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Divorce After Ten Years?

http://zgrossbart.blogspot.com/2007/11/library-problem.html
My wife and I have several hundred books on our shelves, and I'm preparing to fully integrate them (heck, we've been married ten years...I think it's safe to say if she hasn't gotten sick of me yet she's not likely to!) this month.
Consider the comment about divorce. I think it is false. What proportion of divorces come after 10 years or more? Well, it can't be too low: Googling turns up the median length of first marriages that end in divorce is 7.85 years. A 'median' means that half are more and half less. So ten years of marriage doesn't make you "safe" from divorce at all.

Worse, suppose she was getting sick of him. Would she tell him? Probably not. If she did, it could poison their relationship, make things worse, or even cause a divorce. She could ruin the option of staying by admitting she was considering leaving.

That is one of the ways which marriages suppress open discussion and problem solving. Of course, things don't have to be that way. But the fact is they are. A marriage has to be unrecognizably unusual for that to change.

Elliot Temple on December 11, 2007

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