What Makes Marriages End?

Substance abuse?

 

And when a divorce occurs, which it will, her response will be "How dare you divorce me you not good, worthless piece of shit." She is the kind of person who shoves the other person out and then blames them.

 

Toxic friends. Especially a toxic friend who has gone through a divorce. This isn't a new observation. It is a proven, statistical fact (that I didn't learn util I was already ****ed). If your wife's best friend has gone through a divorce...chances are you're next. Ask me how i know...

That said, she did me a favor. I had come to the realization that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with her.

If you want to stay married:

1. Fidelity*
2. No toxic divorced friends
3. no substance abuse
4. Gainful employment
5. Cooperative advancement of common goals

You know...NORMAL STUFF.



*Sex with other people will not help your relationship in most cases...especially when he/she doesn't know about it.

 

From what I see, people change as they age. Sometimes couples will just change differently from each other. Maybe one develops a shopping habit, maybe one's hobbies change, their sex drive can change, their political opinions change, even their attitudes may change. Over time, this can create discontent or build up resentment. You build on top of little changes like maybe one starts to snore so you have to sleep in another room, then they start doing this, that and the other, and it all builds up over time.

 

100%. My ex turned into my mother in-law* (with the help from her toxic best friend). I realized that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with her.

*Everyone hates my MIL, even her own kids.

 

This is true.

My ex-wife and I were married for 17 years. We were very compatible at first. We were both night owls, but over time, she started going to bed really early to go work out at like 4am before the start of work. I started working more from home at night. We ended up spending less time together and drifted apart. The less time together also meant less sex together. We both cared about each other, but eventually I thought, what's the point since we're almost living separative lives.

We rarely fought and to this day we're still friendly/friends.

 

Lack of sex, money issues - number one and two. Few guys even think about cheating if they are getting too much action at home. Men, we are simple creatures.

 

Every relationship is unique. As someone who felt like a failure and generally awful person after my divorce, I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread. Life is crazy isn’t it?

I met my ex husband at we were both only 24 we had two children and got married very quickly. We were really opposites in every way but young dumb and so horny. I few up homeschooled hippie parents on a farming commune and he was from a very conservative Christian family. Apparently I caught him in his rebellious years or some bullshit.
Anyway, as soon as our first child was born, he and his family decided I needed to change my evil ways. Go to their church, dress “ properly “go tho their insane woman’s group. ( which in the almost 15 years she then, has become a full blown MAGA cult).
No regrets though. I wouldn’t have my kids if I hadn’t been with him. Besides, it gave me something to focus on. I was a wild child from 18-24 so who knows where I’d have ended up.

 

Even though I had the easiest of amicable divorces, I will never forget that feeling of failure as I sat in the court waiting for the divorce to be processed.

In retrospect, it may have been a positive thing because it made me think about what I did wrong or could have done better as a partner and person. I realized that I kept my feelings to myself and didn't make myself vulnerable to my partner. I could have talked things through rather than hold things in and let them fester. A lesson that helped me in my journey and future relationship.

 

I have to add that she wasnt satisfied with our sex life ( I have a tiny penis and poor stamina - hence the playing away.) Perhaps if the sex bit was good enough the relationship may have trundled on for longer but the taking for grantedness was the major problem which I did too little to fix.

 

We’re living so long, now, that marrying for life is unrealistic, imho.. I’ve been married 35 years, but my wife was married before. We’re both in our 60s - 63 and 67 - so I reckon we’re going to stick it out..

 

I think that's really good. It seems like a rarity.

I think the relative scale is:

1. Good marriage that stays together
2. Marriage that ends amicably
3. Marriage that ends in a messy divorce
4. Crap marriage that doesn't end, but makes both parties miserable

So I think you got the second best outcome for a marriage, which is still really good.

If you had it to do over again, would you rather have never been married in the first place?

 

As far as how marriages can go, yeah, relatively it ended well. Plus I really got along with her family and they are still in touch.

No, I wouldn't marry her again. We hardly ever fought, so that's good. We were always friends before and after, so that's also good. However, it ended for a reason. Given a choice, I probably would have just been friends from the beginning.

 

Sorry this happened.

Assuming this effect is real (I have every reason to believe it is), there might be both direct and indirect effects.

The direct effect would be of course that an angry, misery-loves-company best friend is probably going to encourage a married friend to also end their marriage.

An indirect effect might be that if you see divorce as socially acceptable, you're more likely to have a divorced friend, and therefor be more accepting of divorce. Allegedly a person that becomes obese is more likely to have obese friends, which could mean that staying thin is hard and therefor if you find obesity socially acceptable, you're going to slide in that direction.

It also could be friends might have shared attitudes that contribute to divorce (e.g., infidelity is ok, blaming men/women for the world's problems, intolerance for a spouses differing political views, etc.)

 

Amicable separation ending in a granted divorce. This is what I witnessed recently in court. I was there for a different matter. A couple approached the judge and announced they still sought to divorce. The judge commented that the last time he saw them asking for a divorce to be granted they were holding hands and crying. He refused to issue the grant at that time sending them away for reconsideration. This time he noted they were not being so emotional which was true. They each stood before him stone faced and apart. While they did sit together in the courtroom they made an appearance that was showing a distance between them. Divorce granted. Other decisions followed including mine before the bailiff took us to the court clerk for processing the decisions. Outside the courtroom while waiting for the bailiff I see the couple now embracing and kissing as if they were still deeply in love. One never knows what is behind the reasons marriages end.

 

This one is very mysterious.

 

Yes, though as you mentioned, that was something both of you took part in.

She's probably experiencing the same thing to some degree. It would be nice if marriage counseling or something similar could fix things, by that I don't mean getting back together, but maybe spending more time with each other.

Do you think that would be possible?

 

Some people should never get married; money, sex, and children; no money, no sex, no children; believing the happily ever after fairy tale we're told about love and relationships only to find out that real life is very, very different. "Irreconcilable differences" which is code for "we couldn't figure out how to be married;" you've been together for so long that you've grown apart and the only thing you have in common now is... you're still married to each other. Physical and emotional difficulties. Believing that the two of you are all that you will ever need then finding out that this is bullshit. Invoking double standards. One person trying to run the relationship and be in charge instead of both people working together. Allowing the marriage to become toxic. "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine." The inability to communicate effectively and allowing communication to fail.

I can't think of anything else at the moment...

 

I think in principle one person being dominant can work as long as the other is ok with that. I doubt two subs or two doms would work, but definitely not two doms.