My question is not why do people split up, it’s why do people stay together?

Whether you’re married in the religious sense or “shacked up” and living common-law, you’re supposed to be bound to that one person for life. I suppose the divorce rate (40% in Canada) is shocking to some but it’s the couples who stay together that shocks me more.

Why do people stay in relationships they admit are less than perfect? Why does that one person who’s clearly stated how unhappy they are, on multiple occasions, stay? That’s usually what it is, the one unhappy person more so than both people being unhappy. One person in the relationship says they want out and in some cases the other person is completely oblivious to it. People have told me time and time again (mostly females) that they are not happy in their marriage or relationship and some even speak of leaving their partner but then they never do. I’m curious to know what changes or doesn’t change?

Is it just one of those obvious reasons, they don’t want to leave the safety and security of staying where they are? Or maybe it’s for financial reasons?

Having lived it myself and actually LEFT and began a new life, just me and my kids, it’s hard for me to understand how people can say they felt the things I felt yet stay. For example, they don’t love the person anymore, or for some reason they’re just done with the person and even in some cases (as with my own situation at one point) they just wish the other person would meet someone else and move on. If they really felt that, how could they stay?

There’s no way I could’ve stayed. It would’ve been nasty and miserable and a living hell. And who wants to live like that?

When my marriage was ending and over the years since, people have confided in me about their unhappy relationships, probably because I did go through it and they swear they were leaving or on the verge of leaving yet they never do.

So are they living their lives perpetually unhappy? Or is being unhappy and miserable natural phase sometimes lasting years that eventually settles itself if you stick around?

I wish I knew.