If you’re happily married 16 plus years what do you attribute it to? What factors?

[Anonymous]

I’ve rarely met anyone in a solid, great marriage with substance abuse problems

[Anonymous]

Communication
Honesty
Compromise
Respect
Same religion and moral upbringing
Mutual understanding of commitment.

We have been married 25 years. 4 kids, 1 with SN. We are partners and both agree that we are in this as a united front. We also acknowledge and accept each other's strengths and weaknesses.

[Anonymous]

Integrity.

[Anonymous]

It helps that we were younger, didn't have lot of sexual experience or relational baggage so didn't make comparisons but just grew together in this adventure which we call life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My culture and religion. The people who surround me. Divorce, DV and cheating is very rare in my circle.

Mostly college STEM educated people - both men and women. High earners.

South Asian, right?

Lots of DV in the South Asian community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My culture and religion. The people who surround me. Divorce, DV and cheating is very rare in my circle.

Mostly college STEM educated people - both men and women. High earners.

South Asian, right?

Lots of DV in the South Asian community.

Which SA community?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly- not having children. You don’t have much to fight about.

Really? We became closer after having kids. Kids are the superglue of our marriage.

[Anonymous]

This is such a disingenuous thread. People congratulating themselves on the attributes that make their marriages last. I would say it’s really easy to stay married if the following things are there: fidelity, both partners fulfilling their commitments/obligations (not protracted unemployment or financial irresponsibility), no abuse (physical, emotional etc) or serious mental illness . These are the things that wreck every marriage regardless how “forgiving” and cool and what not everyone is. Even if the partners stay married - the relationship is over. And that’s what counts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly- not having children. You don’t have much to fight about.

Really? We became closer after having kids. Kids are the superglue of our marriage.

Agree. Kids make our relationship exponentially better. Our love has grown through raising them and we never fight about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is such a disingenuous thread. People congratulating themselves on the attributes that make their marriages last. I would say it’s really easy to stay married if the following things are there: fidelity, both partners fulfilling their commitments/obligations (not protracted unemployment or financial irresponsibility), no abuse (physical, emotional etc) or serious mental illness . These are the things that wreck every marriage regardless how “forgiving” and cool and what not everyone is. Even if the partners stay married - the relationship is over. And that’s what counts.

This is a really good point although some marriages do survive these problems.

DH’s mother had bipolar disorder. MIL and FIL stuck together until her death. I don’t know how happy DH’s father was with the marriage, but he did love MIL and his grief was pretty profound when she died, although there was some relief mixed in.

BIL has severe MS and SIL has been a caretaker for him for 10 years, they were never able to have children. Somehow they find happiness together, in their memories of better times in particular, and you can feel their love for each other. I don’t know how to describe that- profound? Maybe seeing the level of commitment of her parents gave SIL the tools to work through this. Maybe it is our struggles that prepare our kids for their challenges.

[Anonymous]

Luck, more than anything else. 20 years and two kids later we're different people than we were when we met.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is such a disingenuous thread. People congratulating themselves on the attributes that make their marriages last. I would say it’s really easy to stay married if the following things are there: fidelity, both partners fulfilling their commitments/obligations (not protracted unemployment or financial irresponsibility), no abuse (physical, emotional etc) or serious mental illness . These are the things that wreck every marriage regardless how “forgiving” and cool and what not everyone is. Even if the partners stay married - the relationship is over. And that’s what counts.

This is a really good point although some marriages do survive these problems.

DH’s mother had bipolar disorder. MIL and FIL stuck together until her death. I don’t know how happy DH’s father was with the marriage, but he did love MIL and his grief was pretty profound when she died, although there was some relief mixed in.

BIL has severe MS and SIL has been a caretaker for him for 10 years, they were never able to have children. Somehow they find happiness together, in their memories of better times in particular, and you can feel their love for each other. I don’t know how to describe that- profound? Maybe seeing the level of commitment of her parents gave SIL the tools to work through this. Maybe it is our struggles that prepare our kids for their challenges.

Your FIL was probably trauma bonded and maybe the wife wasn’t even abusive even though she was bipolar. Maybe her mental disease was mild, we don’t know.
To my point, MS is not a mental disease and doesn’t make people completely insufferable and unsafe to be around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly- not having children. You don’t have much to fight about.

Really? We became closer after having kids. Kids are the superglue of our marriage.

Agree. Kids make our relationship exponentially better. Our love has grown through raising them and we never fight about them.

Not for us. Everything was so easy for years before kids. After, we hardly had time/energy for each other and we didn’t work on our relationship. Partly because it was just so easy before that we didn’t have to, so maybe we didn’t know how. We let having kids (especially having more than one kid) ruin us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It helps that we were younger, didn't have lot of sexual experience or relational baggage so didn't make comparisons but just grew together in this adventure which we call life.

This is the scenario for one of my friends. They are very happy but definitely have a traditional, patriarchal relationship. It works for them but it drives me crazy to see how she much she defers to him.

I feel like our marriage is successful because we both had time to live independently as young adults and learned what we wanted and needed in a partner. We have much more of an equal partnership and have been happily married for 25+ years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Low expectations? This isn't a knock against DH, I just grew up in a lower socioeconomic class so the kinds of conflicts and issues that we navigate in our marriage seem so small compared to the kinds of things my parents had to navigate in my childhood.

Similar - this! I had so much struggle in my childhood I’m grateful for the stability of my marriage. DH is a high earner, which was NOT always the case, and the financial security has really chilled me out. We also have two healthy (annoying and high energy but developmentally fine) kids.