Why is the ow so controlling?

[25yearsmlc]

Dear IMP,

just a quick note. There was an extensive amount of research for a divorce book a few years ago, which (I believe) was titled "The Case Against Divorce". In their research, divorced "couples" were interviewed 2, 5 and 10 years after their divorces, and yielded some interesting results. Here are some random statistics that were current as of when I read the book, about 2 years ago.

I recall that 5 years post divorce, over 75% of divorced men and 60% of women WHO FILED, regretted not working harder on the marriages AND OR filing for D at all. Obviously the LBSers might feel the same.

80% of affairs that lead to "new" marriages, (meaning when the WAS marries the OP) ended in divorce, as opposed to the 50% of first M's. You'd think that with the wisdom of experience the D rate would be lower, but it's just the opposite.

Men are much more likely to leave wives for adultery than women are with their unfaithful H's and similarly, men leave wives with addictions several times more than women leave their addict husbands...I am not saying what that means b/c I simply don't know, but I can think of several possibilities. I wish that friends and family would allow those betrayed, to forgive. Too often the "victim"spouse hears from others that he/she should Not forgive or take "that crap" etc., and pressures a divorce when maybe, maybe, the cheater really is sorry and has learned a lesson or maybe they could have both evolved and reconciled.

Also, People who get married in church's have a 20% lower divorce rate (40% vs 50%) which could reflect more thought in advance, to plan a wedding, rather than eloping suddenly. There are lots of reasons behind all the stats and theories abound.

fwiw/fyi, and one last comment about why there is more hope than you might think, from reading these bb's. First off, if we're here at all, there's trouble. It's Like saying that people in the hospital are all going to die--they are not all going to die, but they are more likely to die than people outside walking around healthy. HOwever, lots of couples who get into trouble, also fix it or work through it Before getting to this place. More people are going to M seminars and getting help for their R's than we know. More books getting read, more going to therapists, etc.

I attended a 50th wedding anniversary with 49 other couples, most of whom had been married over 30 years. For some reason, I got a lot of advice at the party (guess rumors spread fast) In almost every long term marriage, at least one spouse has had to do some serious forgiving. Or so they told me. Made sense.

Hope this helps you understand that no matter why you are here, or how bad it might be, I doubt anyone's M is hurt by being here but many M's are improved by being here. Maybe even if the M ends, the R is better than it would have been, and God knows I would certainly be divorced if it were not for DBing. I am not saying my M is out of the woods yet (are we ever?) but I am saying this helps and so does hope itself. Cynicism versus realism is a fine line.
j-