We had our usual husband/wife spats over the course of our seven years of marriage, but the real problems started in the last year. After my son was born, she gave me an ultimatum...quick coaching high school sports or quit the family. Naturally, I quit coaching to take care of my family. It comes to bear that she nagged me day in and day out from them on out, and always wanted to leave my son with her idiot mom so we could go "out" around 3 times per week. Mind you, I was coaching to make 7k more, but once the coaching stopped, so did the stipends. We couldn't afford the life she wanted, and since she couldn't go out, she always found something to nag at me about, or she would go to house parties with her collegues. She would say that she deserved more than to be living this life and maybe we should just get divorced. It got to the point that I was miserable, drinking by myself, and feeling depressed. One day, we had an argument where I asked her why she wanted me home if she was just going to be fighting all the time and she said so I could give her attention. RED FLAG!!! I told her I was sick and tired of her and she asked me what I was going to do about it. That's when I dropped the big "D" on her. She cried and apologized, and we agreed to counseling. I did what the counselor asked. She didn't like it. She was being SUPER nice, and I was still a little stand offish, until one day she blew up and asked me, "How long am I going to have to keep ACTING like this?" RED FLAG. I knew then it was all over, and she was putting on an act. Come time for the divorce, I signed a waiver to be served, but didn't realize that I was signing away my right to have a say in the divorce proceedings. She took me for the standard 20% cs, all my possessions except my clothes and my car.
Falcom My sympathies. . but i know too too many men that have these kinds of stories which is why I will probably never marry I'm be that guy with his LONG TIME GIRLFRIEND or something like that Rocket River
There's a name for people like that: assholes. We all know them. It's unfortunate some got married to them. It's probably good they got divorced. Each gender has its share and they are equally idiotic.
I also tend to agree with the times: How many of your parents got divorced? How many Grandparents? There is a combination of too much media and too many choices as to what I see leading to the high divorce rate. But feel free to disagree.
I feel you FT...Women are b*tches...Oh wait... Not all women are, but those that are, spoil it for the rest of them..Makes guys not want to be in a LT committed relationship, leading to marriage, IMHO... I got divorced so I wouldn't live un-happily ever after...You have a lot of that in our parents/grandparents generation...divorce was just out of the question back then...I would prefer to be happy and single, than married and miserable...I'm not saying all marriages are like that, but those that are can relate...
The reasons for the high divorce rate are myriad in number. There are no simple answers to that one. Frankly, there were a lot of marriages that SHOULD have been dissolved before divorce became more common. My friend's grandmother lived with an alcoholic who beat her routinely, but she refused to divorce because of how it would look to the rest of society and everyone from her minister to her friends told her she should not consider divorce no matter what happened. Fortunately, that wasn't the norm. My personal feeling is that we have become a very impatient society. We want soundbite answers to complex problems. We want a pill to cure every illness, make us lose weight and keep us happy. We want 30 minutes of news to tell us everything we need to know about the world and how we are supposed to feel about it. We want our leaders to be perfect. We want our enemies to be evil. We want everything quantified into a dollar figure. In the case of gender, men want women to be on the cover of Maxim, give oral sex on command, but also be smart, patient, docile and a good mother. Women want men to be tough, courageous and an excellent provider, but also sweet, sensitive and love bunny wabbits. Those are obvious generalizations, but it speaks to the same problem. We want fiction and avert our eyes from reality because we think it is easier. In reality, it's not easy. In fact, it's not even possible.
Damn, I got in a little late on this thread but you guys are seriously depressing me! I think Deckard is the only one who said positive things about marriage(unless I didn't read the whole thread more carefully). I got married 2 years ago at 44 (my first time) after being single all my life and resisted the ideal of marriage based on a lot of the stuffs you guys already covered here. When I met my wife, everything changed for me , the best way I can describe to you all is like finding a lost childhood friend, the one that grew up with you and got separated from you and then finally got reunited. Every morning when I get up, I always say a prayer to thank the man upstairs for sending her to me. I don't know why it happened to me , I don't know why that I'm so bless. One thing I do know for sure is that's a gift, a very special precious gift, one that I will treasure each and every day of my life. Sorry if what I wrote sounds a little cheesy to you guys, but when I think about my sweetheart, I get emotional. Perhaps when I have a little more time, I'll tell you guys about our story!
LMAO...that was funny...oh, and in case you're wondering generalthade_03, this is what he's talking about... Backdoor goodness