# How Rare are "Happily" Married Couples?



## jaquen (Mar 1, 2012)

My wife and I are in our early-to-mid 30's. Most of the people closest to us are in their 20's and 30's. 

As time peels on, not surprisingly, we're seeing more and more marriages combusting long before our friends even turn 40 years old.

As it stands, of the married people one or both of us know intimately, the overwhelming majority of people are in marriages that are struggling very hard to even stay alive. Some have officially ended, while others are on life support. Our friends who aren't married are seeing similar trends in the marriages they know among relatively young adults.

We'll both get comments here and there about how amazed people are regarding our marriage, and I'm talking people even decades our senior. It seems that the longer we stay together happily, and appear so outwardly, the more that happiness is treated as a rare condition. Off hand, of the marriages I know of, I can only think of perhaps 2 or 3 within our age bracket that I believe the spouses involved would consider generally "happy" after being together well past the early honeymoon stage.

Is this trend lining up with your life? If you are happily married are you rare among your social and familial set? Or are you just a dime a dozen of happily married people?


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

Happy marriages are pretty common amongst our friends. Probably because so many others have split up and disappeared from our lives, leaving just the happy ones. Since we don't want to hang out with unhappy people or deal with drama, we avoid those with troubled relationships.


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## karole (Jun 30, 2010)

My husband and I will celebrate our 28th Anniversary in a week. I'm sad to say that most of our friends are already on their 2nd marriage and some on their third. My husband and I were talking not too long ago about how ours is the only marriage that has survived in the group of all our friends.


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## Coco2014 (May 8, 2014)

I wonder how people know the other people's marriage are happy? Normally people put on facade in social life. Quite a lot of people want to maintain an "image" of they have a successful life by having a perfect marriage. Unless things really get too bad and they divorce. Otherwise, why should they let the people outside know their marital problems? What the other people can do to help except gossip?


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## Amplexor (Feb 13, 2008)

Together nearly 30 years now we are in a happy marriage although, those who know the history are aware the marriage was in the tank a few years ago. We survived and in many ways are stronger than before. There are a number of factors that may or may not have played a part in our success.

We were both raised in conservative Midwestern middle class households.

Both raise in traditional Catholic families and went to Catholic schools.

Both from long term successful marriages. My wife' parents were married 50 years before her father's death. Mine, 63 years before my dad's death.

We became great friends before we became lovers. We are still great friends today.

We partook in premarital comparability testing and scored well.

We were a little older when we married. I was 29 and she was 26. We were both established in our careers.

We have very similar thoughts on our financial decisions and are conservative in our spending. We have only argued about money once in our relationship.

We have similar political, moral and religious beliefs.

We enjoy common hobbies and interests but have our own gigs to keep things interesting.

Our views on parenting are dissimilar but we manage to balance each other's approach. 

We have steadily improved our communication dynamics in the marriage.

We spend vast amounts of time together.

Sans the tough years, we have sex regularly. Sometimes we make love, sometimes we f*ck.

When the kids were young we made a strong effort to have dinner together as a family as often as possible.

We share house duties fairly evenly.

Unless we are watching TV, music is always on in our home.

We don't pass each other in the house without some kind of physical contact. A kiss, a peck, a hug or pat on the rump.

Of our 13 siblings, only 3 have ever divorced.

Most of our friends are still in their first marriage. A few we know are troubled and you never really know about most. The ones that are truly happy, you can generally tell.


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## DoF (Mar 27, 2014)

From what I see around me, happy marriages vs bad ones are about 50/50. I would even go as far as saying less happy marriages.......as most people will not share their problems and keep things hidden/make things look great.

But sometimes you can tell there is tension between people......

It's hard to say really.

But it doesn't really matter (the #s).


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## Thebes (Apr 10, 2013)

I'm sure there are a lot of good marriages out there that have lasted decades but I also think people are good at making you think they are happy. They even fool themselves sometimes.


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## Coffee Amore (Dec 15, 2011)

I'm not privy to exactly what goes on in the marriages of my colleagues, relatives and friends, but given what I've gleaned from conversations especially things they haven't said which sometimes is more telling than what they say, the majority of friends don't seem happy in their marriages from what I can tell. 

I'd say besides my own marriage, I only know of four other marriages where the couples truly seem to enjoy being married to each other. Two of our couple friends are in a weird in-house separation where they may get divorced, but they're not ready to just yet. The others just plod along because their religious beliefs or upbringing don't allow them to dissolve a bad marriage. But the couples who are truly happily married, you can tell they're not putting up a facade. 

I think you can do all the right things - date nights, communication, boundaries, but unless you have two people equally commmited to the marriage, it doesn't work.

Not to pat myself on the back, but we've had people make random comments about how we seem like a good couple. Sometimes the comments are out of the blue and totally not related to the topic at hand. Maybe to others we just seem really compatible? I think we are both very similar and where we're not alike, we've found ways to compromise without feeling like we lost something.


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## Angelou (Oct 21, 2014)

We are "newlyweds" and need to find more married couples to hang out with because we don't know that many. I like hanging out with his parents.


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## richie33 (Jul 20, 2012)

On Facebook everyone has a fairy tale marriage....in the real world not so much.


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## Justus3 (Oct 18, 2014)

richie33 said:


> On Facebook everyone has a fairy tale marriage....in the real world not so much.


:iagree:with Richie


But most of the married couples I know are not very happy. Most stay in the relationship for the kids or out of comfort (it's what they are used too).


