Glad to see some positives in your sitch. It gives me hope. I will cross my fingers that they become more regular and less of a roller coaster. Sorry to hear about your brother and his wife. Do you suppose there is something about our culture or society that enables this desire to be self centered and that a R should not be any work or that a bad spell means a bad R?
In my opinion, it is obvious it is a societal problem. People don't understand that marriage is not just a fairy tale romance but also a partnership with the purpose of having a family.
I'm originally from the middle east. I have three uncles and aunts on one side of the family and four on the other. All seven are married with kids. Their kids (my cousins) are also married. All first marriages.
My wife who is a waw and an american, has 9 uncles and aunts on one die, and three on the other. 12 marriages, eleven divorces! My mother in law was a cheating waw who is jow married to her AP. My wife is a cheating waw who was saying until recently that her and OM would be married som day. She has 22 cousins, 5 of which have been married, three of them divorced before the age of 30.
I would say its a societal problem for sure. There are parts of the world where cheating on your spouse anfls then dumping your spouse and kids like trash is not the norm. There are parts of the world where it is still considered shameful and cowardly. Those people are not unhappy as the west would have you believe...they just ha v a different view on life, one that is not based on fantasy. We are taught to love what we have and not that you must have everything you love (the OP).
My wife used to love that about me. She admired that my family doesn't have a single divorce going back the five generations we know, and on both sides of the family. I guess she wanted to make me the first divorce in about one thousand people in my extended family
Me, H-34 now 38 W-32 now 35 T-13 now 18 years M-6 now 9 Daughter 3 years now 7 Bomb 11/27/12 - OM 1 year in house separation Reconciliation 12/2013. Healed now 2017
I agree with SM here. I think in our society we have too many examples of say what you think and do what you feel regardless of who it hurts. We have reality shows out the wazoo that demonstrate irrational, vengeful, hurtful behavior and people think this is an ok way to act. Everyone is too caught up in having the latest and greatest toys, putting stressors on what you have should be valuable, not how you behave. We have lost our societal moral center as to what is really important.
SM, that is fascinating about your culture compared to ours. A reflection of what has gone seriously wrong in our own. Very interesting. Thanks for your input.
Me:49 H:47 S: 16 T:27 M:25 My EA: 2001 His PA: 10/2007, 6/2013 Separated, but H still in house
Find your Shambala: a place of peace and happiness.
And, Yeah, I have to agree with DH...divorce in our society has become the "norm".
It's become socially acceptable if you're "not happy" or if "you need to find yourself".
When you hear stories of people who've been married 50+ years, they put in the work to make their marriages good. They didn't give up and look for greener pastures when things got difficult or when they got bored.
Also, I think people in society today often blame others for their own unhappiness, instead of looking within.
And, I won't go off on a religious tangent, but IMO, (and not to over-generalize)I think where people don't believe in a higher power, that it affects whether they will stay committed or not to their marriage, too.
Well, I was raised as an a non-believer, but I don’t think that the marriage should be disposable. I have my own set of values, and they are not any different from the people who believe in high power. The recent epidemic of divorces and broken marriages could be connected to faith, or actually luck of it, but in my opinion it is more related to a society that considers everything to be disposable, plus instant gratification factor.
It is funny how I was thinking about the brick wall too. I am a Pink Floyd fan though, so it explains it. Sometimes I think that some of the lyrics are inspired by MLC.
M:50 H:52 S28 (my S from previous marriage) M:17 + 3 BD: 06/12 S: 06/12 - H works in another state
The only thing I would like to bring up, is that a lot of people on this forum have/had marriages that were quite long (10 plus years). Therefore, most people don't change views, but keep the views that they have been raised by. So while I agree a lot of new marriages and the people in their 20's tend to be very disposable, it still doesn't really account for the older generation supposedly now becoming disposable. Maybe there is something else? Steroids in chickens, the water etc.... In saying that, my WAS, if she divorces me, will join her two sisters and mother who have all divorced. The only bonus is my WAS and I lasted a lot longer than all of them.
ME:51 W:46 M:25 S:22, S:20 Divorced 16/9/15 BD 10/12 W left 12/12 with OW, affair confirmed Nov/12. Dark since 6/13 I"m in a new relationship since Feb 14.
Must be the chickens! I don't suppose the older generation married couples are all happy. The just stuck it out but that doesn't mean they are contented with what they have. It's sad in way. I used to think both H and W should just put up with one another just because, but that is not the way anyone should live. To compromise and be happy for each other and not just bicker through life should be the way.
M35 XW34 D5 D4 M 6years T 10years Bomb 5/2013 Joint Petition signed 6/2013 Moved out end of 8/2013 Court Hearing of Joint Petition 9/2013 D finalized in 3 months - no news yet
It's not "society" that landed people here. It was individuals. Just because "society" may show that it's okay to D, etc. it comes down to an individual making a choice. Society didn't make your WASs cheat on you or make them want to D you. It's their own choice and decision.
The issue I've had of people blaming "society" on these boards is that it takes away personal responsibility from the WAS AND the LBS. Everyone here had done something wrong to their spouses that made them unhappy. Now that doesn't give them an excuse to cheat or whatever, but if the roles were reversed and you told you spouse that you were unhappy and tried to get them to listen but they wouldn't. What would you do? Let's be honest. You'd think about leaving too.
Point is that if the WAS didn't say they were leaving, many on here wouldn't have gotten a sudden revelation that their M needed saving. I don't know any M couple who didn't (at one point) talk bad of the other person. No one is a saint and no one is perfect.
Sure in the Middle East they may not have many D's but that's also because their are very few women rights. They also have the highest level of domestic abuse in the world and that's not counting the child brides in some "societies".
Bottom line is that it comes down to the choice of the individual. They might see D being shown on tv and think that's a way out, but that's no different from everyone here looking at pro-M materials and seeing that there's a way to stay. It's an individual choice.
Even someone from the most horrible childhood can have a great life if they make the right choices. I personally know many people who have become the change rather than letting the change become them. And I actually know more M'd couples than D'd ones. Are they always happy? Of course not. But they understand that and that's what makes a R last. Not how crappy your childhood was or if the Kardashians are getting D'd. It's an individual's journey.
Just because your spouse chooses to do something that you don't, doesn't make their decision any less important than yours.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
