Why do so many marriages fail? (And how do you prevent that happening?)

Seeing Lynelle's (15 years) and Cheryl's (32 years) posts on Facebook about their anniversaries made me bring up a question that has been bothering me a lot lately. I have seen quite a few of my friends get divorced over the last couple of years. Some were married only a year or two, while another is breaking up after 10 years and three sons.

As you all know, I really hope that someday I can get married, but it scares me to see so many friends getting divorced. Why do you think so many people split up their marriages nowadays? I know that for some, it's because they are getting away from dangerous, abusive marriages that society would have forced them to stay in before (such as my Taiwanese sister; even after she left her cheating, abusive husband, her family went behind her back to try to make him take her back and only gave up when he refused!). But this can't be the case with everyone.

So my question to you is two-fold. First, what makes these marriages fail? And second, what makes other marriages, such as the two whose anniversaries were are celebrating, last?

Hi Vicky

Two things I learned in my relationship failures and success'. Compromise and respect. But it has to be mutual. Both people have to be willing to give more than they receive, and therefore it is a relationship of riches. Then when hard times strike you are helping each other instead of taking and running scared. Also each has to understand that the other is an individual and not going to change. You each have ideas that differ, and the key is to accept it as not such a big issue.

Easier said than done and sometimes it takes a second or more relationships to get this right. There is no guarantees in life, Vicki. You can try your best and hope the other does too. When my marriage broke up after 20 years I felt so full of shame but after a while I realized that there is no shame in giving it my best effort. I have no regrets. You aren't born knowing everything so you can't expect to get everything right all the time.

If you were to ask the couples with longevity, you will likely find times in their lives where they almost broke up. Marriage is an ongoing process as life dishes out it's challenges and people have their issues. Nothing is a failure if you try to make it work.

Those are my thoughts at this point in my life.

Angela

40 years next september. What can I tell you??

The discussion reminds me of a quote from the famous evangelist Billy Graham's wife. A reporter asked her if, in their long marriage, she had considered divorce. She said, "No, but I've often considered murder!"

Chris

I know what I can tell you. It never gets any easier.

I feel that double income marriages are one of the reasons we are seeing more divorces.

Back in "the day" single income marriages could not afford to break up.

It's just an idea. What do you think?

My parents split after 27 years together. I think my father had fallen out of love with my Mother years earlier. They are both much happier now.
Marriage is really hard. Rewarding and hard. There are times when I've questioned our similarities...sometimes we are a bit like oil and water. Yet I've also discovered that if you are both willing to go to marriage therapy and are open to improving yourself, and you have a great therapist, it can just open that gateway of communication that much more.
My father refused to go to therapy. My mum still gets upset about it, 16 years later.

Tea

I totally agree that a couples therapist can do wonders....but most are not covered and most are not very good at what they do.

Its my husbands birthday today so I have had to give some attention to that.
But I asked him. How have we lasted almost 40 years.

For what its worth, our opinion is that people can get out of marriage easier.
Living together and then marrying after several years often sounds the death knoll
(3 cousins have gone that way)
Yes double income and not having to pull together enough.
Too much independence.

I am sure there are many reasons, but mainly I think its because people used to try harder because divorce was unattainable.
And often unacceptable.
Also certainly in England society has accepted children with multiple parents now, whereas when I was younger that wasnt acceptable. If you cant get out of something, you are more cautious before you go into it.
But, we have but one life to live, and no sense in being miserable, so if there is an escape, people take it.

Its complicated.

I have a theory.

The most common mistake young people do, is they commit before they really find out WHO they are and what THEY can offer in the first place to the relationship.
As in "who really AM I?" "what can I give?", and even more important, "what CAN'T I give?"

Then the second gross mistake is not clearly knowing what it precisely is we expect from that other person.
But then, how can we, really, if we don't even fully know ourselves, yet?

And so, with such a immature mindset we enter a union that suppose to last a lifetime.

Is it a wonder, then, that it fails once a clash of two usually not compatible characters happens again and again?

So, trivial and and uninspired, but I think not without a validity.

