How Many Marriages are Unhappy (marry, girls, loyalty, love)
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I ask this with all sincerity - what difference would it make? I don't really understand why people are so hung up on whether married people are happy or not. Some are - some aren't. What percentage of human beings are happy? I guess I don't understand why people are so hung up on the happiness of people they don't know. What's important to me is my own happiness - and the happiness of those around me. Even if everyone other marriage in the world were miserable - it wouldn't make my marriage miserable.
No, I think people should have the mindset to be happy/make others happy and then (if they want to) enter into a marriage/LTR. They should not first enter into a LTR to make themselves happy. IMO Many people have this backwards, which likely contributes to the high state of unhappiness. One who is first happy within, enters into a healthy relationship but does not depend on the partner for their continued happiness. Depending on others to give you happiness is selfish. It puts unfair expectations on others.
Everything about your post suggests that your happiness is completely dependent on your BF and it is his responsibility to make you happy. IMO, that is unhealthy for a relationship.
BTW, I do know how I'll feel when things pile up, because I have chosen the state of happiness. I chose this state in tough times, when I was single, and now that I'm married. Your happiness is your choice, no one else's.
Here is my recent thread on happiness with some brilliant contributions from CD posters. I am linking it because I feel marital happiness is first dependent on individual happiness.
I agree with you on the point you made that everybody needs to be happy first before entering in a relationship. I totally agree with you.
I had lost the love of my life to a brain tumor 3 years before I met my current boyfriend. I went through the grief period after losing my first true love. went to grief counseling, therapy, and my life was happy finally. I had a rewarding career, and I am a fine artist (freelance).
When I met my current boyfriend, I found him to be incredibly appealing because he is overall a nice guy. But soon, I found out he is not as nice as he likes to portrait himself to be. This makes me change my mind about human in general.
well, I used to think there are certain people just not capable of cheating (me included), but current unfortunate chain events make me find out I am nothing special and I am definitely capable of cheating (well, I thought about, haven't acted on it)
Moral of my story. Even a well rounded, grounded happy person cannot completely control how she will react in a given situation. Who you are at a relaxing atmosphear and who are you in a burning building can be completely different. Never say never, never say, "you control your own fate" It is yes and no.
When you are in a one on one relationship, your happiness to a certain degree (50%) depends on that person's behaviors too. No need to sugarcoat it, it is a fact.
Most marriages are unhappy some of the time. But in my experience there can be a lot of ebb and flow over the course of a long relationship. Sometimes you just have to hang in until you are in alignment again.
I watched my parents fight bitterly off and on for 30 years. But now that they are elderly and my dad is ill, I can see how much love they have for each other. Once life's crap is stripped away, things have a way of becoming clear between two people.
2mares said it well. I don't know how you'd even begin to measure or quantify happiness. You couldn't just ask someone on a single occasion and expect a good answer. And I think people are more inclined to disclose negative stuff, to "vent" than they are to talk about the good stuff. So you can hear a married person complain about their stupid partner all day every day and assume this person is wretched. But they might not be telling you about all the times they feel wonderful about their marriage and their partner. Part of that is just how no 2 people are alike and living together can be hard.
I think of my Grandparents, who are getting really close to "death do us part" and have been married over 60 years. It sure as heck wasn't because they were fairy-dust, sparkly puppy eyed, in love with each other for that long. They might have been like that the first year or two...maybe. But they developed a lifestyle and a routine that had the other build right into it. Younger people nowadays seem to think that if you're not wildly passionately in love, you must not be right for each other, and the word "miserable" is used wayyyy out of context.
Am I happy in my marriage? Let me get my Magic 8 Ball to answer that... "Inconclusive." Wait...let's give it another try... "Ask again later."
Most marriages are unhappy some of the time. But in my experience there can be a lot of ebb and flow over the course of a long relationship. Sometimes you just have to hang in until you are in alignment again.
I watched my parents fight bitterly off and on for 30 years. But now that they are elderly and my dad is ill, I can see how much love they have for each other. Once life's crap is stripped away, things have a way of becoming clear between two people.
I agree with this too!
I have absolutely no problems hanging in there, but no matter what I do, there are always people purposely sabotage the relationship. I can only control how I act, but I cannot how others act.
It is very obvious that older couples have invisible bond through 30 something year of marriage. My parents are exactly the same thing. They don't need a joint account, my dad's name is not even on the property title. I can never understand why. They just have this unconditional trust and love toward each other.
