When and why did your friends get divorced?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all are kidding yourselves if you think you can really know what's going on in somebody else's marriage. Most of us have enough trouble knowing what's going on in our own.

How well does anyone ever really know another human being?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My brother is getting divorced after 25 years. He had an extraordinary job offer that required a cross country relocation to a great small city but his wife had never lived anywhere but near her hometown in the middle of nowhere. They relocated but after six months or so she moved back to their unsold home. I’m sure things had been rocky but that was the beginning of the end.

The unsold home was a mistake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mid 40s and agree that many of the divorces come out of the woods when the middle school years start. A couple that were surprising. Not aware of any addictions, but yes to dead bedrooms and infidelity. My guess is people neglect their spouses when kids are little. As the ghost of Christmas future to you young parents, keep the sex and intimacy going at all costs unless you want to join the club

You are actually reading that wrong. You are assuming all the couples who stayed together had lots of sex during the crazy difficult kid years. The truth is that the difference is not in having sex or not, but in couples understanding each other needs and that short term problems are just that, short term. For better or worse, you gotta roll through the tough times. People who bail because the child years are tough, didn't understand that for better or worse meant there would be hard times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mid 40s and agree that many of the divorces come out of the woods when the middle school years start. A couple that were surprising. Not aware of any addictions, but yes to dead bedrooms and infidelity. My guess is people neglect their spouses when kids are little. As the ghost of Christmas future to you young parents, keep the sex and intimacy going at all costs unless you want to join the club

You are actually reading that wrong. You are assuming all the couples who stayed together had lots of sex during the crazy difficult kid years. The truth is that the difference is not in having sex or not, but in couples understanding each other needs and that short term problems are just that, short term. For better or worse, you gotta roll through the tough times. People who bail because the child years are tough, didn't understand that for better or worse meant there would be hard times.

Clearly, the tough times never went away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mid 40s and agree that many of the divorces come out of the woods when the middle school years start. A couple that were surprising. Not aware of any addictions, but yes to dead bedrooms and infidelity. My guess is people neglect their spouses when kids are little. As the ghost of Christmas future to you young parents, keep the sex and intimacy going at all costs unless you want to join the club

You are actually reading that wrong. You are assuming all the couples who stayed together had lots of sex during the crazy difficult kid years. The truth is that the difference is not in having sex or not, but in couples understanding each other needs and that short term problems are just that, short term. For better or worse, you gotta roll through the tough times. People who bail because the child years are tough, didn't understand that for better or worse meant there would be hard times.

No actually there is a strong correlation between couples who don’t have sex leading to divorce. Why would you claim otherwise? Having children does not prevent a normal active sex life so why do you depict this as an expected thing when it’s actually a major sign the marriage is in trouble?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is getting divorced after 25 years. He had an extraordinary job offer that required a cross country relocation to a great small city but his wife had never lived anywhere but near her hometown in the middle of nowhere. They relocated but after six months or so she moved back to their unsold home. I’m sure things had been rocky but that was the beginning of the end.

The unsold home was a mistake.

The real estate market stinks in many areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is getting divorced after 25 years. He had an extraordinary job offer that required a cross country relocation to a great small city but his wife had never lived anywhere but near her hometown in the middle of nowhere. They relocated but after six months or so she moved back to their unsold home. I’m sure things had been rocky but that was the beginning of the end.

The unsold home was a mistake.

The real estate market stinks in many areas.

Nonetheless, it was a built in out for her. If rented at least, she couldn’t have blindsided him that way.

[Anonymous]

We’ve been married almost 40 years with most of our friends being married 30-40 years. I can definitely see a difference between happy couples and those who seem to be coasting along in their relationship. But I sense that at this point in their lives divorce is unlikely to happen. Being 60+ and being alone by choice is a pretty lonely prospect especially for women. I assume that sex is still a part of the happy couples lives and it certainly is with ours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mid 40s and agree that many of the divorces come out of the woods when the middle school years start. A couple that were surprising. Not aware of any addictions, but yes to dead bedrooms and infidelity. My guess is people neglect their spouses when kids are little. As the ghost of Christmas future to you young parents, keep the sex and intimacy going at all costs unless you want to join the club

You are actually reading that wrong. You are assuming all the couples who stayed together had lots of sex during the crazy difficult kid years. The truth is that the difference is not in having sex or not, but in couples understanding each other needs and that short term problems are just that, short term. For better or worse, you gotta roll through the tough times. People who bail because the child years are tough, didn't understand that for better or worse meant there would be hard times.

So true. I think that those tough times do go away once kids are older, there’s more financial certainty etc. you start to appreciate all of the benefits of sacrifices you made as a couple. It’s the uptick in the happiness curve as you get older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been married almost 40 years with most of our friends being married 30-40 years. I can definitely see a difference between happy couples and those who seem to be coasting along in their relationship. But I sense that at this point in their lives divorce is unlikely to happen. Being 60+ and being alone by choice is a pretty lonely prospect especially for women. I assume that sex is still a part of the happy couples lives and it certainly is with ours.

There has been a big increase in grey divorces and 2/3 of all divorced are initiated by women.

[Anonymous]

I'm not getting this "middle school kids are less needy" idea. DS started 7th grade in September, and my God, the amount of time I've spent helping him with homework and projects has been insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not getting this "middle school kids are less needy" idea. DS started 7th grade in September, and my God, the amount of time I've spent helping him with homework and projects has been insane.

That type of help is nice, but not critical. My DD almost never asked for or wanted help with homework or projects from 4th or 5th grade onward and almost consistently gets straight As. (She got 1 B per quarter for 3 marking periods one year, but it rotated which course). But there were so many things that she couldn’t do for herself until middle school. Since 6th grade, she can and does travel across town on public transportation. She can prepare a decent dinner safely if the adults had to work extra late. When we’ve had to leave extra early, she can wake herself up and get to school on time.

[Anonymous]

Divorce 1: husband is a malignant narcissist. I’ve known him for years and can’t imagine he wasn’t abusive. She’s remarried.

Divorce 2: husband got involved in a specific sexual subculture that the wife wasn’t interested in. She tried it out but it didn’t work for him. He left.

Divorce 3: not sure. She was always very critical of him. Maybe he got sick of it or maybe she did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many times the wife gets old and fat

And the husband gets younger and more muscular???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mid 40s and agree that many of the divorces come out of the woods when the middle school years start. A couple that were surprising. Not aware of any addictions, but yes to dead bedrooms and infidelity. My guess is people neglect their spouses when kids are little. As the ghost of Christmas future to you young parents, keep the sex and intimacy going at all costs unless you want to join the club

You are actually reading that wrong. You are assuming all the couples who stayed together had lots of sex during the crazy difficult kid years. The truth is that the difference is not in having sex or not, but in couples understanding each other needs and that short term problems are just that, short term. For better or worse, you gotta roll through the tough times. People who bail because the child years are tough, didn't understand that for better or worse meant there would be hard times.

No actually there is a strong correlation between couples who don’t have sex leading to divorce. Why would you claim otherwise? Having children does not prevent a normal active sex life so why do you depict this as an expected thing when it’s actually a major sign the marriage is in trouble?

Correlation =\= causation. Often, the lack of sex is caused by relationship troubles that then lead to the divorce itself. This has been the case with myself and all my female friends who are divorced or considering- we lost interest in sex because of marital problems, not because of kids, and those problems led to divorce. Once I was out of my marriage, my interest in sex skyrocketed, despite still being a parent.