Reply to Grey divorces

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Grey divorces"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I also think sometimes couples just have very different needs and perceptions of whether a marriage is "happy" or not. I have friends who are now getting divorced who were married for three decades. She thinks they were happy and is baffled. He thinks he's been unhappy for at least two of the last three decades and stayed because of the kids. They both agree marriage was mostly sexless. She thought that was fine and they were both okay with it. He thought it was not fine and he was lonely. She thought he was easygoing because he always let her get her way. He thought she was controlling because she got pissed off when he did not do what she wanted.

I think both of them have crappy communication skills and took each other for granted: it's like they never actually sat down and had a conversation about what they each wanted and needed, what was working, what was not. Maybe they could have made it a good and enduring marriage if they had talked about those things decades ago. They're both decent people. I don't think either of them hates the other or behaved abusively or badly. I think they just somehow managed to go through decades of marriage without actually talking about what they wanted. Which is mind-blowing.

So now she is shocked and mad and he is relieved to be out but wracked by guilt. I suspect they will both get over it and they will each find someone better suited. I just hope they have both become learned some lessons during the process. I definitely don't think they should have stayed together, though: the marriage was built on a set of mutual false assumptions. [/quote]

Obviously you know these people and I don’t, but I think women who never have sex with a willing husband are either extremely stupid or don’t care about their husband’s happiness and then express “confusion” to their friends as a cover when their husbands leave.  Have these women never met a man?  Why on earth do they think their husbands would be happy with no sex?  They actually don’t care about the person they are living with or are too stupid to be married. [/quote]

+1. I am skeptical about the PP’s statements that these two didn’t really talk about it. What your friend thought is that she could ignore her husband’s desires, not just sex but for things to go how he’d like on occasion in their life together, and he would still stay forever and forever in those conditions. I bet it’s more likely that they did talk about it but she thought her own wishes trumped his. [/quote]

The DH sounds super passive aggressive. Like he’d decided a decade in that he’d just never be happy, and lived that out instead of actually bringing his issues up with the wife. We don’t know the wife… maybe she’s super aggressive, or maybe it was a self fulfilling prophecy on the part of the DH. Or maybe the DH did bring it up, and the wife just ignored him or laughed off his complaints. We don’t know. Two decades is a long time to be unhappy and not tell the other person though. I am also wondering if this was revisionist history on the part of the DH and there is a secret affair on his part that hasn’t come out yet. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics