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

[thorswitch.livejournal.com]

Well, Matt and I will have been married for 8 years by the end of October - and we were a couple for a year before that (plus the other 6 years we were friends), and, for all my gousing about him, I really AM happy and very thankful to be in such a good marriage.... My parents are getting ready to celebrate their 39th or 40th in September, and Matt's parents had been married for around 25 years when his mother died... so there are a few out there. (And with the exception of my Dad, ALL of these are 1st marriages)

I don't know too many people my own age who've made it more than 10 years, but some of that may be because a lot of women have been putting off marriage until a bit later in life to get the career stuff underway first...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Agreed, our age group has not reached that kind of relationship duration in large numbers yet. And as I told wcg above, the fact I don't know these folks doesn't mean they aren't out there... it's just kind of depressing to look around and not see 'em.

Relationship role models. Wish I had more of them, more varied ones, more happy ones.