Reply to Can you tell if any couple in your social group will divorce?

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Can you tell if any couple in your social group will divorce?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So, all you people who claim you can predict divorce, what do you see (and when) that you consider a tell?

[/quote]

NP here, but I'll bite.  I'm a very observant introvert who listens and observes way more than I speak.  When you spend time with a couple, you pick up on little (and often very, very subtle) red flagish things over time.  I find myself taking those things and kinda file them away in the mental vault, and it helps me understand the way things are likely to play out overtime.  These signs might seem like nothing to someone who is, frankly, less observant, but the sum of them can often convey a certain attitude or issues within the relationship.

Some quick examples:

- At my SILs wedding, I noticed that the groom was VERY complimentary of the bridesmaids' appearances.  This might seem like no big deal, but I thought it was odd that he was so comfortable being so complimentary of other women when he's moments away from marrying the love of his life.  Something just seemed mildly off about the interactions in a way I can't really describe, and I would not be surprised if he cheats down the road.

- A couple of weeks before I attended another wedding, I was talking to the bride who was very excitedly going over logistics and cheerfully said something like "I'm very ready to get married!"  Not, "I'm very ready to marry Larlo".  Sounds like a small difference, but I think it is telling about her attitude.

Then there are generally things that you pick up on over time.

- I also notice couples that seem lovely, but have basically had a very low-stress courtship.  They're often ingrained in a low stress dynamic, and I'll pay close attention to how things between them start to play out between them once the stress gets cranked up a bit (usually after the arrival of a baby or two).  Personality differences that seem complementary while dating, can really cause issues in times of stress.

[b]- Couples that marry after years of dating and living together often seem to be together due to inertia.  Not always, but very often, yes.[/b]

- Couples where one spouse is ADHD and the other is able to work around their ADHD spouse.  The wheels come off when these people have kids, even if they don't get divorced.

- Couples where one or both people drink too much socially.  I think that signals poor coping mechanisms and/or unhappiness.  It also points so something that can get much worse when the going gets tough, so to speak.

- General lack of an emotionally generous attitude from one spouse to another, or between each other.

- General lack of a kind attitude from one spouse to another, or between each other.  The worst are the people who dig in when they have a disagreement, instead of genuinely trying to understand each others perspective.  People who do the whole tit for tat thing are in for a rough road.

[b]- EXTREMELY extroverted couples who host everything.  People are usually the most surprised by these divorces.  However, if you were paying attention all along, you would have seen that much of their relationship is about other people and structured activities.  They often put on a good front.  These are the people who are all smiles on Facebook, running off to the pumpkin patch and pressing their own apple cider on the first nice day of fall.  I think, very often, they're excessively active socially and on the weekends because they don't really have enough between them to enjoy each other...always has to be a bunch of other people around or some structured activity.[/b]

So yeah, any one of these things alone doesn't add up to a prediction of divorce, but they do flag attitudes and things that I'll take a closer look at over the years.  These things usually point to where to look for the signs, and from there I'll observe more and make a determination about a couples likeliness to call it quits or not.  While I haven't been surprised by a divorce yet, I have found that it is hard to know WHEN exactly a relationship will blow up.  I've found that to be a more imperfect science.
 
[/quote]

I bolded the ones that apply to my first marriage. If I am completely honest, he should never have asked me to marry him and I should never have agreed, but at the time, it felt like a fun adventure that we were going on together. Our entire relationship was basically project-based: we worked on the same stuff and related to each other on that level, then there was the "planning a wedding" project and the "moving across the country" project the "remodel a house" project and the "having a baby" project. After the baby was born, he moved on to new work-related projects, without me, and it became very clear that we really had very little interpersonal things in common. We had a lot of really amazing parties and when I left, everyone, including him, was surprised.

Some signs people could have picked up on other than the stuff I bolded:

- we hosted a lot of stuff but didn't really do things together - even the parties we hosted, we were usually doing things in parallel (e.g., him grilling things and me hanging out on the porch on the other side of the house)
- he wasn't physically affectionate with me at all
- he never talked about my accomplishments, ever
- he was never around for kid stuff - to this day doesn't know her friends or go to any of her school stuff (she's 9)[/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