A personal journey through Karen's eyes

[Dom R]

Well, Dom, you've left us widows pretty much out in the cold, haven't you?

me? I didnt do anything to anyone.
I just stated why I think that a positive long-term relationship, would feel better (to me, at any rate) than a positive shorter-term one.
Even after 10 years of marriage, i can feel that about myself.

Even if I got remarried, I would still miss the women that I "grew up with", so to speak.

widow(er)hood is a very sad fact of life, sometimes.
doesnt make what I said true or not true, though.

Even if my wife DIED right now, and we never got the chance to reconcile... I would still miss her. I miss her either way.

I'm just asking why it is automatically assumed that a long marriage to the same person is better for most people than two or three marriages to different people over the course of a 75 or 80 year life span?


My parents were married 43 years and were miserable most of the time. When I was in high school I used to wish they would get divorced and find other people so perhaps I would have a chance at a normal family life.

Ah, but here's the thing, though.
you're not just asking "why is a long marriage, better than multiple shorter ones?" Seems like the full question on your mind is, more specifically, "why is a long miserable marriage, better than getting re-married, and being happy in the second one?"

Right?


However, that is the "suckers choice", alluded to in that book that i referenced. People in that situation, dont only have a choice between those two things. It isnt only a choice between "a long miserable marriage, or getting divorced and marrying someone else".

If both people behave like mature and good people, there is always the possibility of building a better marriage.

You described how your mother realized, late in life, how miserably she treated your father.
She was capable of realising that.
Now imagine if she had just realized that 40 years earlier?

What a waste, I say.

i agree. what a waste, that your mother did not choose to look at herself while her H was alive, and choose to be a better wife while she had the chance?

her realization later in life, shows that she was capable of realizing, that she was not treating him right. That seems like the biggest obstacle in marital fights and breakups... for each person to realize what they themselves are doing negatively to the marriage. Once they fully realize that, it is a lesser effort to stop doing those negative things.

your parents' marriage COULD have been better. if they stuck to both parts of the marital commitment... to be together, AND to keep loving each other and trying to work on their marriage... they could have had a wonderful marriage. not "by finding someone else".. but with each other.

that, is the true waste, in my mind.


Sorry if you feel like i am somehow insulting your parents. that's not my intent. I'm primarily just trying to communicate what a tragedy it was, both for them and you, that they only went half-way down the marital path together.