Young children ? Will you stay married, after your children leave home9 say in 10-15 yrs) ?

[Oblomov]

Many people stay for the sake of children don't they ?
I can't wait till ds (3.5) leaves home . Then I will ahve my lovely dh all to myself again. I mean this tongue-in-cheek. But seriously, will I be married, in a loving relationship, in 15 years time ? I like to think so .
Can you say the same ?
Do you neglect you dh, and focus on the children. Will you have a relationship left, with dh, when the children are gone ?

myyoungest are 14 - i'm looking forward to what i am terming a "working retirement"

My next door neighbour didn't - as soon as the last one left home, the day the mortgage was paid off she left.

Me?? I truly don't know. Dh is a workaholic so he won't probably notice they've left To be honest the thought of having an empty nest makes me well up

I find it difficult to say, which is one reason DP and I aren't married, I think it's hard to say what things will be like in a decade or so. But I do have various ideas for what I'd like to do when the dds are grown-up, and if DP isn't prepared to join in I'll probably do them anyway. Things like working abroad, being quite unsettled and mobile.

But our relationship is based on the idea that neither of us believes it has to last forever. So if we don't end up together, there will be no vows broken or expectations ruptured.

Yes (agreeing with Fennel); probably the only thing I've learned, over the years, is the wayward mutability of the human heart,

Cod, what constitutes looooooads of money?

Gawd MI and Fennel,what a depressing way to live yer life.
Nowt ventured nowt gained.

Tried that one, Moondog, the This Is It For Ever lark. It lasted, ooh, four years. I'm not stupid. Not making that mistake again.

Ooh, have you been married MI? I didn't know that! (no reason why I should mind!)

I've now been married twice, triumph of hope over experience etc

I haven't a clue. Although we were just discussing it today and sort of told each other that if we keep living like we are doing now, we'll probably get divorced soon.

By having low expectations,I feel it becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.

Mind you,I can't be doing with all that 'soulmate,lover and best friend' guff.

Dh and I are completely different and have very little in common.

Never see each other either.

Oh, I really really hope so. I can't wait to finally have some "us time". We married very soon after meeting each other but I'd do it again tomorrow. It has not been easy the last 5 years but he's an absolute angel...can't wait!

We never quite got round to getting married, WWW - we were going to, and then everything started falling apart, and he left. It was a long time ago now, but I think it inoculated me against the whole scenario - that and the fact that in the ensuing 18 months I became aware just how mutable the hearts of a lot of seemingly committed married people were, if you get my drift.

I do indeed get yer drift

I don't like to think that I am staying "for the sake of the children" but know that's how it appeared in my post about respecting DHs/DPs! DH and I have been together 13 years and I'm not about to throw that away. For most of those 13 years, when it's just me, him and the children, we have a lovely family life. But I've taken an awful lot of cr@p from both him and his parents. Time and time again, I've turned a blind eye to being ignored and played at "happy families" after their hissy fits, mainly because I thought DH appreciated and respected me for doing so. But last year he told me (in a row a few days before a visit from his parents) that, "husbands and wives don't stand up for each other if it's going to cause conflict with family". Suddenly, it fell into place as to why he'd never stood up for me or the children, or asked his parents to apologise after their tantrums. But it also was a relief, because I knew that I didn't owe him or his parents a d@mned thing anymore. So, I've not seen his parents for nearly 7 months and not been to their house for nearly 3 years. DH's welcome to visit when he likes (the ILs have accused me of splitting up the family) and when they visit us, I do my own thing instead of working myself into the ground shopping, cooking, cleaning (and looking after our 3DDs!) and then being ignored during the visit. Now, it's all down to DH. And they hate it- which is why they haven't visited for 7 months! All I can say is that it's been wonderful not feeling that I have to visit (I used to spend hours sitting by myself in their front room, while they played at being "good grandparents" and had DH to themselves) and I think DH knows that I'm not doing anything for him when it comes to his parents anymore. But it's also made me realise that I don't have to stay when the children have "left the nest" either. I think DH also realises that I was serious last year when I said that if he didn't stand up for me and the children, we'd be heading for the divorce courts and he could move in with his mummy and daddy. He knows how close he came to losing us.
So that's the way things stand. I'm enjoying our family when it's the 5 of us, but I'm not going to make any guarantees that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with DH once DDs have grown up.
Apologies Oblomov, I didn't mean my post to come over all "doom and gloom!"