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## anchorwatch (Mar 5, 2012)

We married young and are long-term and happy. My parents were long-term and happy. Don't know how much that meant. All my siblings divorced their first partners. Two short term, one long. They are happy in their second M. DW had a single welfare mom, and a pos dad that walked out of her life when she was two. Not much for examples. 

'Most' couples we know are happy in their long-term first partner marriages. Can't say all. I can say that during decades of time together, things will happen. It's all about how each partner handles it, and if you do it together, that will determine the outcome. I do believe this, "Nobody's Ready for Marriage. Marriage Makes you Ready for Marriage." David Schnarch


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## heartsbeating (May 2, 2011)

Friends have commented what a special bond my husband and I share. We've been together since we were 18 and that's not common amongst our peers. When we came through our make-or-break time and started becoming stronger, friends closest to us were wonderfully supportive and I think it allowed for greater vulnerability to occur, seeing us as warts and all.

Our closest friends enjoy their marriages / relationships. That's not to say issues aren't there or don't arise. There's mention of some of these things openly amongst friends and it can become a supportive and sometimes humorous discussion. Like us, the majority of couples don't have children. They spend a lot of time with one another and travel overseas a fair bit. 

There's one or two who have recently started families, or are in second marriages with children. I can think of at least a few that I'd view as solid, healthy relationships. And I can think of a few that have more issues - yet it seems to work for them and really, that's all that matters. Those who remarried with children seemed to have gone through the ringer more than the rest of us though. 

None of us are privy to the true inner workings of a marriage or relationship but our friends are pretty open and do enjoy their spouses.


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## heartsbeating (May 2, 2011)

We're in our late 30's (when did that happen?!) ......closest friends are mid-late 30's and mid-late 40's.


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## Plan 9 from OS (Jul 13, 2012)

Majority of couples we know and hang out with appear to have happy marriages.


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## Coco2014 (May 8, 2014)

heartsbeating said:


> Friends have commented what a special bond my husband and I share. We've been together since we were 18 and that's not common amongst our peers. When we came through our make-or-break time and started becoming stronger, friends closest to us were wonderfully supportive and I think it allowed for greater vulnerability to occur, seeing us as warts and all.
> 
> Our closest friends enjoy their marriages / relationships. That's not to say issues aren't there or don't arise. There's mention of some of these things openly amongst friends and it can become a supportive and sometimes humorous discussion. Like us, the majority of couples don't have children. They spend a lot of time with one another and travel overseas a fair bit.
> 
> ...



I once knew a couple they got married at 18 and had been happily married for 20 years. I was amazed how sweet and loving they treated each other when I was around them. She told me they were lucky that they grew together. 

A couple of years ago she divorce him for another man and moved away to his state.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

For the time that we have been married (25 years this month) none of our friends have divorced. A slew of us got married since 30 years ago and they and we are all still together. Most of my coworkers and my wife's are like this as well. She has worked at the same place for over 20 years and I have worked at the same place for 15. We seem to work, live and socialize in a group of like minded souls. I can't say all of their marriages are good but they are not getting divorcees or displaying outward negativity about their marriage. Some complaints, yes but more positive stories than bad over all.

This was not true at my last job where at least four people I knew were divorced, bitter and angry.


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## tibymia (Oct 12, 2014)

I am not married yet, but I am in a committed relationship and we have started a little family of our own so this topic is always on my mind.. I think naturally we compare a lot of the relationships/marriages we see around us to see what we can learn from each one in hopes that our own marriages can avoid separation and stand the test of time.
I'll say 98% of marriages in my life, friends and family.. Have either ended in divorce and if they are still together.. They have gone through a lot of drama.. Infidelity, dishonest, financial problems, I'm sure more things that wasn't shared.
I think it is rare to find the person that matches you morally, spiritually, intellectually, that come from the same background, that have similar sex history as you.. I think a lot of people get with others that don't share a lot of those common things.. And that's where problems start.
For instance.. My background is completely different from my partners.. I have not thought of my values and what they are until recently (mind I am almost 30) and he has set values and a moral compass he goes by. I flee at any sign of adversity in a relationship, while he stays firm and try to work things out. He and I are completely opposite, but I almost feel like I am so much better because of him.
Speaking without any true experience and merely from Conscious standpoint.. I think its knowing that there will be compromises, there will be miscommunication, there will be issues and marriage ain't no walk in the park.. There will be great months and awful months.. And knowing that.. Before saying I do.. Can really put things in perspective. 
I personally want to be married.. Still.. Knowing all of that.


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## Rayloveshiswife (Sep 25, 2013)

I would say that its extremely hard to tell who is happy and who is not. Reason being, a year ago my wife and I were near divorce and yet friends would have described our marriage as very good because we put on a very good show in public and with friends. How we acted in private was however a different matter. It was truly a shock to many friends when months later we started telling of our troubles and how we rekindled our marriage. So die to that, I don't care to guess how other marriages are doing just because they look good on the surface. 

Ray
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## jaquen (Mar 1, 2012)

Coco2014 said:


> I wonder how people know the other people's marriage are happy?


In our case we have a good deal of very close and best friends, me more so than my wife, and those people are pretty open about their lives, including their marriages.

I concede that those who appear to be pretty happy could very well be perpetuating a ruse. But, among our social set, that kind of purposeful deception would be a rarity, not a norm. We just tend to have pretty deep running, open relationships with the people we are close to. Of course I'm not referring to the co-workers, acquaintances, etc who are in your life, but not particularly close.


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