How many of those breakups involved cheating, regardless if the cheating was known by the partner or not? I'm specifically interested in younger couples, 45 and below.

10/21/2014 10:00:14 PM

Hmm. I know about 12 or 13 relationships that ended in divorce. only 1 involved infidelity though.

There's 4 relationships that I'm aware of who are still married even with infidelity involved.



[Edited on October 21, 2014 at 10:16 PM. Reason : .]

10/21/2014 10:14:31 PM

a shitload.

10/21/2014 10:16:08 PM

^ is the divorce rate higher than average in military? I'd imagine there are more instances of rushed decisions and then of couse wives not anticipating how tough their husband's deployment would be.

10/21/2014 10:42:34 PM

A good friend of mine is getting a divorce. Kind of a bummer

10/21/2014 11:14:59 PM

Why is it "kind of"

10/21/2014 11:29:23 PM

^^^ it's stratospheric if you're talking all of the military. Of course, that includes the 18 year olds who marry little Suzie from back home right about the time they get out of boot camp...and then the 19 year olds who get married for the extra pay and/or so they don't have to live in the barracks, and even the contract marriages ("we'll get married on paper...you keep the extra pay for dependents, and I'll get free healthcare", etc). Stuff like that drives the stats up a lot.

If you're talking about my peers, it's a lot lower, although I still know plenty. I don't know how it compares to society in general. Across all ranks/ages/etc, though, there's a lot of time spent apart, constant moves, some pretty hard-driving and demanding personalities, etc.

I will say that even among my college educated, officer peers, way more people seem to get married younger. Tons of my friends from college are still single in their mid-30s. All but a tiny handful of friends I've known in the military were married by their late 20s. Seriously, it's basically everyone, everywhere I go. I thought that being in a jet squadron in the Marines would be pretty much a continuation of my college lifestyle, except with more money and, like, jets and missiles and stuff. False. Not even close. If anything, I was usually either a pariah or a spectacle for living a bachelor lifestyle. Shit, my fleet squadron was damned near like a church group with attack jets.

It seems like it's become even more that way over the last 10 years. When I was in flight school, almost all of my friends were single (although that changed within a year or two afterwards). Now, most of my students for the last few years seemed to be married. I think it's a side-effect of a sort of cultural defanging in the military...there are a lot more people who are a lot more docile.

10/21/2014 11:53:32 PM

you mean its not because youre afraid of dyin without havin a woman

10/21/2014 11:56:01 PM

Quote :

"^ is the divorce rate higher than average in military? I'd imagine there are more instances of rushed decisions and then of couse wives not anticipating how tough their husband's deployment would be."

My sister's best friend got married right after high school before her husband joined the army and then he cheated on her. Now she is married to someone in the air force and they have had a child together. With the military it seems like there are a lot of times where it is a "wipe it off the bucket list before I go die in a war zone in a month" marriages.

10/22/2014 12:55:32 AM

I think it's more pragmatic than that. It's a "shit I'm about to move again in a few months, so we need to get married now if we're gonna do it." *

* in addition to the other stupid reasons I previously listed.

10/22/2014 1:08:33 AM

Why do women not change their name back when getting divorced? I know its a pain but if you are really done with a marriage why you want everyone to still think you are married? When I flip through Facebook a lot of people who got married young have deleted their spouses, and all the associated pics, etc. Relationship set to "ask"

I think cheating is really oversimplified when looking at relationships. People look at cheating as the cause of relationships going to shit, but wont take a minute to evaluate what lead up to the cheating. Odds are if there is a full blown affair going on there are underlying issues that lead up to it which were probably ignored.

As far as I know I have never been cheated on, but in my job I deal with people getting divorced all the time. I see people divvying up furniture, selling their home, fighting over everything they own (including pets and kids), they usually appear to be completely miserable. I sit at closings across from these couples and sometimes they are civil and even nice to each other, but often times they look like they want to kill each other. This person they once loved brings up a deep hatred that makes them do crazy illogical spiteful shit that ultimately hurts them as bad as the other person.

