Another friend - another separtion.....

[Putitonthelist]

I can count on one hand the number of my girlfriends who are still with their husbands.

Over the last few years several friends (me included) have separated from their DH's - varying reasons - from cheating/lying/EA/VA and just 'I don't love him/her anymore'.

I don't think it's a coincedience that all these friends are in their eary to mid-40's - what happens? The number of people discovering affairs on MN alone is mind-blowing. Were people more discreet years ago??

Today I found out another friend has kicked out her lying H. It's so sad - I really don't believe in soulmates/the one/lifelong love anymore........

*separation!! doh!!

Maybe it's as simple as there being a rush of weddings about 15 - 20 years ago, they went into it 'eyes shut' and, now that the kids are a bit less dependent, they're looking at the balding/cheating/abusive/boring arse across the breakfast table and thinking 'I can do SO much better'.

"The number of people discovering affairs on MN alone is mind-blowing. "

You can't use MN as a straw poll of society. People post a lot about affairs because they're in crisis and need a listening ear. There is another 90%+ that don't post because they're quite happy a nice Sunday morning in with the newspapers.

The number of affairs I read about on MN scares me if I'm honest. But it's like restaurant reviews - you'll write a review of something that is terrible but not average iyswim. People aren't going to start a thread saying my life is normal and there are no problems with my marriage....... But yes reading about all the affairs / EAs shocks me.

I'm early 30s and friends are all getting married now and I really hope they last. Some I am confident for, others less so sadly.

Also I think things like Facebook, Internet etc have made affairs easier - people start messaging a colleague / old flame on Facebook and it goes from there these days......

Despite 'considering' marriage at the moment. Maybe, the concept of a 'life partner' is reaching its natural success rate. Maybe the concept is becoming outdated. With less societal pressure and less religious pressure maybe a life with one partner isn't the norm.
Maybe that because Society expects you to marry and find a partner, people are less stringent when choosing a partner.

it is the same here - all mid 40s, and I have 2 friends + me, out of about 12 who I would say were close (enough to ask for a last minute favour) who have never been divorced..

but I believe I'm with the love of my life - as I'm sure they did....

I have the opposite view about MNet. I think it's much more reperesentative of the true numbers of affairs and unhappy marriages than we ever get in real-life.

I used to think it was odd that there were so many affairs going on at work and in close friendship groups, yet I rarely heard about one in my 'acquaintanceship' circle. But I think that's because people only tell a few close pals about it if it's discovered, some tell no-one and others are deluding themselves that it could never happen to them.

Agree with the more general observation that people often get to their late thirties and forties when the intensive child-rearing is over and think 'is this it?' plus I think it's a jolly good thing that people are reluctant to stay in bad relationships just because one day years ago they promised they would until they popped their clogs.

I agree Anna Facebook, mobile phones, etc. have made affairs easier. I also agree that people don't just settle now and stay with 'boring arses'

I'd never heard of EA's until I joined Mumsnet!!

Interesting, Francesca, about it being more representative, I hadn't thought about it like that, but you have a point. :)

I haven't been on mn for long but I was surprised about the number of affairs and unhappy marriages I read about. However I have had 2 good friends both leave their husbands 2 years ago and then at the same time they ended the relationships with the men they took up with afterwards. Friends are from separate friendship groups and don't know each other and are of different ages too.

I think people get together as its often the normal thing to do and once they get to a point where the kids are less needy they look at the spouse and wonder what they have in common.

Marriage has never appealed to me and I have been a serial monogamist all of my life.

I agree about mobiles and facebook giving people much more opportunity to be unfaithful.

I don't think you can look back 50 years and say how happy people were with their marriages, many older people I know would have preferred to separate but times made it extremely difficult for them to do so.

I do think society encourages men to want it all and women still to be expected to provide it all, very unrealistic to adhere to.

I don't think it's just people were more discreet - I think a lot more people (particularly women) suffered on in unhappy marriages with little chance of escape. Also, the average length of a 19th century marriage was something like 12 years - usually because of mothers dying in childbirth, people dying of industrial accidents, infections and so on, but there were also those who broke up and didn't bother with formal marriage and divorce (it would have been much easier than today to just move towns looking for work and tell people you're married, even if you technically weren't. Though it's difficult to know what those figures really were - people just appear and disappear on census records.)

Basically, I don't think anything's particularly changed - except that we're more open about bad relationships these days, and less prepared to put up with bad treatment. It's not just more socially acceptable to be divorced these days, but it's also legally easier, and there are other things which have changed legally, like a man can now be guilty of raping his wife, and the way police treat domestic abuse has also changed, so views on what is acceptable behaviour has also changed - for the better.