep shade of yellow indeed...

Most of my friends seem to like and love their husbands, there's the odd one who settled and is now getting no support from their husband but that's the trade they knew they were making when they settled at 40 to have children quickly. Lots of us do have ups and downs though, sometimes for months, but I don't know many people who are really unhappy or want to leave, most seem quite happy.

On MN relationships board, it's obviously a different story, but of course people here are detailing how awful things are in the hopes of getting advice. I have been startled by the awfulness of some of these relationships though, and the low level devaluing especially of wives (e,g, not seeing them as equal, not treating their career as equal, not caring about their happiness) which I have found disturbing and not typical of the relationships I see in RL.

I think it depends what you are used to. My parents have been together since 14 never had a heated argument in front of us, still hold hands everywhere they go, very loving and do everything together. I am with dh and its a very similar marriage and I do think it comes from choosing someone (subconsiously) that is very much like my parents.

There isnt really much divorce within my own family and all of them are in happy marriages as you can tell by being around them very cuddly, do everything together, always affectionate, best friends etc.

I have friends in bad relationships but they seem to pick people that I wouldnt touch with a barge pole and it is glaringly obvious from the start that person will be an idiot. Then they break up and go for the same type of people again and again. I really dont understand that tbh and dont think I ever will.