What an interesting thread. My spidey radar is up and humming for some reason.

DCUM, don't have children. They will ruin your life. They will ruin your marriage.

OP, how many kids do you have, or how many children do you hope to have if you're not yet a parent? What is your intent with this thread?

Also once you have kids, they are the loves of your life. DH is great, but he’s some guy from grad school. Those kids are my flesh and blood.

Maybe the couples who can't have any have had to work through a lot of adversity and heartache so there bond is stronger. As someone who's been through cancer and infertility due to cancer, being a parent is a walk in the park because there is nothing my partner and I can't tackle

I have three kids now who run circles around us and who have basically run us ragged. But before having them, we experienced years of infertility. That was harder on the marriage.

The divorce rates are complicated for many of the reasons previous posters have said. But in terms of marital satisfaction, there is a curvilinear (or U-Shaped) curve for people who have kids, with marital satisfaction dipping down to its lowest point during child rearing years and returning back up once the kids launch successfully.

Why does it have to be one or the other? There are happy and unhappy people in all categories (childless, one kid, 2+ kids , divorced etc).

For example we have 3 kids but I feel like we are less stressed out than many of our friends who have one or two kids. We entertain a lot, travel a lot (we are currently out of the country for Christmas), I have time to meet friends if I want to. The key for us is that we have an au au pair who helps around with the kids, making things more manageable. So it is not really about how many kids you have but about how you are as a couple, how you get alone, how much extra help you have, how easy your kids are etc, it is not that black or white!

Please don’t cite the divorce stat as a sign of happiness in marriages.

There are a lot of child’s hiding in their rooms during terrible fights, praying that their parents divorce. But their parents will convince themselves that they are staying together “for the kids.”

The happiest couples I know have one kid ... they don't feel overwhelmed, still have some time for themselves and generally are more chill.

Children take an enormous amount of work - even the easy ones - and there are days when you wonder why did we do this? But then there are moments of pure joy. Yesterday after Christmas dinner my 4 year old grabbed her new microphone and sang “Let it go” while her 3 year old cousin was showing her new found ballet moves. They had us in tears. I would hate to give up those moments of parenting and there are many of them amid the chaos.

Anonymous wrote:Childless by choice here, been married to DH 18 years. Yes, it is probably easier - if nothing else, we're DINKS and don't worry about or fight over money, which is one of the main marriage stressors. We have had some 'forged in fire' years and getting through those definitely made us stronger as a couple, but nothing like what I imagine co-parenting would do. I don't know if our marriage would survive having kids, and I don't want to find out. I'm okay with that.

Similar, married ten, but together 20.

Anonymous wrote:66% of divorces are of childless couples. The divorce rate for childless couples has always been double that of couples with children. There could be many reasons for this, but I doubt it has to do with childless couples being happier together. I think any intense life events can stress a marriage, and over time you are bound to experience everyday issues such as health problems, change of career, existential crisis, etc.

You might be projecting a bit because you were happier pre-kids. It happens. Some people feel very tied down by responsibility. For others, marriage goes through hard times but through that you get to true, til death do us part intimacy.

This was my thought as the reason. It’s easier to divorce if you are child-free, so 10-15 years in, there is a selection bias.

It’s not that kids create unhappy marriages, it’s that kids force merely unhappy marriages to continue. Childfree couples don’t have that pressure.

I have found the opposite (our kids are in college now). The childless couples had less holding them together when things got tough. Divorces in both groups though- however, in general the childless couples divorced earlier. Some of the with children couples- pushed through until the kids were grown or older.

Yeah it's just you Op

We were married 22 years before having a child. We have had some great adventures and tons of fun. They were also years of the loss of immediate family members, building our careers, moves, and growing up. All that stuff brought stress, too.

The years since our son was born have been our favorite, tied with a couple random really cool years throughout our journey. We are both happier with him in our lives, and disagree even less than before he was born. Some of the small sit we wouldn’t let go before is easier to move beyond when you are a caretaker. He brings us together on another level, both loving this kid with everything we have inside us and sharing that as a unit. I wouldn’t trade our time now for our childfree years. Nope, never.