80% of marriages are in 'tolerance' rather than 'happy'?

[BusyCee]

Saw a counsellor friend of mine last week and she said she thinks 80% of marriages are settled in a 'tolerate each other' zone, with partners seeking the meeting of their needs (laughter, shared interests, sex) elsewhere. Can this really be true? I was quite shocked and it's making me wonder how everyone is coping?!

Sounds about right.

I would say around that percentage of men don't pull their weight to the extent that they should in relationships, which, since women aren't stupid, probably corresponds with the a high number of the 'tolerance' marriages. It's hard to have love, affection and companionship with someone who screws you over on a daily basis.

Sadly, I think there is likely some truth in this statistic - maybe slightly lower but it doesn't surprise me.

To me happy is not a constant endless thing, married or single I presume people are never 100% happy for anyone

Nope. Happily with my husband for the last 4 years, together 10 years!

Yes, I reckon that's about correct.

Excluding the ones who are already divorced, a minority of my friends are in true 'tolerance' marriages by which I mean if they were wealthy enough, they would leave (and have, and have returned). They've made their choice, they have several children and are getting on with it. Some of the others have stuck it out for different reasons, they have had good phases, but also awful phases and so at some times tolerance has been required.

Then there's the ones who are pretty much mostly happy, still fancy each other, still have a sex life or at least romance, still interested and have their lives intertwined, this is a minority, but a good proportion.

I have had times of tolerance and times of happiness and would describe the marriage as 'happy', but not happy nonstop!

I also think 'tolerance' is just fine, there are usually advantages to being in a couple, even if it's just financial, another opinion for parenting teens, someone else to give lifts, feeling a sense of being in a unit. You don't have to be 'blissfully happy' to see that, and to see it as an advantages/disadvantages situation.

I know a few couples who I think are probably just plodding along together out of habit rather than being truly "happy". There's probably a few more who are better at faking it to the outside world.

80% is a fairly depressing figure but I'm not sure it surprises me. People do seem to put up with an awful lot of garbage in their relationships.

I agree with your friend.

Times have changed.

Years ago it used to be normal to be faithful. Now it seems to be normal to be unfaithful.

I'm glad i'm single.

We oscillate between happy and just tolerating. During the worst it is barely tolerable and I make vague plans to actually leave. But it's so hard to take that step. Not convinced we'll be married forever, but also not convinced we won't. When it's good, it's genuinely good. But life stress impacts us and we react differently and don't pull together. But then I suppose that's the "for better or worse" bit.

There's a lot of dodgy statistics on this thread. So let's address that.

If 50% of marriages end in divorce then at least 50% must be living in a state of 'tolerance'. WRONG! Because it fails to account for the point at which things begin to break down. Presumably all marriages start out reasonably happy, so there could be many happy years before things start to go wrong. It's only the unhappy years (which may be only 10 or 20% of the duration of the marriage) that count as 'tollerance' here.

Slight sidenote: It's interesting to look at the recent divorce stats. It's actually quite difficult to fully assess divorce rates because you need to go back a long way to get the full cohort of marriages (to include those who divorce after many years).

Looking at marriages that divorce before the 10th anniversary of the marriage, rates where as high as 25% (for people marrying in 1995) but that's reduced to 18% (for people marrying in 2012). For more recent marriages (2012 to 2015) only 1 in 10 had ended in divorce before their 7th anniversary. That level was last seen for couples who married in 1972. So divorce rates appear to be falling. Whether that means people are happier in marriage, who knows...

I do wonder sometimes how many people who say they are in a blissfully happy marriage actually mean they themselves are happy. I wonder if their partners all agree.

I know several where there is no more sex or intimacy. The wives proclaim they don't bother with that stuff anymore and are happy. Their dh are either miserable about it but resigned to it or are getting fulfilled whew where.

I am happy in my marriage, still fancy him and there's still lots of sex. We are quite independent, but have time together every day. Go out with and without each other, have our own interests, together almost 25 years, kids. I can't speak for my friends but most seem happy.

Exactly- “SEEM” No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

I think all long relationships go through ebbs and flows. DH and I often joke that we've both wanted to leave over the years only we've never wanted to do so at the same time..... and that's why we are still together after 30 years.

I do admit to finding the constant compromises a little wearing.... and think I could quite happily live on my own. But when my Dad died recently, I don't know how I'd have managed without him.... he lost both his parents many years ago and just did what he needed to without my having to verbalise what I needed. I will always love him for that alone.

My marriage certainly looks happy from the outside but almost all of our friends would be shocked too see a truer picture. That is the key thing to answering the original question, what many of us perceive to be the reality of someone else’s relationship often isn’t. I’d say tolerate is about right for us, almost like an acceptance of how things are. We don’t laugh (this has only dawned on me recently), have effectively no shared interests and actually spend little time together. If we didn’t have kids, shared finances etc I think we might be in a different place and less accepting of where we are now. As it is, I guess is tolerance the right thing to do for the family as a whole. I don’t know.

All my friends seem to be fed up. I’m separated and feel as if I’m the lucky one. All bar a couple of marriages I see seem stressed and the relationship stale. After 20 years you get institutionalised so you have no idea what you’d be like without the safety of the union and so ppl stay as see no alternative.

I agree with this, we’ve had times where it’s been bloody hard, we’ve muddled along co-existing but we’re coming out the other side now, kids are older, we have less money stresses and getting to spend time together being ‘us’ rather then parents and we’re enjoying being together again.

That honestly does not surprise me at all.

Everyone I know says they either have no romance / sleep in separate beds and only stay because they couldn't afford the mortgage alone. They also all say that if they ever found themselves single again, they would stay single.

I think I would stay single if I ever found myself single again, because I couldn’t imagine finding someone I loved as much as I love my DH.

@Youdontevengohere , I feel the same way about dp , he is the love of my life .

I wonder how many of the "I'm happy" bunch have actual happy partners...

This is her opinion so its not based on evidence or facts. She will not have factored in those who are in happy relationships because she does not see them.

I am pretty sure a lot of the relationships I know of are blissful. Admittedly the ones without kids or ones which have grown up but I also know those with kids who are like this. Great social life, lots of fun , support each other and very much in love.
A good relationship eases a lot of life’s stresses. MN make you believe every relationship is bad but I know it isn’t like that as see it with my own eyes how good some relationships are.

Isn't there always an aspect of tolerance along with the happy?
I'm very happy, but occasionally I have to tolerate things that are not perfect. Pretty sure my husband would say the same.

I'm going to agree with all the posters here and say your friend probably sees more people with relationship issues than those that are happy so her perspective may be skewed a little L.