When Wedding Planning Lasts Longer Than Marriage

A couple I've known for many years - heck, they came to my wedding together, and that was over six years ago - have split after probably something like ten years together. They got married less than six months ago.

I know a different couple whose marriage was over about a year after it started (I watched these two exchange purity rings at their wedding).

Another friend's marriage was over after 15 months.

I knew a woman who had gone through a commitment ceremony with her female partner, birthed a daughter conceived through artificial insemination, and then after their relationship fell apart, she ended up marrying a guy. The guy walked out on her and her daughter several months later.

I also flew into a different state to see a cousin-once-removed get married, and to catch up with relatives; that marriage lasted less than a year. The way my cousin tells it, the young bride was used to the more expensive things in life, and she figured her new hubby would change his mind about his career path, which, although admirable, wasn't likely to make them rich. He didn't change his mind after they married, and she got out.

While not all of those examples involved relationships of several years, you may know a couple who finally married after something like six or more years of dating. You can see this sometimes in the world of celebrities. I don't have data or a graph to show, but I suspect that, once you get beyond five years, the longer a couple has been dating the higher the odds are that they'll divorce within a few years after they marry, especially if they had been shacking up. Perhaps it is a little different if one or both were in intensive education programs, like law school or medical school, and didn't want to marry until through with those things. But even then, people sometimes find that the person they wanted to be with while going through their education is not the person they want to be with when they are concentrating on career.

When I learn of a couple, famous or not, that is marrying after being a couple for seven, eight, or nine years, I expect that about a year or two after their wedding, I'll find out they've split.

Why? Well, I can take a guess or two.

You should know if a person you have been dating regularly would make the right spouse for you after about year. Certainly, by two years. Unless you have kept a very superficial relationship, then that period should have given you enough time to get to know the person and his or her personality quirks, habits, faults, and so forth and how you interact with that person in different kids of situations. You should have gotten a good idea of how you get along with that person's family and friends. You should have noticed any red flags. There are some rare exceptions.

Sometimes, a guy is trying to complete his education, or get established in his career, or take care of some debts, or set up a permanent household. If he has been making real progress toward those goals and will likely meet those goals within the next year, then it is certainly understandable why he has held off proposing. But if those priority goals are several years away, then it shouldn't be an exclusive dating situation.

But if everything is just kind of cruising along, then he may not want to get married. If he's getting sex, round-the-clock companionship, and even some regular laundry/maid service, he might not see what it is in it for him to marry. He may end up proposing because he was nagged into it, or figured it was the only way to keep her around.

That doesn't bode well for a lasting marriage.

Whenever anyone is together that long and then gets married, I fear the wedding is the last gasp of the relationship... people getting married because the relationship is bad or dying and they think it will make it better; or they think that's what they're supposed to do after such a long time; or to "redeem" the relationship after "investing" so much time, or at least to get a big party out of it.

Then after the parties are over, they realize it isn't really working, or not what they wanted.

Sometimes, a kid becomes the last gasp - but it is a terrible idea to get pregnant to try to save a relationship. It is hard to raise a child; many couples divorce soon after having a child. Some of that statistic is no doubt attributable to people who married mainly because of the pregnancy. Others are probably people who let the stress of parenting turn them on each other instead of to each other.

It is shame that people think marriage is going to make everything better. Yes, there are nice things about marriage. But it doesn't get rid of the problems a person has or the problems in their relationship.

So soon after we married, I was returning to our home after being out working. As I approached the door, I felt a sense of personal arrival, like "This is the way it is supposed to be." I don't think everyone will be hit with that feeling, and some who aren't take it to mean they have made a mistake. In some cases they are right.

In the most recent example, which got me thinking about writing this blog entry the first place, the couple married after he was in a good career for a few years and able to buy a house. She has left him for, as her father says, "some guy in a band."