Risa

I don't know what the secret is. I don't know why people don't make it. I have only been married for almost 7 years. It is a lot harder than it looks on tv. No one tells you how hard it is to make a life with someone else. To run a house and a life, to raise children. It is HARD. It also has it's amazing points. I think that Dan and I will make it. he is my best friend and we are both willing to keep trying. But it is hard.

I think it is the same thing with the migraines. The secret is just to never give up. Keep on going, every day, one foot in front of the other.

Marriage is also wonderful, fun, exciting and amazing. I won't discount those parts. I have never felt as happy and as full as I do holding my husband's hand and watching our daughter play. It is worth all of the struggles it takes to keep us together.

I think that respect is also important. You have to respect the other person enough to make the right choices. IE not cheating, not lying etc.

interesting topic.

M

Thanks for the comments. I'm interested to see what other people suggest.

I do believe that the fact that divorce is easier to get and less stigmatized makes a difference.

As someone mentioned, I've also heard that people who live together before marriage have a higher divorce rate. Anyone have any idea why? Is that because they went into it with less commitment, as they would have done when living together instead of making a lifetime commitment up front?

What also about the increased age rate of people's getting married? In my grandparents' day, people hardly ever reached 20 without being married, but now, the average rate of getting married is in the mid-20s, I think.

One thing that I have noticed in friends whom I've known well enough to hear their explanations of the split is that they tend to blame the other person exclusively. "Well, she cheated on me." As if he did nothing to push her away from him. My best friend has been married almost a year; they have a newborn baby (I think they got pregnant partly to try to help their marriage, which is a stupid idea); and they have been on the verge of divorce since they got married. My parents' comments about them is that they both are in it for what they can get out of it, not for what they can put into it for the other person.

I really liked a comment my dad made. He said he should have called her on it earlier when she complained, "Where's the 50-50? He's not doing his part!" My dad said that marriage is really 90-10; you focus on giving 90% of yourself and only taking 10%. When both partners do that, you have a strong marriage because you're focusing on the needs of the other, but in doing that, you get rewarded as well.

My problem with all my dating relationships but the last one, when I got so tied up in my migraines that I sat back and let him do a lot of the work to take care of me, is that I have ended up doing all the giving, and the guy I've dated has done all the taking. By nature, I'm a very nurturing type of person and have liked taking care of my boyfriend. But I didn't get much back in return. It even got to levels where one insisted that I make all the phone calls (long distance) each night, and I drive the 50 miles each way to see him every week or two because I had made the decision to move away from him by choosing to go to grad school. So he didn't need to pay for the calls or make the long drives because he hadn't chosen to move away from me. And this is after my migraine had become constant. Another also made me do all the driving to visit him, also after my migraines were constant. Still yet another would tell me that he was going to skip dinner because he didn't have the money to pay for it, but I could buy something for myself to eat if I wanted. So I either went without food or paid for him too because I felt too awkward eating by myself! Do you see a pattern here?

I think with my last boyfriend, I was just so tired of being taken advantage of that I sat back and let him do more work, and it turned out to be an unfair split then too.

And my problem has been that I often don't recognize how much I'm being taken advantage of until things go really sour because I'm very in love and always eager to serve the other. So how do I ensure that in future relationships I do my part without being taken advantage of too?

Too many questions to deal with tonight. I still have to find this mysterious somebody. I did sort of wonder about a high school friend I recently got back in touch with. I never gave him a second thought romantically in high school, and perhaps now I'm only wondering that because I'm so eager to find someone. But he would be a good man for someone. I remember my favorite high school teacher telling me just before I left for college that I have such a strong personality that people often tend to "hang on" me, and I needed to find others with similar personalities to balance me, so I don't get drained. He said that the only one of my high school friends whom he saw as balancing me was this one friend. He's single. And living in the area. What have I got to lose? I'm already recruiting him to join my international student ministry, since we desperately need more American men, and he's Japanese American, which would appeal to them all the more. I did suggest we get together sometime. But I rather doubt that anything is likely to come of it. It's probably just a passing thought at the moment, since I'm tired of watching movies or reading books where people get married. Even the mysteries like Agatha Christie's books all contain marriages!

