Some social scientists have predicted that certain scenarios could mean your marriage is more likely to end in divorce. I’ll list a few of them below, but will spare the obvious ones such as adultery and physical or sexual abuse:
1. Marrying in your teens or after the age of 32.
I know one marriage that failed and one that survived where both brides were 18. My best friend was 33 when she married, and she is still married to the same guy. Teenagers still need to mature emotionally, and may find after a few years that the young person they married is now totally different. Some I suppose cannot cope with this. Older people in their thirties may be too set in their ways to live with a partner, and may be unable to compromise.
2. One partner doesn’t have a full time job.
If one partner is at home looking after children and money is tight, they may resent their other half ‘getting under their feet’ at home when he/she should be out working and providing for the family.
3. Not finishing senior school.
Without a basic education, trying to survive in an increasingly competitive world will be full of pitfalls. How can somebody gain decent employment which pays enough to provide for a family if he/she cannot read and write properly?
4. Being overly affectionate as newlyweds.
Passion fades to companionship in time, and this may be a shock for a couple ‘joined-at-the-hip-and-other places’ so to speak…
5. Weathering daily stress.
Stress either brings couples closer together or tears them apart.
6. Withdrawing during conflict.
If one partner refuses to talk about the problem and clams up or walks off, then the other one is going to become mightily angry!
7. Turning a behaviour into a statement about a partner’s character.
They told a little white lie to spare your feelings, and now they’re a pathological liar…
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Sam and I married when we were both 22. We had both finished senior school and Sam had also completed a 4 year apprenticeship. Sam has had about 5 days off sick from his full time job since I’ve known him (40 years), and weathering financial hardship in the 1980s and industrial stress/conflict in our early fifties brought us closer together. Hence I suppose that’s why we are still married after nearly 38 years! However, other marriages I’ve known have not fared so well.
What do you think helps a marriage to survive?
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
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Thanks for all your re-blogs.
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I am home with the little ones and the husband works. It wasn’t always this way but after baby #3 financially it made sense for me to be home. I can’t lie, it was a big adjustment in our roles and budget. I struggled with not bringing in an income and my worth for a while leading up to leaving my last full time job. After a year with serious training wheels on, and a very strict budget, we are taking the training wheels off and easing up on somethings we watched so carefully. The only reason this is working for us is because we talk about almost everything and we have eased into new roles. It’s not always bump free of course. I personally would remove #2 from my list if I was trying to apply it to myself. Though I do understand how it would affect some people negatively. Finances in general can break up a marriage. Different spending habits for one can really divide people.
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I remember that time so well and only having 50p to spend all week after all the bills were paid. On the plus side nobody else is raising your children. Being a mum is a full time job like any other.
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A sense of humour? Me 24, him 25 – 41 years married. Grandad before he died was so pleased I was marrying a policeman – secure job! That is perhaps more important than you realise at the time. (To be stuck in a job you hate and tied to a mortgage would be a recipe for disaster for a person and their marriage – luckily that didn’t apply to us) But we had a home, rent free police flat – somewhere to start a family – then took out a 100% mortgage to get on the property ladder – on the basis of the secure job!
I think that the total lack of ambition for either of us, he didn’t want promotion, I was happy staying home with the children, meant there was not too much pressure apart from shift work, no money etc!
For the record, my brother and sister both married at 19 – one still wed, one divorced years ago. Marriage is so different for each couple and their situations, but when people say you ‘have to work at it’ I think ‘Play and have Fun’ is better advice.
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Good comment – thanks.
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I was a few months short of 22 and just completed an apprenticeship, F was just turned 18. That was 1963 and we are still together having experienced all of those things you describe. I agree with Bernadette – you need to respect each other and make concessions. I have two sisters who married in their teens in the ’70s and are still together. I think that coming from a generation when divorce was far from easy and ‘living together’ without being married was frowned upon meant that we saw marriage as a lifetime commitment ‘for better or worse’. Young people today have a very different attitude to relationships.
Point 2 in your list is interesting. Back in my day (entering old fogy mode here!) it was normal for one partner to be the bread-winner and the other to stay at home or have a part-time job until the children were old enough to look after themselves. And back then it was possible to live on one wage. Women having equal status as part of the bread winning team has only pushed the cost of everything up so that it has become necessary for both to have full-time jobs. And the frequency of break-ups must have an impact on demand for housing which contributes to the current shortage and high cost of that commodity.
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Interesting comment, Frank. Yes, it doesn’t seem possible for young couples to live on one wage anymore. I remember the scandal it caused in the family back in 1979 when I announced that Sam and I would be moving in together. As you say it’s normal now, but it wasn’t then!
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Dom and I have met all the criteria above but I think the most important thing in our marriage has been mutual respect for each other’s differences. Not always easy but definitely kept our marriage together. The mutual respect also is easier if you have a sense of humor.
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Good one Bernadette, yes a sense of humor is highly desirable!
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Indeed interesting list. Not the common reasons we think of first. I think forgiveness at the right moment of time can help a marriage survive. As a married couple we must be able to go through the challenges but also be able to forgive and move forward.
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Yes, forgiveness is a must, but we don’t forget.
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Nooooo we all struggle with that one:-)
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An interesting list, Stevie. I think stress and resentment play a big role in marital conflict.
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Yes for sure.
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