Shook up

[cjsmith]

A while back I mentally searched the list of women I knew, to see if I knew any who were happily married for a long time. My criteria were simple. The person had to be:

• Female
• Married
• In this relationship for TEN YEARS (I picked this because of statistics on divorce before and after the ten year mark - ten years is "pretty stable")
• Happy (not just biding her time until the kids are old enough for a divorce, not wondering what life would be like if, not trapped but grinning-and-bearing-it, not Working Through A Rough Time Right Now, but GLAD she's there)

I came up with one after a fair amount of thought. I have several other possibles. For most of these possibles I have to stretch one or more of the criteria - sometimes the length of time, and sometimes I don't know the lady in question well enough to say whether she's grinning and bearing it. But there was one DEFINITE.

So I thought of my own life, and I thought, okay, I'll try to stick it out. One out of hundreds of women I know -- hey, I can match those odds. I'm willing to work at it. She exists, so I know it's possible.

Last night I learned she's filing for divorce.

Y'know, I hate to sound like a cynic, but some days the cynical answer really does fit what I can see.

Comments

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

We have friends who have been married either 17 or 18 years (I forget). They've been friends with my DH for about a decade or so (I met them through him, they are part of our "gang" or social circle). They've had money issues but have still stayed together, and this year have adopted a little boy which has made both of them very happy (although they still have money issues.)

Unfortunately in my family, in my generation, I don't see a lot of that - I have 4 male cousins (2 each on maternal/parternal sides) . One never married (had a long term relationship that didn't work), one is divorced and raising his son (apparently she had problems), and one just got divorced after 10+ years. (The other one is married, not sure for how many years.)
Both my mom and my maternal uncle were married twice, as were my maternal grandparents.

However, my aunt and uncle on my dad's side have been married close to 50 years as were my paternal grandparents.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

In my family I don't see a lot of it either. We have very few divorces, but very few happy people. My grandparents were absolutely miserable until he died - and she's still miserable, frankly. My mom was miserable until I left high school, and eighteen years (!!) of therapy later, she's starting to become less miserable. Yeesh. Where are my role models? I want to see some happy ones, darnit!