Vicki,
I will try to give my point of view, based on my own experience.
I got married at 40 as you know. For 20 years, I've been an observer of dozens of friends, relatives, colleagues and casual acquitances getting married, being "happy", getting divorced.
In 20 years, my reaction have been, in the order:

- Oh Gosh ... It's to early, they're too young...I could never give up my best years to get married...I'am only 20
- Oh how nice, I am beginning to think about marriage...I'm over 25 now
- Oh Oh....I'm close to 30. I had better take marriage into consideration seriously
- Oh no....I'm invited to another wedding and I must go alone, also my last love story has failed...I feel lousy, I feel alone, I feel a failure...I'll never find anyone...I'll never get married...I'll die alone....I'm in my mid 30's and I'm too old... (In the meantime, I could not see that for one couple who was getting married, 3 others were divorcing)
- Oh well...I'm close to 40 but I feel great and men still look at me. I have good friends (most of them are divorced - lucky I don't have to bear also this stress), I have my own apartment, a good job. I've been "lucky" enough to avoid mistakes that would have led only to a divorce as I realize that none of my ex boyfriends was the right candidate for the place of HUSBAND. If he will show up I'm fine to accept him into my life. If not, I will continue on my own.

I think that marriage has 2 faces. One is the emotional/romantic side. The other is the social side.
Often, the 2 things mix up and we no longer understand why we desperately need to find someone and get married.
If we could choose to get married only for an emotional need, we probably would not get anxious or worried by time that goes by. We would focus only on the right choice, we would date people till we find the right one.
Instead, we are often affected by the society around that indirectly puts pressure on us. The society has established some silent rules that we feel to respect. Getting married within a certain age is one of them. If we don't achieve the goal, we feel different, failures, lost.
So, the chance to make a big mistake is huge. We search in the wrong places and accept compromises just to be able to reach the goal: getting married.

I am not saying that anyone is doing this big mistake consciously. Only fools would. I am just saying that the need to reach a goal can make us see things much more differently than what they are.

In my 20 years as "observer", I have seen couples who decided to get married despite there were macroscopic things that could have jeopardized their union. But they closed their eyes because their mind was too focused on the social side of a marriage rather than on the true sentiments and willing to live together.
I also was almost making the same mistake twice. I don't know what stopped me. Maybe I simply listened to my inner little voice that was saying "not mr. right, girl...beware!".
I have been highly criticized and accused to be a crispy woman because I have broken up with two potential husbands. Most of my friends would have gone straight to buy wedding rings in my place. I knew I was taking a risk, I knew I was delaying things beyond the average, I knew I had high chances to remain alone, but I wanted 100%. I could not accept an union that was missing of some important basis and did not believe the fairy tale of those who told me "you will fix things after the marriage".

I think that the elder generation was somehow obliged to accept compromises. Women in particulare HAD to get married otherwise their life would have been a nightmare.
Today we don't need that. We can choose and we can take our time.

So Vicki, you're going through a normal and fisiological phase. Being still single at 34 can trigger many questions and doubts but it's normal. You don't have to feel hopeless and you don't need to rush things. There's a right time for everything. The problem is that the society would like to set this right time as a standard for everyone at the age of about 30/35, but any person is different and the world is large: the two perfect halves may take longer to meet

Ivy, are you Antonella? I haven't completely caught up with all the name changes with the new forum, since I was in Brazil when everyone made the switch!

One thing that scares me is that I have had a tendency to put up with a lot of mistreatment because I think I love the guy I've been with. I was very fortunate that my last boyfriend treated me really well, until the stress of trying to find a job before his visa ran out led him to show that he wasn't as interested in me as I was in him. But even he wouldn't have been right for me. However, I was ready to marry several of my exes, and I'm so grateful I didn't. It does scare me when I look at that past that I may repeat the pattern with someone else, who hasn't been so reluctant to get married.

I don't think in my case that I'm wanting to get married for a social reason but just that I crave the love and commitment that marriage would bring. First, I just want a boyfriend to love, but when you're dating, you know that there's no long-term commitment, so that's not enough for me. There was a time when I might have enjoyed a "fling" of sorts, but not now. Especially since I do suffer so much from my migraines, I want more stability in my life.