But my generation, pre-nup is a must is you don't want to be screwed in the end. It makes me wonder, Why bother getting married if you don't trust somebody?"
But since everybody is looking out for themselves these days, I don't want to be the only person who left out either. I am just being honest. But I do see your point.
Reading over the replies perhaps I wasn't as specific as I should have been.
One member "lovingly" took me to task for incorrectly quoting a false statistic: 50% do NOT end in divorce (Thank you, M ) It's more like roughly 1/3 overall but the curve goes up with the number of years married--surprise!
What I was driving at was: 1/3 end in divorce--they just couldn't do it any longer. But what are the statistics (and I know there is no hard and fast answer to this) of the number of people who are in a marriage that at best is less than ideal and at worst is just shy of murder?
As forum rules forbid me to link to other forums let me give you a taste of the most common stories I read:
* My spouse is more like a room-mate (friend, maybe, I'm not sure) than a lover these days. We just exist in the same house, and that's it.
* Everything is my fault. Any slight, real or imagined is thrown in my face. Even when I am in the right, it is twisted and turned to be on me.
* I breakdown crying about two to three times a week. My husband is so consumed with himself and what he wants, that I might as well not exist.
* Empty Lonely and Miserable---im soooooo tired of fighting.
* Ready To Call It Quits---I feel our marriage has run its course and things will never be the same again.
* Everyday I See This Situation As A Big Battle For Me.. I Feel Like I Am In Prison.. There Is No Way Out.
These sound like isolated occurrences at first but after reading through hundreds of accounts they all start to form a common theme: discontent, loneliness, no communication, no affection, no sex, no common activities...
I realize that unhappy people are going to gripe more than happy people but I just wonder if the "successful" marriages are ones where both people have just grown comfortably into compromise, settling for 2nd best, complacency, etc. rather than a proactive relationship where both people still love each with nearly the same degree of passion--spiritual if not physical--as when they first met. So maybe a better question is: what percentage of marriages retain most if not all of the passion.
Ironically, the only time I read of real love is when a spouses dies. "I lost the love of my life today. (s)he was my world, my everything"....so I know gloriously happy marriages are out there. It just seems that the unhappy ones outnumber them 100 to one.
Not to turn this religious, but it makes me wonder if God deliberately sets marriages up to fail. The Christian ones are even more disastrous than the non-religious ones. More irony. Makes me wonder if the perfect marriage is only to be found "over the rainbow" (if you know what I mean )
Pardon me but you're making it sound like, unless the "puppy love" passion continues indefinitely, it's a lame marriage. I'm here to tell you that the contented, comfortable, familiar and trusting love can be pretty good sometimes. You know where you stand. You don't have to contantly second guess all kinds of stuff. I hear young friends talk about dating experiences and I am SO GLAD I'm not doing that. Nevermind how I feel after hanging out in C-D Relationships for a while...
I may not know how to feel about the long term prospects of my marriage and I might grouse about this and that, but I am far from blind to the many good things about it. I'll never find anything better with any one other man ever, ever again. I'm 100% confident in a level as deep as my heart and my guts about that.
I ask this with all sincerity - what difference would it make? I don't really understand why people are so hung up on whether married people are happy or not. Some are - some aren't. What percentage of human beings are happy? I guess I don't understand why people are so hung up on the happiness of people they don't know. What's important to me is my own happiness - and the happiness of those around me. Even if everyone other marriage in the world were miserable - it wouldn't make my marriage miserable.
Because the misery of others can provide a cautionary or instructive tale, to help prevent or preserve your own misery or lack thereof.
* My spouse is more like a room-mate (friend, maybe, I'm not sure) than a lover these days. We just exist in the same house, and that's it.
*)
This is EXACTLY how I feel. I wonder how many others there are like this out there? I wish I could find a support group b/c I have no idea what to do anymore...I feel like I've talked to him about it over and over and over, different ways each time, wrote letter after letter, tried changing what I'm doing, NOTHING CHANGES.
BTW, to answer the OP's question, I don't know of any good marriages. Every single one I've ever encountered one or both was miserable. My parents and my husband's parents are still together, but neither couple seems 'happy'...just 'comfortable.'
Marriage is all about compromise...and compromise is becoming a thing of the past..
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) It's more like roughly 1/3 overall but the curve goes up with the number of years married--surprise! 
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