What I take away from that is that no matter what kind of fucked up shit your spouse does it is probably worth trying to work through it and at least fix whatever is wrong in the relationship. Divorce seems like chopping off your hand because your finger is bleeding. The cut on your finger is then a non-issue but look what you did to get rid of it!

10/22/2014 1:18:22 AM

I could probably talk about this stuff all day. Mom on her third marriage...dad on his third. On both of their second and third marriages they married people who had been married before (FWIW, both are as happy as I've ever seen them). I practiced Family Law (mainly divorce) for several years. I also bartended for 10 years and saw marriages start and end right in front of me.

^ I agree with the above in that there's usually something underlying when it comes to cheating. But I will also add that sometimes people just cheat and it has nothing to do with the other spouse (well, it always has SOMETHING to do with the other spouse, but what I'm saying is that it's not always the product of something wrong in the relationship). Personally, I still want to sleep with other women all the time. I find my wife beautiful and we have a healthy sex life, but I will probably always have the desire to be with other women. I've done a good job so far (and hope to continue to do so) of fighting those desires and not putting myself in a position to act on them...but a lot of men and women fail at that.

When it comes down to it, we're all animals.

10/22/2014 7:09:49 AM

i'd estimate about 10 couples where at least one of them is a friend are divorced - only 1 of them involved cheating - all of them under 45

10/22/2014 9:01:25 AM

Of my friends who've gotten married, countless over the past 12 years or so, somehow i only know one divorced couple.

I know of another that's just waiting out the one year required separation where she cheated on my boy like the fucking whore she is.



of my truly close friends, none have divorced so far. The last two single people in my circle of close friends are getting married to each other this weekend.

My wife's best friend from HS is going through counseling with her husband. He's an alcoholic. I don't know if she'll leave his ass or not. He's not violent or anything. he just drinks himself into a stupor 7 days a week and is generally a worthless human being.

[Edited on October 22, 2014 at 9:30 AM. Reason : .]

10/22/2014 9:26:52 AM

very few...but perhaps i need more friends in general and/or friends who are prone to bouts of poor judgment

i assume it's still cool to hate marriage, right?

10/22/2014 9:31:54 AM

of my close circle none have divorced or separated. In my wider social circle I only know one couple who divorced. That being said my sample size is probably smaller than most

10/22/2014 9:42:38 AM

None of my friends have gone through a divorce while I knew them. I do have one that has been divorced and I dated a divorcee. My mom and dad divorced and they both remarried. Dad got divorced again and declared himself "not marriage material." Now he just lives with his girlfriend and they have separate bedrooms and everything. Seems to work.

Husband's coworker is going through a divorce right now and it definitely involves lots of infidelity and an unborn child and private investigators.

10/22/2014 9:48:51 AM

Out of the ~40 weddings or so Ive been to over the past 10-15 years, I can think of two that have ended in divorce. One because the woman was a slut and started fucking around on my bud while he worked his ass off paying for her nursing school. The other was just a horrible mistake for the two people to even get married and they eventually just split. I dont think infidelity was involved on that one.

10/22/2014 10:02:44 AM

Most of my friends aren't married. Of the few that are none have gotten divorced. I'm also 28. That's a bit young to get married IMO.

10/22/2014 11:22:55 AM

none of my friends (that i can think of) have been divorced, although one did get close.

10/22/2014 12:26:25 PM

Almost everyone I know who is divorced is a serial monogamist who almost immediately married someone else.

[Edited on October 22, 2014 at 3:14 PM. Reason : 4]

10/22/2014 3:13:44 PM

i could probably hit 100 names easily...

some of those have been divorced multiple times


I'll start a tally and check back in

[Edited on October 22, 2014 at 3:45 PM. Reason : k....i hit 100 in 13 minutes....i'll keep going ]

10/22/2014 3:30:33 PM

i dont think i know 100 people......

10/22/2014 4:47:33 PM

i just hit 200....


maybe 1/3 are over 45...


i wonder if i can get to 300

10/22/2014 4:53:00 PM

Of my friends who I knew before they were married and then got married, only one couple has divorced so far and it didn't involve infidelity as far as I know. They were fighting all the time even before they got married but they moved out to the sticks after graduation and were really solitary and co-dependent so I guess they married anyway. I've known two other people my age to get divorces but had gotten married before I hung out with them a lot and I'm sure there was cheating but it wasn't the main reason.