I got really depressed when I was in Brazil because my brother and his wife were so obviously head over heels in love and would cuddle everywhere they went, and then my parents would hold hands and cuddle too. And I was left out in the cold, with no one. I'm the last of my generation of cousins to be single, and seeing how happily married they all are, it's hard, not because I feel that I ought to be married by now, but because I want to be married by now. My brother never even dated before he met his wife! And yet he has a great marriage (you can tell that not only just by looking at them, but by seeing all the changes he has happily made just to make Marina happy).

I guess I'm just feeling lonely right now. And the fact that I'm up at 5 a.m. because I'm in severe pain doesn't help any. I haven't slept at all tonight because I've hurt too much, so I thought I'd get a couple emails sent to get them off my mind. Thanks for all your support, and thanks for listening to my whining!

"My parents' comments about them is that they both are in it for what they can get out of it, not for what they can put into it for the other person.

I really liked a comment my dad made. He said he should have called her on it earlier when she complained, "Where's the 50-50? He's not doing his part!" My dad said that marriage is really 90-10; you focus on giving 90% of yourself and only taking 10%. When both partners do that, you have a strong marriage because you're focusing on the needs of the other, but in doing that, you get rewarded as well."


Your parents are wise people. And your comments about you giving too much and him taking are warranted too.

When my marriage was breaking up, I was in the store and a Bhuddist monk used to stop by and visit me once in a while. I never told him what was going on in my personal life, but he was pretty sharp. He said to me "Anj, why are you blaming yourself, you were unevenly yoked. You can't carry the load by yourself forever. You are unevenly yoked." I always remembered those words so for the next relationship I always looked for someone who would carry the same share. But it didn't have to be same for same. If I could carry the share financially, then could he carry it by watching out for me and building me up while I do this? (my last relationship I was the workhorse and he beat me down emotionally).

But, like you, I was a giver, so although I could stand here and blame him for everything, I was at fault for giving to much and my fault was not allowing him to give back. (as for your friends blaming....it takes two to screw things up....and a little forgiveness for good measure). I had to learn to let my new relationships give to me, and for me to learn to accept it. That wasn't easy for me to learn to ask for help and to accept it. That and to say "STOP IT".

The bottom line is relationships are all about learning as you go. The foundation being respect and friendship.

Angela

Is that because they went into it with less commitment, as they would have done when living together instead of making a lifetime commitment up front?

What also about the increased age rate of people's getting married? In my grandparents' day, people hardly ever reached 20 without being married, but now, the average rate of getting married is in the mid-20s, I think.

Why would you so surely and lightly assume if someone enters relationship without legal document, especially without church blessing, it's done with "less commitment"? I am deeply offended.

I would be very wary of "I heard".
Unless you have solid scientific data behind such statements, disregard those.

I am common law for close to 30 years, and believe me no one enters relationship lightly, marriage certificate or not, church validated or civil only. No matter how long it last, and legalities has no bearing to later marriages.

Everyone hopes for the best, for happiness and stability in their life at any given moment as one enters a relationship.

I think if there is any correlation, it would be the same as being married once before, only the difference is this time is having a legal document.
Thus, connected to your second question, partially lies also the answer -second marriage is usually in the kater stages of your life.
It also when the children are involved, and most people chose to stay together for the sake of their children.

I am surprised though, how nobody paid a slightest attention to what I wrote earlier - how not knowing ourselves pays a great role how we match, or rather - NOT match, and how it's a main cause of more than half break ups later on.

Do you really think that when you are in your late 20ties or even in your early 30 ties you know enough about yourself to realize that deep down you hate to cook and care for kids, that truly you are carefree spirit that yearns to roam free and secretly resents to be weight down at home, and vice-versa- your hubby never realized that he only admired those free-spirited qualities of yours from afar,

but deep down he always wanted a mirror image of his mother- a stately housewife who cooks, clean and tucks kids at nighttime then goes to bed with hubby at 11pm? And you always thought your shining knight in the armor will be someone more of a mysterious rogue a la James Dean and here you have a simple bread and butter man..

