Why So Many Marriages Fail

JJ wished she had spent more time getting to know her husband before she married him -- then perhaps she wouldn't have gotten married at all. "It's important that you become friends with someone before you ever marry them, because when you are friends, you get to know each other better before you become intimate," she says. "I married a stockbroker. He would talk about stocks. I was a musician. There wasn't a relationship with that. Even though I wanted to learn more about that part of his life, even though I tried, trying was not good enough. I didn't feel like we had anything in common....," she says.

Emotional immaturity
With almost half of American marriages ending in divorce, Bill Wear, Jr. -- a lawyer, minister, therapist and divorce mediator-- isn't surprised. "...People in our culture are emotionally, spiritually and philosophically immature. I've been practicing divorce litigation since 1974 and almost without an exception, all those hundreds of clients I've had, there's this sense that the reason they're wanting to get divorced is due to some level of unhappiness they're experiencing, which they project to the other person."

Blame
Wear thinks happiness should come from inside yourself, not your spouse."The majority of situations take place between the same amount of competent individuals who ...believe if only they could get rid of their spouse, they could be happy again, instead of looking at the real problem, which is, why aren't they happy?"

Growing in different directions
Cavanaugh said couples who marry younger can experience problems over time. "Both of them have grown, but in different directions, 10 years later. Those marriages very often were entered into the wrong reasons," like they intiially had lots of fun together. "..Those aren't the strongest marriages. Their values and goals are not the same anymore, but that didn't happen all at once. It happened by ignoring the small problems for many years."

Pasts don't match
The main problem in relationships, Bill Wear, Jr. said, is "basically an accumulation of life experiences and emotional impacts that life's had on that individual. That's what they haven't specifically dealt with, and when they get to the part of being full of the impact of the past, our tendency is to blame somebody else, and a spouse is the closest target."

Baggage
When we marry a person, we marry all these past experiences as well as their family, friends, and quirks. We thought we were just marrying the person, but no, we are dealing with the mismatch between their and our backgrounds, past experiences, and family patterns. Some families are very affectionate. Others barely hug their whole lives. When you get two people from these backgrounds, one can feel the spouse is too touch-feely, while the other feels starved for affection.

Friendship and maturity
Wear said a relationship can still be repaired, even if people have fallen out of love. "Now, love and friendship have the chance to happen if you have two individuals mature enough to assist the other person to be their partner in life. Before giving in to this new relationship, you should know that you are responsible for your own happiness. We both know that, and then as partners, people can assist each other to learn who they need to be," he said.

Love ain't perfect
He said American culture tricks people into thinking love is perfect. "When I grew up watching TV, and with our culture, it all looks like happiness is out there somewhere. If you have the right house, money, girlfriend, boyfriend, car, pair of jeans, beer, then its going to be great. None of that's true, and until you try all that, find it unsuccessful, most people are still trying to line up their ducks. A relationship is one of those ducks, and rarely does it bring much happiness. That's why you see so many successful people who go through husbands and wives like tissue paper, because they think they can be as successful in their relationships as they are making money."

Grow up
Marriage is not a pretty stage play of material display. It's not a prolonged legal roll in the hay. Until we start seeing this as a society, our marriages will continue to crash and burn.