When did divorces start happening in your circle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've actually had no divorces in our group of ten couples. No one rushed into marriage and we all got married after completing our graduate education. Interestingly, we all had parents that never divorced.

I've read that if your parents divorced, you have a higher chance of divorce in your own marriage. Not sure if that claim still stands.

I'm not sure but I think it does still stand; I think the explanation I heard is like this:

- if your parent's stayed married, it's likely because they had good emotional intelligence, and were attracted to others like themselves.
- they modelled a healthy relationship for you as a child.
- you were drawn to people like your parents (most of us are) so you are drawn to emotionally intelligent and healthy people - you are repelled from unhealthy people.
- you know how to have a healthy relationship because it's what you grew up watching

This is a positive feedback loop. For people with FOOs with divorce, the same "positive feedback" loop exists, except it's pointing in the wrong direction.

Divorce is an effect, not a cause.

This is ridiculous. Most of my high school friends are still married to bad husbands because it's considered so embarrassing and shameful to divorce where we grew up, in certain NY and southern CT suburbs. Same thing for their mothers - if you want to look at cause-and-effect, start there. If your mother stayed in a bad marriage, she'll probably encourage you to do the same. This is true of my best friend, who has been married for twenty years to a horrible man.

As my mother always says, "We might all still be married, but that doesn't mean that very many of us are happy!"

This. My mother convinced me to get married in the first place (because she thought I was "too old" even though I really was not certain and wanted to back out; then she convinced me to "stay"--wasted 10 years of my life. It's horrible for people to do that.

If your mother stayed married and encouraged you to do so--wouldn't the logical conclusion be that it wasn't a bad marriage? And maybe you just had a child's understanding of their marriage and not the viewpoint of the two adults actually in it?

My parents had and have a horrible marriage. I was breaking up physical fights at 9 years old. I was parenting my brother while they fought every single day. My mom never loved me dad. She thought this was ok. They almost divorced twice when I was a teen. I wanted them to—so the toxicity would end. They are now old and miserable. I barely see them. It is too difficult. My mom is religious and old fashioned. She thought if I did not get married at 32, I never would. Ridiculous. When I told her I did not want to get married and I did not love him and did not feel he loved me, she still told me to do it anyway. She said, “Just get a divorce if it is bad.” Well, it was bad from day1 and 6 months in I said I needed to divorce. She said give it one more year...that is how an unplanned pregnancy happened and got mr stuck for 10. Truly awful.

I did not misinterpret anything.