Tell me, how do you expect such a "misconceived" marriage last? It just doesn't have a good foundation, because people who entered it weren't mature enough to realize their own needs, and what's more what can they give.

If you meet a woman who expect someone who likes to go to the bars and dance, and you only go with her because you like her, your marriage won't last.
If you meet a man who wants a woman who cooks and clean, and you do that because you like him, the marriage won't last. One day you all will start bickering, and arguing, and it will go downhill from there.


Risa

Hi Risa

"I am surprised though, how nobody paid a slightest attention to what I wrote earlier - how not knowing ourselves pays a great role how we match, or rather - NOT match, and how it's a main cause of more than half break ups later on."


I noticed and agree. I thought your earlier post was a pretty darn good, actually. The simplicity and elegance of what you wrote and how you wrote it had said your thoughts beautifully and held ground on it's own. I personally didn't want to add my brush stroke to your Rembrandt.

I certainly didn't know myself when I got married at 18.

Angela

I was listening to a radio talk show that was discussing a new study that came out. The study made it look like divorce was contagious. The more people around that get divorced the more likely it seems you will. The closer the divorced couple is to you the much higher the odds are you will to. In some circumstance it was 200% more likely. These are just numbers being correlated and they did not theorize why it is. Although they were profound enough to merit far more research.

The talk show was inviting people to call in and express why they think it happens that way.

Our western pop culture is not exactly supportive of the contract, commitment and institution of marriage. You can only have so many negative forces coming at you from all sides before something has to give. Think about our entertainment media, how much is pro-marriage and pro-family. Compared to how much glamorizes affairs and infidelity.

There are many famous musicians and actors/actresses that have been married for many, many years. But we don't hear about them, it's regarded as a non-story. But as soon as a two month Hollywood romance goes south it's all over the media.

How many people know how long Tom Hanks has been married? Ron Howard? Sean Connery? The tabloids are not the lest bit interested in that.

Sorry that I didn't reply to your comments about knowing yourself, Risa. There were so many that it gets hard to remember the details of them all, especially when you can't see the list of comments while making your own comment. You have to select the text you want to quote from. And I didn't mean any disrespect about saying that people who live together before marriage seem to have a higher divorce rate. It's just a statistic that I have read a number of times. I would try to look it up now, but I'm so bad with my head that I am only holding out for morning, when I can go in to my PCP's office for a proper dose of morphine rather than drag my parents to the ER, with the risk that I'll get the same doctor as last time who thought I was a drug addict and wouldn't "be my enabler." So I'm not even thinking very clearly now, just writing because I'm trying to distract myself from the pain. So bear with me if I'm not fully coherent.

I think what you said about knowing yourself makes a lot of sense. But can you ever know yourself truly? I question whether that's ever possible? I've heard people who have been married for years and years say that they still discover new things about their spouse, even after 70 years being together. That reminds me of the sweetest article that was in the LA Times this week about Cutie and Pop Pop, a 90-something couple (he's 98, although he doesn't look it) whose granddaughters have created a blog and webcast of them because they are so sweet together. Check out the article because they are too cute together! http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-grandparents-20100614,0,714005.story

But anyway, I can understand that knowing yourself is valuable, but both sets of my grandparents were married, one for 46 years until Grandpa died, and the other for 61 years until the other grandpa died, and they both seemed to have such strong relationships. But both were married before the age of 21 (or at least all but one grandfather, who I think was about 22). So how well could they have known each other? I used to talk with my one grandmother about relationships and marriage, and she seemed to have had a strong marriage. I realize that not everyone of that generation did. Many, especially those who had a difficult war (World War II), struggled. But what makes one marriage work and another not?

I can say in the case of my friend, one thing that occurred to me tonight is that she almost looks like she wants her marriage to fail in order to have something else to blame on her husband. She has become so obsessed with who is at fault in every little detail that she has forgotten the big picture of their marriage as a whole. She won't even go to counseling with him anymore because "he has more problems than she does." Yet she won't even let him touch their 6-week-old son. And she was really mad at him for calling my dad when he was worried because she wouldn't let him near the boy. I think she felt as if he was "telling on her," when I think he was genuinely concerned. But it just seems that right now, she is so bitter that she is cutting off her nose to spite her face. Does that make any sense to anyone else, or is the pain dulling my brain too much?

