I watched a “Dr. Phil” house where the to-be husband of a couple was dressed up to be fat to see how his SO would react.to his weight (she was slender). She at first was shocked and then said " I love you no matter what but I’m concerned about your health. Maybe we could exercise together? I want you around for a long time" That was a huge glimmer of hope for that couple.
^^I agree. I just went through menopause and have gained weight. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to lose it. What lack of depth I would feel our marriage had if H somehow came to the conclusion that it was ok to stray because I am heavier than I used to be.
This topic is a tough one. And, as I read the comments, I acknowledge there are marriages where the two people are truly close friends and share a deep relationship and there are others where the people think about leaving, don’t share much with their partners, etc. In other words, there are marriages and then there are marriages.
For my own, I’ve gone through periods where I’ve had the latter and, then, H and I came to a pivotal point where we could have gone in either direction. With tremendous work (but not counseling, which H would not participate in), we were able to emerge in the former. I do feel fortunate as I knew how hard it would be should we have separated but I take little for granted.
Fortunately for me, of the many issues that plagued us, physical appearance was not one of them.
Where does one draw the line? If the guys around the water cooler are in agreement it’s acceptable to leave a spouse who gains weight or “lets herself go” in some other way, then this seems to me exactly how men end up with second wives the age of their daughters. If a man wants his wife to look like she used to, when they met decades ago, that is just not going to be possible. In my mind it isn’t even desirable.
I’m not tough. I’ve aged. I’m not perfect nor do I expect perfect. But, I do work out regularly, including today while reading this thread in between sets, eat right, etc. so I practice what I preach and so does the male work friend I mentioned earlier. It is the same thing with other issues that are often the culprit when couples break up or, even worse, stay together but stop loving each other.
Working and income. If you are not contributing and your spouse is and you take the attitude that that is somehow okay you live in a bubble to which I am not familiar. You should at least make every effort to find work and income. If not, don’t be shocked if your partner/spouse/SO eventually gets fed up because he or she is keeping up their end of the bargain and you are not.
As far as suggesting your spouse, partner, SO get in shape and work out or look for work, obviously, that happens and the problem results when all of those loving and helpful suggestions are ignored. And you don’t always know these things about the other party on the front end because during the courting phase everything is hunky dory and no one likes to show all their faults. You have to be a seriously good judge of character to see through all the smoke and mirrors.
As far as people growing apart, that is a tough one because often times it is no one’s fault. It just happens. As others mentioned, in some cases one party discovers they like the same sex. Whoops. That throws a wrench in things. What are you going to do now? That creates a bit of a problem does it not? Sometimes you have to punt and admit defeat, I think.
Regarding why a couple might not go for counseling, if you’ve been in a marriage for over 20 years that has been pretty lousy most of the time, and you don’t particularly like your partner (let alone love them), then counseling isn’t going to do much to improve the marriage. If it a “rough patch” in what has been a pretty good partnership, that is a different story.
Also with second marriages with young wives, there is often a new family that requires lots of resources, leaving even less for the ex spouse and first family.
I recall golfing with a young female attorney and her male boss. He had kids slightly younger than us. He said he was done raising kids. A few years later, I was invited to their wedding, after he divorced his 1st wife. They did adopt two young kids and I lost touch.
Second wives get older, too.
Re post 33: Wow. I’ve put on over 100 lb in my first two years of marriage because of prednisone and an inability to do active things. I sure as hell hope Mr R doesn’t take that as permission to cheat. (He wouldn’t. And he is the only male surrounded by a bunch of pretty young women at work.)
Geeze…
I spend a lot of time in the cancer ward because that’s where I get my treatments done. So I end up talking to the women around me. Many of them had husbands who bolted in the middle of their chemo. It just makes me sick to my stomach.
Second wives aren’t always older. My ex had an affair with a woman closer to his age (he is 10 years older than I am). This was a woman he had dated before we married – and in fact I found out later he dumped her for me at the time (didn’t know it back then). I think the gist of it is that he wanted kids, and she didn’t (already had a couple) when he met me. The irony is that now he has a pretty lousy relationship with my kids. They rarely call him, and see him dutifully a few days a year, but are very actively present in my life all the time. This is just to say that while there are often common themes, there are certainly varied reasons why people get divorced after a long time. And you don’t usually know another couple’s full backstory, even when you think you do.
@GoNoles85 I get what you are saying, even if it was a bit harsh. We are all physical creatures and for many, not all, the initial attraction was physical. It goes both ways. So many men in their forties have let themselves go. They don’t even have the excuse of having kids, and peri menopause. So I expect my husband to stay in shape as well. Unless you have a medical condition, you should want to be in shape for each other. It’s not nice to let yourself go then expect the other person to take care of you in your old age. Yes some may call me shallow but it’s how I feel. Sure no one expects you to look like you did in your twenties but you can do some things to try and stay in shape. And yes I’m harder on men because they have fewer excuses than women. Of course if your spouse is treats you poorly,all bets are off.
@gouf78 - I’m Catholic and pre-marital counseling is a requirement to marry in the Church. Unfortunately our divorce rate is just as high as any other faith tradition’s, though.
