Marriage statistics

OK, I know that a second marriage is more prone to failure that a first marriage. However, I would like to know everyone’s thoughts on this scenario.

Let’s say a couple gets married and the marriage ends in divorce. They were married for less than 5 years and there was an affair that contributed to the end of the marriage. However, the marriage was not ended hastily and time and thought was put into why the marriage was ended. Both partners understood how and why affairs take place, however came to the conclusion that just too much damage had been done. There are no kids, so the couple made a mutual decision to split.

Now, let’s say both the people that were involved with the marriage move on and go on with their lives. Let’s say the both date for a few years and one day a few years later they both re-marry again. By this time the BS spouse who is a male remarries and marries a younger mate at say around the age of 28, no kids and never married. Do you suppose this marriage would have a better success rate since one partner has already suffered the pain of an affair? I guess when I say “better” rate I am comparing this to a second marriage when both spouses have been married before.

Now, let’s say the WS gets married and also marries someone who has never been married and also has no kids. Any opinions here on what the success rate would be? Do you think the WS learned enough from the first failed marriage to make the second one work? Or do you suppose the statement “once a cheater always a cheater” may come into play here?

In my little mind I think the BS spouse would have a much better chance at a second marriage after enduring such a deep pain with the first one.

Anyways…just some thoughts I wanted to ramble about.

Thanks.

Excellent post...I'm interested to know thoughts on this too.

I think it's a hard call - I doubt there's statistics that are that specific for what you're asking.

However, I think it all boils down to the personalities involved and their view of the world.

Imagine this scenario...

BS sticks it out with WS for nearly a year of pain; WS admits she loves BS, but continues the A in his face, despite that. She's fence sitting for so long that eventually BS loses his love for WS, and he files for Dv, they part ways at the age of 32 or so.

WS's relationship with OM is not going to succeed one way or another - that's a given. So after that R crashes and burns eventually, she wakes up and truly wants to make the M work - but by then the BS is long gone.

I think this scenario plays out a lot... I have a friend who had this happen... and I could be poised there too.

Anyhow, WS SAYS she's learned a lot... talks the talk about honesty and openness, EN's, etc. Yet she was too fogged to apply them in her own M, and essentially "out waited" BS for the Dv process to finally snuff the M.

Has she really learned anything? And even if she has, has it fundamentally changed her vision of the world, her reality? I don't think so. In fact, her reality is having to carry around some pretty heavy "baggage". No matter how open and honest she is with H #2, the feelings, the guilt, the shame - all that she did wrong - is still with her. Sure, she might have learned coping skills and such from IC - but with the M over, and her realizing that she lost something that was great once (so why not great once again) - she may be motivated enough to truly "make it work" in the second M... or maybe she sticks it out despite being unhappy, just because she can't stand yet another failure... or build a new wall around her feelings that keep H #2 away, just enough to be even more unhappy than M #1...

All possibilities. I think for her to really do well in M #2, she needs to effectively dismiss M #1 as a true "write-off" - that H #1 was so dysfunctional that she could never be happy in M #1. If she can't... there'll always be those lingering doubts... that guilt... that shame.

As for BS... he knows he's tried very, very hard. He knows he gave and gave until it hurt so bad. He feels a sense of loss, but he can be far more fatalistic... and get away with it.

In an unhappy marriage there are two people involved, yet one has an affair. I think having affairs has much more to do with character than it does with needs being unmet.

I think both WS and BS are going to have a rough time of it in their next marriages. BS will never have than innocense of trust that was destroyed and that next spouse will have to prove that they are worthy to be trusted.

WS will forever have this monkey on their back...no matter how much it's justified in their minds, somewhere within them they know the truth.

My H works with a man who had an affair several years ago. To this day when his name is mentioned, what he did to his family is mentioned also. He has been ostracized by his fellow workers and is known as the office sleeze. My H is now suffering the same ostracization.

I don't buy into "once a cheater, always a cheater," but I would perfer to say, "once a cheater, likely to cheat again."

I agree that the BS will have the greater chance of having a successful second marriage, but it will be difficult...no matter who they marry.

I went to gloryb today and a xow was complaining that she had met a single guy and was happily dating him. All of a sudden, he stopped calling. When she called him, he asked her how often did she date married men? He told her he wasn't interested anymore. The wife of her xmm told his single guy what she did. Now I don't know that this was the right thing to do but I think this ow saw at that moment that what she had done will stay with her.

Another woman on gloryb who was involved with a man who was off work because of an injury he sustained at work, had been followed by the detectives of the insurance company. They contacted him and told him that they had pictures of them together and that she would be called in to testify.

I know people who become involved in affairs have no idea what they've got themselves into...just as people who get into anything that is destructive. I believe that the ones involved in a tragedy like this that have not inflicted pain on others have a more successful recovery in the long run.