And I didn't mean any disrespect about saying that people who live together before marriage seem to have a higher divorce rate.

It's not about that much about divorce rate, Vicky, it's about remark that they "enter into relationship with less commitment that sounded flippant to me, Vicky.
But as usual I guess I got my panties into a wad tad too much, and I apologize for that.
damn that hormones of peri-menopause!

I have only lived once with somebody and that one turned into my C/L husband of today,
but still when I entered into that 'live together' arrangement back then I wasn't treating it lightly, Vicky.
It was a big deal back then to me - deciding to live with somebody, and I believe any average person has the same hopes and expectation of any relationship whether it ends in marriage or breakup without one.

Because I got all hot headed I assumed "I've heard" meant as in by word of mouth, but now that you've explained how you've come to that info you don't have to search for no links as I absolutely believe you Vicky.
If you say you saw studies i believe you.

My uneducated guess would be then what happens couples who live together and then decide to separate,
with the exception of truly reckless, irresponsible individuals (but then such are everywhere even in legal marriages) take more risks and are more honest with each other.
They actually treat marriage vows more seriously, and that is probably why some of these unions does not end in marriage after such a long time together. They just not going to commit knowing things are not working 100% between them.

Then, when the second time over such a couple makes a mistake - gets married and it is not working- they have previous experience including financial mess of living together from their other long term relationship,
and are smart enough to realize that what's ahead is a downhill road of misery and resentment.
So they file for divorce with less problems and guilt.

Whereas first married, never been in relationship before, they don't know these thing yet.
Most of them feel guilt, fear of what happens if they split and become single again,
are confused by the vows they took, finances, and et cetera.

It's much harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel without the previous experience living together offers.

I think what you said about knowing yourself makes a lot of sense. But can you ever know yourself truly? I question whether that's ever possible?

But see here, I am thinking about quite simple things Vicky, like who you are as a basic person,
what you like, what you don't and what can you offer to that other person.
Amazingly, people don't take these things under consideration, when they meet they are in this state of romantic exultation that they don't pay slightest attention to what's really happening.
You know that famous "love is blind"?

When you meet somebody not only you are on your best behaviour, that other person is on his/her best behaviour. That is not good ground for relationship right on the spot.
Then when the relationship develops, if you like that somebody, if that person posses some traits of character or even the look you love, you tend to overlook anything else what may turn out in the longer run to be very significant.

Now, YOU, at the same time, with loving haze over your retinas will overlook the fact that your partner came from the family where the father was seated at the table every single day, and the hot steaming dinner was placed before him.
YOU don't like to cook, have no interest in EVER becoming a homemaker. How long do you think the happiness will last, and what will happen when to the strained relationship the kids will be added?

This is what I mean "know what you cannot offer yet your partner needs".
It so simple, as it is just a case of unmatched personalities. You two just don't match, period. Spells t-r-o-u-b-l-e.
-
This type of "know who you are, your likes and dislikes" I meant - nothing especially deep, just common sense
and I believe that would spare a lot of grief further down the road.

Something else somebody told me I found very helpful when it comes to being smart while choosing your future partner - meet your future parents.
Chances are, your wife or husband to be will more or less their replica.
You'll know what you will be dealing with once you got to know them, observe the dynamics of their relationship, if you are the woman pay attention who your husband reminds you more of - mom or dad, and of course how they treat each other. And so on, everything matters, even how the siblings get along (or not...)

btw yes, I speak from my own experience. close to 30 years, and nothing changes - dum NOTHING!

Risa

As a man in his second marriage I can say I have learned a few things that I think will ensure that this one endures the hardships and flourishes. I married my first wife at a young age and after children and a decade and a half, we were two different people. I now know that my immaturity kept me from making good character judgments which ultimately led to some unhappy years. So what happened? I married someone totally opposite of my first wife. I knew the little things to look for, which personality traits would be too much, and which ones would be a magnet. It's sad that I had to go through a bad marriage to learn these things and know what I wanted, but in the end I am much happier.