I think the single biggest reason for midlife divorces is that each spouse spent decades working hard at things other than the marriage. This isn’t a judgment; on the contrary, it’s a confession. Although we are still happily married, my husband and I are relearning how to be just us after focusing on the kids, work, and our separate communities. If I could give advice to my younger self (and I do give this advice to couples just starting out), I’d say always put your spouse first, and take time to be a couple, apart from kids, work, and friends. A good marriage doesn’t result from people being compatible; it’s the product of both partners being wholeheartedly invested in the relationship over time. And of course, this is much easier to say than to do.
ETA: and I think we should treat marriages the way we treat our physical health, going to counseling for periodic wellness checks, not just when the marriage is in bad shape.
If I had had a good exit strategy available, I think I would have opted for divorce earlier in our marriage, maybe much earlier. The price to pay seemed too high, for me, and for the kids. No parents to help. I work, but I’m not a high earner. He works, but he is not a high earner. It seemed the wiser decision to stay together and try to raise our kids the best we could.
We are 30 years in, in our early 50s, the kids are off at college, and I’m not sure we are going to make it. Do I really want to be with him for another 20-30 years? Oh boy. I cannot imagine.
As it stands now, our house is still underwater, the area we live in is recovering ever so slowly. There is still no good exit strategy. We cope by living very separate lives, working a lot, but I suspect we are both somewhat depressed.
We’ve had some tough times, so I’m not sure there can be much sitting back and enjoying “what we’ve built”----with the Recession in 2008, unemployment, underemployment, siblings seriously ill (how much do you help and how?), his mom passing, one kid’s emotional problems, money stress, job stress…it is just too much sometimes and then it feels like a huge relief to get away from your spouse and be able to talk about something else, anything else, something happy, with other people. Distraction and escape.
We’ve stopped being a source of joy for one another. It didn’t happen over night. It crept in with the hard times. I think it’s particulary hard at this age when there is a natural tendency to look around at where you are in life, what’s ahead, what might have turned out differently had you taken an alternate path.
In addition, the little painful pangs I’ve felt watching my kids go off to college, with their entire lives ahead of them, so many possibilities…I’m thrilled for them, but I also feel an aching for a do-over. That can be hard to wrestle with.
It’s a precarious time in many marriages, I think.
Hello-I finally signed up for CC because I have a Jazz Drummer Senior that is about ready to make a decision on a college for Music, and wanted to see if I could find anything on CC to help. When low and behold I see this thread. I moved away from home a little over a year ago to take a job in another state and my wife and I will most likely divorce after my son is settled and we can make smart decisions. We have been together 26 years, so this thread is right in my wheelhouse.
@mom2collegekids My exact situation
@72,
I hope things work out for you. If I have anything remotely helpful to say it might be sort things out and tackle one problem at a time. If money, health, relationship and depression issues are all happening at once it makes it way harder to find a way out. The hills are full of marriages hanging together because one side or the other, or both, is too broke to move out. You talk about sad. A train wreck is less sad. Yet it happens over and over.
So, if I were in you shoes, I’d sit up tonight and create a plan to fix things. It might start with economics. I’d make sure I have enough resources to either stay or go but at least have enough money to pick whatever option I choose. I’d work through any health issues that could be solved. Far too many people do NOT work out and do NOT eat right and we have the same academy award routine when they have a health issue as if you couldn’t see that coming? Yes, you can and you can fix it although it doesn’t happen over night. Now, if it is a mental illness or more serious medical thing it might be fixable just with effort and a change in attitude.
So, hopefully, you can take steps to find a better place to be in. I think it starts by acknowledging that you can be happy and if you aren’t happy you deserve to be happy. You don’t have to be unhappy. How and when I would communicate my concerns to my partner would be planned out too. Maybe, hopefully, they are part of the solution not part of the problem. Some people are willing to change, grow and compromise. Others are not. If you are dealing with someone who won’t play ball you can still do what you need to do.
The unfortunate thing is that counseling has failed, working together has failed, and my W has given up. Her sole focus is getting my son off to college. As far as she is concerned, we are done, and its too stressful for her to talk about it and try and heal, and any conversation about us ALWAYS ends in a fight. For some people pain is easier managed by shutting everything out and focusing on something to help alleviate the pressure.
Well, welcome to CC, @JazzDrummerDad. Kind of a downer for your first posts to be in a thread like this. We also do upbeat threads, so look around for those too.
@GoNoles85 – I eat very healthfully and get a ton of exercise, which my H knows. Despite these things, I am about 40 pounds over weight. I don’t wear makeup and I don’t dye my grey hair.
My H thinks I look great, and he tells me that every day. I’m really sorry for those who judge the joy they get from another by their looks, and even more so I sympathize for the one who is so judged. And I’m grateful that my beloved loves me just the way I am.
It’s ironic that you focused on not making superficial judgments about why marriages break up, but then followed by explaining a superficial one.
@Midwest67 - it sounds like you and you H are where we were five years ago or so. When our finances improved, we improved, although there was more to it than that. A lot of it was regaining my self-esteem, contributing more to the marriage - money and otherwise - and calling him out on bad behavior. He began to respect me more and things improved from there. My heart goes out to you. I’ve absolutely been in that place where its a huge relief to get away from your spouse.