What happens to turn marriages sour?

[newcurtainsNo9]

I read so many threads on here from women with men who sound awful. Hateful, spiteful, vindictive, mean and unkind. At some point, these couples were (presumably) in love and wanted to be together forever.

I'm single after 20 years with my childhood sweetheart, and I'm wary of meeting someone new in the future. Why does this seem to happen (I know not often, or usually but it does happen).

I'm not talking about classic abuse, I know about abusers and controlling behaviour and how it can evolve and manifest. I'm talking about clearly very unhappy marriages. Why does the love go? Is it when the attraction goes?

In my case it was major life events that did us in. My late husband always had his frailties and insecurities (as of course did I), but we complemented each other and worked well as a couple and as parents.

Until his parents both died in the space of 4 years. At that point I was no longer enough to keep him steady. He refused to seek professional help until it was too late, using alcohol to self medicate instead. All the latent character traits that had always been there came out and dominated our lives. He became overwhelmingly negative, rigid in his thinking, obsessive about our DDs needing to be perfect in everything (if they were not 100% perfect, they were clearly 100% awful). All of it was fuelled by the drink, which is a depressant.

I was in the process of divorcing him when he died, still drinking.

@Sally2791

I agree with Ducksurprise. It’s like death by a thousand cuts, each little thing you have brushed under the carpet eventually becomes too much. Also when there aren’t enough good times to outweigh the bad. And yes, finally you realise that it won’t get better, he won’t change because he doesn’t care enough how you feel, and the only way to be happy is to leave.

This is what I'd describe DH and our marriage breakdown as. A thousand little cuts over many years. Little things it's easy to explain away, he's tired or stressed or needs more support. I'd always be telling myself this is not him, things will get better, go back to the way they were. If only I tried harder, or did this instead or did all the night so he wasn't tired, he wouldn't be snappy or moody of angry. I always thought it was me or the situation he was in. There was always an excuse to let it go.

Until I couldn't stop crying every moment I was alone for over 2 weeks. It was like someone had removed a veil and I could suddenly see how much all those little and later big cuts were destroying me.

It's hard to get your head around the idea that this person you love, and trust so much has become the thing that is destroying you. It's often easier to believe you've done wrong. To believe that if you could find a way to show him why you're struggling he'd realise his much he was hurting you and he'd change. To believe he'll go back to being the person you fell in love with.

A thousand little cuts sounds about right.

It often takes many years before a relationship faces any real strain. So everything ticks along happily until then. Only when challenges arise and the couple sees how they respond (and are sometimes shocked and disappointed by their partner) is the relationship put to the test.

This can be, variously:
Children arriving and the bombshell that they are hard hard work not the source of unalloyed happiness we are led to believe.
Deep seated societal assumptions you did not think your partner held (perhaps neither did they) that children are primarily the mothers responsibility.
Power shift when/if one partner gives up work/goes part time and neither makes the other's contribution feel valued.
Job loss including redundancy and the financial fears that come with that.
Bereavements.
Serious illness/disability including mental health issues.

Partners then find the relationship suddenly feels sour or more work than its worth, especially if they don't communicate effectively or one partner outshine more effort than the other.

I'm still married (25 years together) and mostly happy but the pinch points have been:

Having our first child and me shouldering nearly all the responsibility despite also working full time. This is much more balanced now - I had to really work to ensure this including communicating. Between when our son was about 18 months to 3 years old I often felt that I hated my husband but I also felt too guilty to voice how much I was struggling with motherhood because it felt like a betrayal of our son.

Husband losing his younger brother and mother within a year of each other. I had low emotional intelligence, won't talk about feelings, puts on a brave face to others and all his grief and rage seemed to get channelled towards me. At times it felt like he was acting as if I'd murdered them. He would say he hated a fuss, didn't want it mentioned but then when I didn't that was wrong as well and I was "hard and uncaring". Eventually I told him I wished he would leave as i couldn't bear the constant walking on eggshells feeling. He did then suddenly pull himself out of it.

Secondary infertility including multiple losses, one in second trimester. This actually sent me a bit loopy/obsessive and a lot of it was internalized as if I voiced how unhappy I was his response would be " this isn't worth it; we should stop trying". (He was ambivalent about having a second whilst it was something I desperately wanted.) Looking back I was hell to live with. We did have a second child and it was as if the dial suddenly went back to " normal" again. If we hadn't I really do think that would have been the end of us.

Me overtaking him in promotions and earning power. He could get quite snarky about me "earning vastly more" ( only about 30% more to be fair) and it poisoned the enjoyment I was getting from my career. He did eventually confess that he was scared I would leave him for someone more successful and we were able to talk about it.

*HE has poor emotional intelligence that should say!

