Why do longtime partners split after getting married?

Funny I was just thinking about this last night.

I knew a couple who were together for 13 years and got divorced after 14 months. Their story pretty much terrified me and I still think about them from time to time.

I think it comes down to more than just communication. I think a big part of it is that both members of the couple have to place the same value on marriage. I know it sounds like the same thing, but in my mind it's different.

Part of the reason I feel comfortable marrying my finance, even though I wouldn't have married my old boyfriend of 6 years, is because I know that he believes so strongly in the commitment of marriage that he will fight tooth and nail to keep us together. I loved my ex very much, but to him marriage would not have strenghtened his idea of commitment. It would have been just an excuse to throw a party and hope for the best.

Ariel you should totally start writing "Offbeat Wife" if you haven't already! Please! Always a pleasure to read your sane and well-worded advice

Me and the husband: longtime friends, long time dating, long time engaged, married, children of divorced parents.

I absolutely have to agree that expectations are a huge part of the way a relationship changes after marriage. And a big part of that, I suspect, is that so many people think once you're married you're 'done.' Like somehow you no longer need to work at the relationship because you're married (despite everyone knowing how common divorce is) when the truth is marriage isn't functionally any different than dating except you fed a lot of people and bought some rings. As part of our weddinged reception (long story) we are promising not to 'be together' forever, but to work at loving each other forever. Sort of a different expectation, imo!

If you go and assume that marriage is an automatic assurance of happiness and togetherness, you're bound for double whammy; you expect that your needs and wants will continue to be met by your partner and they aren't, and you resent the idea that you have to do things to work on the relationship now that you're married. I've talked to both of my parents about it and feel quite certain that this is what happened to them.

Kate, I think you make a very good point about our society in general treating marriage as the destination instead of the journey. All those Disney movies, the prince and princess get married and live happily ever after, right?

I've got a friend who is convinced that if she and her on-again off-again boyfriend get married, he'll have to change all the behaviors that bother her. (Like being a sphincter flambe and having a drug problem.) She doesn't want to hear anything to the contrary.

I wonder if some of the "long-term couples who split soon after marrying" thing has to do with the way you approached things in the first place. I know with a former roommate/good friend of mine, there were a lot of things that she did that bothered me when we lived together, but I mostly just let it slide, figuring that we were just roommates, and it was temporary. By the time we parted ways, there was a lot of repressed irritation I had to unpack. With my intended, however, we're both pretty good about letting the other one know how we feel about things and working out a compromise, which is one of the reasons I feel so comfortable with the idea of spending the rest of my life with her. And I think part of why we've both been so willing to put so much into that is that we've both felt from early on that this could be a life-long thing, so it mattered more to get things worked out now.

So I wonder if some of the couples don't find that marriage either A) doesn't fix the things they wanted changed, or B) makes them wake up one morning to realize that they've signed up to spend THE REST OF THEIR LIVES with someone who is never going to pick up their underwear from the bathroom floor or call when they're running late or bother to remember when you've made plans and generally just drives you INSANE and it's just ARRRGGGGHHHH. And then they file for divorce.

Maybe if you'd been dealing with it all along, it wouldn't be such a big deal. Or maybe it would have been, and you'd have split up awhile back. As it was, you drifted along not rocking the boat, and now you realize you're way the hell downstream from where you wanted to be.

Obviously, I'm not saying that's the case for all long-term couples. I just wonder if that's not part of it sometimes.

Thank you so much for posting this. I have wondered the same things and the advice you gave was so simple, yet so brilliant. Sometimes it just takes an outsider to show you the answer that is right in front of you and makes the most sense! Thanks again!

I think I should amend what I said about the whole knowing within the first year… this doesn't mean I advocate getting married right away for all couples lol! It just means that I think most couples have a gut feeling soon off whether it could work, or whether it won't. It is better to get out early then to build a life with someone who isn't right for you.

I really think what you said about not falling asleep at the wheel is extremely important.

My wife and I are living very happy and interesting lives together. But it isn't by accident. We have made a lot of deliberate choices along the way such as the choice not to buy a house and the choice not to have children.

These choices have given us the freedom to relocate to the other side of the world to live the unconventional lifestyle of our dreams.

I have just finished writing a downloadable book that I am giving away to anyone who wants a copy.

It is called The Newlyweds' Guide to a Happy Marriage: How to Keep that Honeymoon Feeling

This guide reveals how newlyweds can build a truly happy life together.

I hope it helps all of you.

Thanks again Ariel for your very insightful blog posting.