I will say that I totally agree with an earlier statement that accepting your partner for who they are is so very important. I feel so free now in my marriage that I can just be me, and so does my wife. From the smallest things like a band that one of us might like, to something as important as a political issue or personal hobby, it's great to not have to "hold back" for the sake of not being ridiculed or argued down. My wife and I are very similar in a lot of ways, but the differences make things interesting and we both accept them. Arguments? Yeah they still happen, and sometimes it can be a good sign, when it's kept inn a certain context. When a couple doesn't care is when they walk by and the energy to even argue isn't mustered. The other side of that is when a couple does argue, how do they feel shortly after. Now if I have an argument, there's a short clearing of smoke and then we're calling each other or coming to each other to say we're sorry and admit how dumb we were, big difference from my past. I am a big supporter of communication, no matter how cheesy it sounds. Listening to each other talk about the smallest of issues to the deepest, creates trust and builds something that will bond your marriage through time, friendship. My wife is my best friend in the world and she is the first person I run to when I want to talk. She feels the same about me. The nights we have spent on the couch just talking for hours have deepened our bond so much. Knowing that we can just talk and open up to each other at anytime is awesome. We have both admitted that this was something we were missing in our previous marriages. Lastly I am a firm believer in battling complacency. I think it's important in a marriage to always go out of your way to make your partner happy and show your love. I send my wife flowers to her job, bring them home, not on the holidays when every woman expects them, but the unexpected days. I do little projects to surprise her and she does some great things for me as well. We keep things exciting and have never just settled down. I don't tell people I have answers, but I'm working hard at this.

I wish anyone the best these days when marrying the person they love. It's a very hard decision and once made can be one that is hard to handle. But the rewards can be awesome also.

havung taught on a marriage enrichment course, we saw many marriages strengthened and it was based on understanding how we understand eachothers love languages, this is how we interpret love from our partners. it is just a case of finding your partners top langaues and using them

1- loving words

2-spending quality time together

3- non sexual touches

4- buying gifts

5- little things you do for them- ie- wash up/ clean the car or some suprise little thing you know will mean a lot to them.

often partners are speaking to eachother in a different love language to the one they understand. finding each others language is easy will transform marriages. the first few years are tough after the honeymoon period but life together will get more precious if you undertsnd their love language and are prepared to invest in your marriage.

1- loving words

2-spending quality time together

3- non sexual touches

4- buying gifts

Oh, absolutely, that is a must for any successful relationship.

But that's what I am trying to explain here- suppose in the heat of the moment you fall for a guy who is rather cold and standoffish, coming from a family where showing affection was non-existent,
and you are all touchy-kissy, after mom and dad always kissing and hugging each other.

how and why would you expect him to tell you loving words and buy you gifts?
you can also forget about non-sexual touches, yes, and I am sure his idea of a quality time together will be watching sports together with his buddies or you dressed as a French maid.

How long do you think before you start resenting him to the point you will withdraw your own expression of love and affection?

Risa

Just a thought:

What if you ask the question the other way around:

"Why do marriages endure with love and mutual respect for so many years?"

Good thought Mianna.

We have managed 40 years.
It is hard work and we have our problems.
I only know how we got here, cant speak for anyone else.
And dont wish to cat any aspersions.

We were friends first. Engaged for 2 years.
We do have pretty similar likes and dislikes.
We never intended it to be a temporary thing.
We look at the similarities, not the differences.
Try to work as individuals but always consult each other.

It has actually gotten a lot harder since he retired.
He is in my territory. I dont get my space any more.
And of course my health issues are a trial.
And losing my parents and his being in their 90s.
It has caused a lot of stress.

I dont think there is any secret, just a lot of tolerance and hard work.
Oh an separate bedrooms now......
Really that helped a lot. He snores and fidgets all night, and I was making him scared to move because of my head.
NOTHING works well on no sleep and bad tempers.