I think marriage is like every other aspect of life you need to work hard at it to keep it successful. We're not the same people we were when we married but we've both compromised and put each other first. OH used to say when we married he always put me first then when we had children they came first and me second, when they were older I became his priority and the children second as they were now young adults. I think it was the same for me. I suspect if you don't both involve each other in your lives then its easy to grow apart. You both have to want your marriage to work.

At least that's my view.

I think marriage is like every other aspect of life you need to work hard at it to keep it successful. We're not the same people we were when we married but we've both compromised and put each other first.

It's interesting how this flies in the face of alot of modern relatinship advice: I've heard if you have to work hard at something, it isn't working. That "compromise" is equivalent to "settling". That "YOLO" and "life is short". That "mutual support" feels "very unsexy" (copyright Sandra Tsing-Loh). Why force date nights, etc, to reignite the spark, when simply swapping your worn-out partner for a new model will strike up a bigger blaze for half the effort? The kids? Hey, kids are resilient. They'll adapt. And if your not happy, no-ones happy, so it's really for the best...

I'm partly playing Devil's Advocate here. Of course, no-one should stay in a toxic marriage (I certainly didn't), however, all too often there's a grey area between what's truly toxic and what actually requires a bit of compromise and effort that one party doesn't feel they should need to put in. An emotionally-abused spouse is a completely different ball-game to a spouse who's resentful they don't get treated like a prince/princess anymore. And yet, the latter often use the former to justify their demands.

Infidelity plays abit part usually done ...because they can.

I read a lot from the Gottman Institute. They've studied couples over many years and can accurately predict which couples will stay together and which will fail by the way they respond to each other's "bids" for attention, eg attempts to interact. If they generally turn towards each other's bids with a positive response they have a good chance of making it, but if they often ignore or negatively turn away from bids they are likely to split up. eg if you show your other half something on your phone, if he shows interest or engages in some way that's turning towards. If he carries on doing what he's doing without looking up or acknowledging you properly, that's neutral/negative. If he says "oh god, not that rubbish again, why are you always on bloody Mumsnet?" or something, thats turning away.

They talk about the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse which signal the end of the marriage - criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. Once those things are present it is a good indicator that the marriage won't survive.

There's also a lot of talk about how positively you both recall details of your relationship to others, whether The Story of Us is a generally positive one, with a "triumph over adversity" spin on tricky times or whether you talk about each other and the relationship in a negative way.

Definitely recommend having a read of their stuff to prepare you for future relationships.

This thread describes a lot that applies to me. To many marriages I fear.

Well, according to an article in The Economist magazine, marriages break down if there's a teenage daughter present.

Also when I was in my late 20's quite a few of the weddings I went to failed - many within 2 years. In every one of those marriages, they were never compatible, but the women just wanted to have big weddings before age 30.

Just heard of another new divorce of a male co-worker - we told him not to do it - he and the woman had broken up and gotten back together 4 times in the course of 2 years. Clocks-a-ticking and everything - they get married - and 14 months later he announces the divorce. Totally incompatible.

Wow, what's the reasoning behind the teenage daughter?

Similar to others above. Pre kids there wasn't a big imbalance in our relationship. Kids came along and he got a couple of promotions at work, he did less and less, got more and more snappy and slowly the resentment crept in on both sides. He works, I'm sahm to 3 little boys with SN. He thinks that I have it easy and he shouldn't have to be up at nights, or do the early mornings because he works. Years of broken sleep and 4am starts while he slept in. Coming out having to clean the kitchen after spending hours getting our Autistic boys to sleep while he'd played on the computer for hours. Whenever I tried to talk to him he'd gaslight, change things round on me and I'd end up feeling guilty and horrible.

Things escalated bit by bit. Last year we went through a period where he was really angry, couple of scary meltdowns. Which he half apologised, but really blamed me. His needs weren't being met so he had a right to yell and kick things (toys not people) . When a few months later I said I needed some space to recover because I still felt really anxious around him, he had a go at me, I was horrible for saying that to him and trying to make him feel guilty. We haven't had a relationship since then. Slowly getting things in place. Between kids SN and my ill health it's a slow process and I don't want to make it official before I'm ready because I'm 99% sure he's going to be horrible for however long we're trapped under one roof till we sell.

Boredom. Lack of chase, sexual tension, romance.
Opportunity to cheat and better than good chance not being found out.

t's interesting how this flies in the face of alot of modern relatinship advice: I've heard if you have to work hard at something, it isn't working. That "compromise" is equivalent to "settling". That "YOLO" and "life is short". That "mutual support" feels "very unsexy" (copyright Sandra Tsing-Loh). Why force date nights, etc, to reignite the spark, when simply swapping your worn-out partner for a new model will strike up a bigger blaze for half the effort? The kids? Hey, kids are resilient. They'll adapt. And if your not happy, no-ones happy, so it's really for the best...