WOW! Didn't think my comment would get so many folk talking! But am glad it had, thank you Ariel for your advice, and everyone who had commented. Its great to get so many different ideas and opinions.
Me and my partner have been together for 7 years, and getting married this year. We did deiced to get married in the first month of knowing each other, no romantic proposals, just in the kitchen and said to each other, we should get married, I can even remember who said it, me or him or both. I think we would have married in the first year, we tried, but when my normally fantastically understanding parents suggested we should have chicken in a basket for the food, were vegan/veggie, then the shock of what no meat…you can t do that, other people feed you vegan food at wedding…I just couldn't handle the stress of it all. So just decided to put it on a back burner, until we could afford to do it all ourselves, so we didn't feel obliged to do what others wanted because they were contributing.
I am glad we waited, I think we would have split up, definitely. But then 6 year on, I felt ready to finally do it, it was wasn't that I never wanted to, I just needed to be sure. Really sure.SO ball rolling, plans in motion, I think her would have married me at any point, but it was me that wanted to wait, and I really hate the fact everyone assumes it him, finally making a 'honest woman out of me' what crap. Not all women are dreaming of their wedding day from year dot, there's nothing wrong with that, but it was something I had really considered that must. For most of my teenage life I was a broken mess, and for most parts thought all men were c**nts. So getting past that, to discover i had someone who really loved me, for just who I was, took a bit of accepting. I love him, for who he is, and what he is not.I don't want to change him, I would like him to take the bins out more often, and remember on occasion, to make the bed…( yes, were from the new generation of lost /mixed roles…ifs it not 'ans or woman's work' then who the fuck does it then! splitting the chores has never been so hard, we both work full time, but why do some women still end up doing all the cooking and cleaning…because we can't let go? totally different debate…)but I don't think that's ground for divorce. But we do forget to talk some times, or some time I think it just too scary, in case we don't like the answers we may hear.
But from reading all your posts, yes, tonight, I will go home, as ask, 'what do we expect form this marriage?' because if I don't ask now, I may become a statistic of my own doing. Cheers all xx

"Sure, Karen. But getting married and family planning are not always the same thing."

Speaking as the child of divorced parents, I think it probably SHOULD be. But that's my opinion.

Anyway, my original point was about commitment, not marriage. If you want to have kids, there's only so many years you have to do it, and if the guy you're dating doesn't want to commit, doesn't want to promise to be around you come hell or high water, well, then it's just irresponsible to bring kids into that situation, married or not.

Thanks for this post. I just blogged along similar lines. I had a quite little freakout wondering if getting married was going to jinx us – the equivalent of tattooing his name on myself. I think it was just a momentary thing but if it persists I will, as so many suggested here and there, TALK about it.

"I feel really strongly about the idea that you CAN raise children, and raise them well, regardless of the family structure and situation."

I know it technically *can* be done, but I don't think it's easy or ideal. I don't blame my parents for getting divorced, and my mother did absolutely everything she could have, and for a divorced couple my parents got along very well and put us kids first, but despite all of that, having grown up in a single-parent situation, even a "good" one, I would not recommend it to anyone, nor do I want to do it myself. So to get back to the original subject at hand, yes, I could have waited too long without getting married; it was risky to give my fiance four years of my life if, at the end, he wasn't going to commit to me like I was ready to commit to him. I'm lucky he was.

Sorry for the threadjack, everyone. I'll back out now.

I think you're right Ariel, many people have expectations that things will change after the wedding. And for a reason! I can't count the number of people who said to me – "everything changes after you get married, you'll see."

We'll I've been married 27 days and counting, and I have not yet figured out what they are talking about (hubby is mystified too.) Maybe that's because neither of us wanted anything to change. We pretty much have been on the same page since the beginning.

When we went on our first date, I was just coming off of a dead-end, 3-year relationship and was feeling a little ornery and in one of those "don't waste my time" moods. In the first 10 minutes of our first date, I laid out everything I wanted in a relationship: kids, house, family, forever… everything. I pretty much expected him to run for the hills. He just said "That all sounds great!" which about floored me. I may have fallen in love with him right then.

That moment of ornery honesty set a precedence for the rest of our relationship that has worked great for both of us. I think being clear and honest about expectations (with him and yourself) is great advice Ariel, and not something you need to wait until post-proposal to do.

Hawkswine–

That happened to me too! I came off a dead end, never-was-that-great 1.5 year relationship when I met my groom-to-be. Feeling very fancy free, I laid out everything I wanted (including an ABSOLUTELY NO BOYFRIEND stipulation), which he accepted and 3 weeks later had gained my trust enough to be exclusive. Now we're going to get married!

But I agree — I don't expect anything to change, especially since we have cohabited for the grand majority of our relationship. For non-cohabiting couples I think that marriage *does* change a lot of things for them. Permanently living with someone is extremely different, and so is having sex.

So I think the problem is that the "everything changes" attitude is based off of the way many marriages used to work. Of course marriage would be different if you've never lived with – or slept with, for that matter – that person before. But nowadays most people do those things before marriage, so there's not much tangible change other than status, recognition, and spiritual bond (if you believe in that).