10/22/2014 5:34:05 PM

i only know one guy that has gotten a divorce under the age of 40 and i didn't know him until after he was already divorced. Can't remember if cheating was the reason or not...doesn't come up much and i'm not asking.

Out of my 20 close friends from high school/college...only about 8 of them have gotten married and all within the past 2-3 years...and they're all still happily together.

10/23/2014 6:34:50 AM

I was only able to reach around 250...


i know of many more people who have gotten divorced....but they aren't actually people i "know"

10/23/2014 6:54:39 AM

dear god you know a lot of people.

10/23/2014 8:00:43 AM

Tons of old people, but only a couple from people in my age group or younger. I guess people in the <40 crowd just believe more in the sanctity of marriage.

[Edited on October 23, 2014 at 9:23 AM. Reason : l]

10/23/2014 9:20:31 AM

i didn't know it was actually all that strange to know thousands of people...


until tww told me so

10/23/2014 10:38:09 AM

I got married at 21, so we have been married almost 12 years. In that time I think almost every other young marriage that happened before or after our wedding has imploded. One couple has been together even longer, but they have had the rockiest marriage of all. Both have cheated and they have split up before and then reconciled. Our shit hasn't been easy either, because you are still learning who you are when you get married that young, and people change. A lot of times people would just rather split than put their head down and try to deal with it. Thankfully we have survived and are still happy together, not just together for the kids or some shit like that. But it is tough. I know numerous people who are on marriage two and several who are already on marriage three. Also several who never got married but were in serious enough relationships they had kids with several people. A few of them are on baby daddy/baby mamma number three.

10/23/2014 12:08:54 PM

Pretty much everyone I know is married, or about to be. These are all people who got married older, like late 20s and up.

The gay marriage being legal thing means a lot of couples, straight and gay, are getting hitched soon.

10/25/2014 8:57:54 PM

my close friends married at 25,25,26,26 and 27. I got married at 29. No divorces yet, all but one couple before me either has a kid or has one on the way. Can imagine it'd suck to be in your 20s and divorced already, especially dating someone with that background. Not that it's bad, just kinda

10/25/2014 9:44:21 PM

Quote :

"The gay marriage being legal thing means a lot of couples, straight and gay, are getting hitched soon."

What? Are you talking about couples who were abstaining from marriage as a protest against the ban on gay marriage?

If so, I thought that was a really rare phenomenon. I mean, I've heard of it, but assumed it was practiced mostly by insanely principled people, of whom there aren't very many around.

10/25/2014 10:05:09 PM

I feel like half my friends are already on a second marriage.

10/26/2014 9:29:55 PM

Quote :

"What I take away from that is that no matter what kind of fucked up shit your spouse does it is probably worth trying to work through it and at least fix whatever is wrong in the relationship. Divorce seems like chopping off your hand because your finger is bleeding. The cut on your finger is then a non-issue but look what you did to get rid of it!"

I used to think this way but my father-in-law said something in reference to his first marriage that stood out. He and his wife went to therapy and after approximately a year of it the therapist said "there are worse things than being divorced."

There are situations in which I believe that to be the case. Situations in which both people are reasonable, smart, loyal individuals who are miserable together but would be much happier apart. It's probably easy for me to say this since my parents are still together, but I'd rather be the child of happily divorced parents rather than miserable but together parents.

Life only comes once and since so many people work a job that doesn't fulfill them, it's important that the relationships they're in do.

10/27/2014 4:27:02 PM

Quote :

" It's probably easy for me to say this since my parents are still together, but I'd rather be the child of happily divorced parents rather than miserable but together parents. "

My parents are still together, but I spent my whole childhood wishing they would get divorced. I absolutely could not agree with you more.

10/27/2014 5:47:53 PM

^^ quality post, B.

10/27/2014 11:38:37 PM

the single moms on facebook are like HEEEEYYY MR GUY WITH A STABLE JOB

10/28/2014 12:01:14 AM