What an excellent philosophy to live by.
Used to be when the going gets tough the tough get going, now it seems when the going gets tough move on find something easy.
Makes home schooling easy 'Mum this maths is hard' 'well don't do it just draw a picture of kitty, you're teacher will be happy with that'.
Difficult teenagers? Don't struggle, put them in care.

I still believe that if its something you want then its worth working for whether its a job or a holiday or a relationship. However with a relationship you both need to want it to work and not take each other for granted.

From what's said above surprised we survived as we had two girls, not sure why teenage girls are such an issue.

However with a relationship you both need to want it to work and not take each other for granted.

This. Both of you need to want to work hard at the relationship. If only one of you is willing to invest, listen and make sacrifices, it's not going to work.

Events, dear boy, events - like politics. Terrible things happen, and each partner reacts in their own way. I think it’s sheer chance that in some partnerships, reactions are ‘compatible’, and in others they are not.

I think if a couple is compatible enough and they are both nice people then they can survive bad events.

DH and I had a tough time when something really bad happened to our kids but we both reacted in the same way and wanted to get through it together. We both like to talk through our emotions and try to work out how we feel.

Had he pushed me away or turned to alcohol we would have split up.

Compatibility is key and it is the one thing that people often think can be overlooked.

I think disrespectful sneaky behaviour is a big killer— be it secretive shit, sexting, not letting your partner know you are going to be very late , lying about stuff, generally stuff where the partner starts to feel like they come secondary on many occasions. I remember my H telling me that I wasn’t invited to a leaving do of someone we know because they had strict numbers, I found out years after that it wasn’t true, fact was he didn’t want me to go and cramp his style.

My husband started going out with his first wife when they were both young, 16/17, they got married 24/25, 2 kids and were seperated early to mid 30s. He thinks that the marriage failed becuase they were too young and outgrew each other. He says that they both changed and that what they both wanted from the marriage changed

When the children have left home, very simply you realise you'd rather be on your own.

My husband used to be brilliant but over time has been one feckless and lazy. Our lives have become busier and instead of stepping up to the challenges he has retreated into himself and become lazier. It's fucking wearing.

I actually think that many people have a limited amount of time that they want to spend with a partner before moving on. We're conditioned to think that two people should be a perfect match for each other from pretty young up until they die.

When you think about it logically and objectively, the person you are now aged 20 years older than when you met, are you the same person with the same personality traits? I'm certainly not!

When I met my husband I was very vulnerable, had huge depression, anxiety and PTSD and a lot of co-dependent traits. He was 15 years older than me. Over time I grew much stronger through working on myself and developed a lot of healthy confidence and self-esteem. Sadly my husband then became insecure as he felt if I wasn't reliant on him, I didn't NEED him and therefore I was sure to be buggering off with some other bloke soon. It was so sad that he couldn't believe anyone would be with him of their free choice - that he really was the man I CHOSE, not just the man I needed.

He became argumentative and paranoid, constantly accusing me of cheating, every conversation was a battleground as he had a massive chip on his shoulder and would say I was "belittling" him by using big words Tried marriage counselling to no avail - it became obvious to me (and the counsellor) that he only valued me because he needed to be needed, and now that I didn't need him, I could just fuck off.

It was very sad and I will always wish it hadn't ended up like that.

After we split he moved on to someone who was 25 years younger than him who had massive mental health issues and pulled the exact same shit with her.

Not me, but a (male) friend, who is newly divorced after a 20 year marriage, and now in a new relationship of six months or so.

I can already see his 'cycle'. I am very fond of him, but he's a fundamentally lazy, passive man who finds it difficult to engage with the world, or any form of novelty, so once a relationship is no longer new and exciting, he basically puts on his slanket and settles down on the sofa (I mean that literally and metaphorically.)

His marriage ended like that his wife was carrying everything, and he literally only left the house for to go to work. He's currently in the 'new and exciting' stage of a new relationship, but what the new woman doesn't realise is that as soon as he's sure of her, what he wants to do is 'settle down', which means take up residence on the sofa with the remote control while she does the active work in parenting his children when they're with him. Unless that's also her idea of attractive a man who literally never does anything unless pushed (his ex-wife had to send him potential rental houses and arrange a removal truck otherwise he would still be in the marital home!) -- I imagine she will end the relationship, and the cycle will continue.

And because he's attractive, funny and clever, when he bothers, he will get a new person interested etc etc etc.

The problem is how to establish how compatible you are before bad events happen, especially when you meet very young. Looking back I realise we were incompatible from the get go, but I didn't have the maturity to spot it at age 21. He and I passed two big tests just before we married at 26, but by the time the really big events came along at age 37 and 41 we had changed anyway (I got more self-reliant, he got more selfish) ie the basic incompatibility had become entrenched. Plus he developed MH problems. We were and are both still nice people, just not there for each other in the ways we needed.

My parents knew we weren't compatible but didn't express it. Now my DC are the same age I was when I married, I do see why my DP kept quiet, but for a while I struggled with that.