If you've been married over 25 years ...

[FlyingNimbus]

Please be honest. Are you starting to think that, with a few blissfully happy exceptions, all long-term marriages involve massive compromise by either the husband or wife to keep going?

I was reflecting on Bill and Melinda Gates yesterday who were married two years after DH and me. I always thought of us as happily married, but this past year has been very difficult, and I was thinking of all the long-term couples I know and their current circumstances.

Of course it's difficult to know what goes on inside a marriage, but of those who have not divorced, the wives (because I know them the best) are putting up with workaholic husbands, husband's who are quite "closed" and don't communicate, husband's who sulk, husbands who are financially controlling, husband's who are messy etc.

I'm not saying all the women in these relationships are perfect by any means, and a lot of the husbands have very good aspects to their characters as well, but in the main, there has to be an awful lot of tolerance going on for a marriage to survive long-term.

My own marriage is requiring a lot of tolerance on both of our parts currently and I sometimes wonder whether, once the DC have grown up, whether it's all worth it?

So what do you think? Do most marriages over 25 years require huge amounts of effort and compromise, or has lockdown got to me and I am being unnecessarily pessimistic?

I always previously really looked up to couples who have managed to stay together so long and really admired them. But now I am not so sure it's such an admirable thing if that makes sense?

@AnyFucker

I have been married for 27 years

Honestly, I find it easy. I haven’t compromised myself in any way. I don’t recognise this “effort” and “ hard work” that people talk of.

To me, if my marriage made my life harder I would not be in it. It should enhance your life, just getting through normal ups and downs of general living is hard enough without expending extra effort to keep somebody else happy.

It’s not that we have never disagreed or argued or got on each other’s nerves. But constant maintenance of a marriage to me implies fundamental incompatibility and I just don’t see the point

35 years and I feel very similar. Of course we argue sometimes and irritate each other, but fundamentally we are each others best friend and it's never felt like hard work to keep it going. I think it helps that we have some shared interests and make each other laugh every day, even through tough times. I don't believe in soul mates, but I am always thankful that we had the common sense to marry each other and that long term monogamy suits both of us.

Married for over 25 years now and my experience is very similar to that of AnyFucker's. Any disagreements of opinion are dealt with and never left to fester. Our relationship does not feel like hard work and I've enjoyed having him working from home during lockdown periods. Fundamentally we fit well together, we make each other laugh and he also worships the very quicksand I walk on .

Interesting question but I'd say it's complicated. Basically yes, every long relationship involves a lot of compromise and a certain amount of unhappiness.

I suppose what you have to consider though, is that being single also involves compromise.

Another thing is that people often seem to lump frustration/boredom of parenthood in with their partner. Now sometimes that makes sense if the partner hasn't pulled their weight. Other times though it is unfair, having dc was your own choice and making compromises for them is unavoidable and a totally different issue.

As for admiring couples, I think I admire both types. I'm happy to hear about couples who've stayed together happily. I also admire couples who make the tough decision to split if they are unhappy - rather than bring miserable.

25 years married this year and we still just love being around each other. We never run out of things to chat about and have loads of shared interests as well as our own personal ones.

I don't ever feel that anything is a compromise. We were married for ten years before the kids came along so I think that helped cement our relationship.

Great to read all these very positive posts. Thank you.

I'm quite cheered by this thread.

Long term marriage is not always easy, and there's so much negativity about relationships on Mumsnet, often for very justifiable and understandable reasons, that the voices of the long term happily married are not heard enough!

FlyNow thanks. That's a very wise and pragmatic way of looking at things.

Beachcomber I agree that m f socialisation makes such a significant difference

Lovely post Lindy2 I am glad you have both recovered

I'm drawing reassurance from the fact that DH and I still enjoy a good matter together, like many of these contented halves of couples who are posting. We still share a joke as well. That's very important I think.

Natter! Not matter!

I left H last year after 29 years married/31 years together. I was 21 when we got married, and went straight into SAHM/babies. We'd had a couple of very rocky patches (he moved out for a bit), but basically there never seemed to be a "good time" to properly sort out our issues (there was a DC health issue, H had problems with his DF he needed to work through, we set up our own business, his DF died) as any issue he had always took precedence over anything I wanted to sort out.

And I was too scared basically to take the plunge and say "OK, let's split up", with DC at school, living in a stupidly expensive area, and me with no post A level qualifications, no career and no pension (I know, I know, I was an idiot, don't be like me [sigh]).

But, I also didn't know who I was any more - we were living and working in H's home town, I had a very few friends, and had some health problems which led to depression which led to not wanting to interact with anyone and feeling useless at everything other than being a mother, which all made the health and depression stuff worse and so on. And H isn't the kind of person who is able to cope with any of that, I've come to realise that he sees the world as existing around him (in the same way as a toddler thinks "I want that, therefore you as my mother also want me to have that"), and withdrew from me emotionally.

There were some sex related issues as well, which we never talked about, cos he didn't want to; I eventually had enough of being continually rejected physically and emotionally, and basically switched off. Several years later, he actually noticed, and decided that he was moving out "to give me space", booked a couple of counselling sessions which were absolutely useless (I basically poured my heart out to the counsellor, H couldn't remember what I'd said a few weeks later), and so I decided to cut my losses, and moved three hours away to a city where I knew no-one, and work out who I was.

Final tipping point was when I thought he might be chatting up another woman, and realised that I didn't actually care.

The divorce is going to be messy as the financial settlement will have to take into account the 30 years I spent facilitating his career, but I know he won't be prepared to agree a 50:50 split of the business (which I can't actually run, so I'd need to be paid out, but I only legally own a small percentage). Plus the business was supposed to be our pension, and a big chunk of the proceeds of our house sale was invested into the business (again, I know, I know, don't be like me etc), so I need to speak to a solicitor to sort through what bits of what monies I should be asking for.

Anyway, a very longwinded way of saying, as you grow older, you either grow together, or in our case, grow apart. I don't want to live in H's home town, whereas he's happy to live and work there for the rest of his life. I'm about to live the life I ought to have had in my 20s (potentially going back to uni) and can't to do that in middle class suburbia . Once youngest DC goes back to uni in September (and Covid stops being such an issue), I'm planning all sorts of stuff, just for me, as like sunnyblackwidow above, the "me" had got lost in amongst the parenting and the "being the person he wanted me to be".

OMG, apologies for the length of that!

the TL:DR is "we grew apart cos we got married too young, and didn't pay enough attention to each other along the way"

25 years here and I agree with @AnyFucker