Yeah I think we will, we make plans for our future when the children have left home. We both enjoy traveling and are going back packing We never intend to sell the family home though, our kids will always have their bedrooms here and be welcome any time, i like to think they'll still spend time with us as adults.

I doubt we will make it as far as the children leaving home

I don't find it depressing at all, we are very happy. Been together 12 years and no particular problems in all that time. But loads of people think it's going to be for ever and turn out to be so very wrong. What's so depressing about accepting that lots of relationships aren't forever, and that doesn't necessarily mean they are time wasted?

Petunia, I am sorry too, I didn't mean to make you an example/ a scapegoat/ or anything similar.

As i said below, I'm with fennel and MI and - in particular I don;t think it's "depressing". depressing assumes that there is intrinsic value to an everlasting relationship. imo relationships derive their value from their capacity to make you happy, to "work", to be the "right thing", at the current time. if I don;t want to be with dh in 10 years time then I don;t. but I want to be with him now. And i'm living now, not 10 years hence.

I'm not saying I don;t want to be with him. I sincerely hope i do. I'm just saying I don;t think longevity is an end in itself. If my life pans out such that I don;t end up with him it doesn;t mean that I've wasted any time or had a relationship of inherently less value. In fact I strongly suspect that 15 or 20 years of me and dh is worth a whole lot more than 50 years of some relationships. and probably less than two years of some relationships

I suppose it's all about how you perceive you would handle a break up particularly if children are involved. I personally suspect that those who are comfortable with the apparently intrinsic uncertainty of a relationship are really rather secure hence their attitude. And that is not intended as a slur, forgive me, it's late.

Oblomov- Thanks for that. I didn't feel like a scapegoat or anything like that. I think it's interesting to see if there are any women who feel they stay in a marriage, "just for the children". I also think that fennel and hatwoman are right. I think it's a sign that women nowadays are more realistic and have taken off (or never had!) the rose-tinted glasses when it comes to their marriages. They perhaps don't expect to carry on in a marriage if they're unhappy as women decades ago might have done.

petunia - I think there's sometimes a false dichotomy - an assumption that either you stay just for the children; or you stay for other reasons. in fact it's not that black and white - "just" for the children implies there's nothing else of value in a relationship. for some people that might be the case and that's pretty awful. but I think for most people there are a whole host of factors that keep a relationship together - and I don;t think there's anything wrong in one of those factors - or even the main factor - being the children.

hatwoman- that's absolutely right. I know my post came over as it being a black and white issue but it isn't. I know though from my own viewpoint that if DH had said about husbands/wives not sticking up for each other and we hadn't got children, we would be divorced by now. I hadn't gone through 13 years of cr@p from him and his parents for nothing and wouldn't want to stick around any longer for any more, if that's what he thought. At that point, it was as black and white as that and it was the children holding us together. But now I've backed off from his parents (and gained a backbone about dealing with them), I realise there is plenty about DH to like and that's why I hope we will be together when the children are older. I hope that by the time the children have left home (they're 8, 4 and 14mths so a long time yet!) hopefully my respect will have been regained. But DH is the one that has to do the work to convince me to stay (and he knows it!) He's taken me for granted when it comes to his parents for far too long.

I think we'll be together for a long time, mind you he and eldest son are away on a walking 'holiday' so its just me, 13yr old daughter and 5 yr old son at the mo.

Its nice having a bit of quiet, thought I'd be a slob with him not being here but the house is actually tidier!

My Mum and dad have just got their Decree Absolute this week, they've been married 30 yrrs and my Dad was an absolute tw*t, dunno how she stuck him seeing other women, drinking lots and not being there when my brother and I was younger yet he thinks because he spent money on private education was doing us a favour (we hated it).

DH can be nasty sometimes but I just ignore him, I work hard both as a housewife and childminder so he cannot complain.