The 10 year marriage agreement

When I got married back in 2001, I was 31 years old, very much in love with my fiancé and with lots of stars in my eyes. I believed that we would be married forever, and who doesn’t believe that when they are marrying the love of their life? Fast forward 10 years with two children conceived via IVF, a relocation to a different state and a lot of sleepless nights, the cracks can start to appear. The person that you were 10 years ago has grown up and realised that creating a family, being a parent and still giving your partner attention all while you are trying to sustain your lives financially isn’t an easy job. I was lucky that both my partner and I were great friends who never argued and agreed on the best way to bring up our children. But after a period of time we lost our passion for each other and we discovered different interests and hobbies and spent more time apart. Our marriage fell apart not because of any tragic incident or argument. We were just better off as friends and although it was heartbreaking to break our family up after 15 years of marriage, 3 1/2 years later we are all doing pretty well.
Since I have been a single I have had a lot of different experiences with men, some okay, some pretty terrible and some downright ridiculous. I have never lacked male attention and that can be a good thing, and a bad thing. I have been with men less than half my age and have found that younger men definitely have a thing for older women. I have tried online dating, I have met men through my work and I have really given it a good try but unfortunately I have not met anyone who I want to spend the rest of my life with.....yet! (Trying to be positive here folks).
The one thing that has surprised me over the past few years has been how many married men have approached me to hook up with them even though they are supposedly “happily married”. It's always the same old story, I love my wife but we never have sex, I’m bored and need a little bit of excitement, I find you extremely sexy and would love to sleep with you just one time, I don’t want to separate from my wife for the children’s sake but need something to spice it up. I don’t want to hurt you and hope we can be friends. Blah blah blah. Honestly if I hear this one more time I may slap someone. Probably the married man saying it to me! This is why I believe that marriage should be on a 10 year agreement. You sign the agreement at your wedding along with your marriage certificate and if you are both still happy after 10 years you stay together but if not, you can divorce and move on, no hard feelings.
Society has drilled it into us that we all should grow up, meet the love of our lives, get married, have babies and have a mortgage and although we now have many different variations of this we mostly are still lead to believe that is how life should go.
But yet affairs are still major issues in our lives, with so many marriages ending bitterly when one partner gets found out that they have cheated.
This could all be avoided if we had the 10 year agreement. Imagine, it’s 9 years into the marriage, the passion has worn off, the kids are at that annoying stage and you just wanna break from life in general. You know your 10 years is coming up and you hold on that little bit longer so you don’t hurt anyone and then decide not to renew the agreement. Happy days!
Of course there is always the issue that one person wants to go and one wants to stay so this is going to cause some problems but if you have that kind of one sided marriage, is it really worth staying anyway?
I remember telling my ex husband about 10 years into our marriage that I wasn’t happy and that I thought we should separate but he refused, saying he didn’t want to leave because of the kids. Not because he still loved me. He knew we weren’t connecting anymore but he said financially we couldn’t afford to separate. At that stage I think I was about 41 and looking back now I wish I had of followed through with the separation then because I believe I would have had a better chance of meeting someone else in my early 40s rather than now when I’m nearly 50. But I stayed for another 5 years and left when I was 46 and have struggled to have a good connection with anyone since then. I have also gone into that stage where I’m so good at being by myself that the thought of sacrificing my freedom scares the shit out of me and although I get lonely and would love someone to hang out with, the alternative is pretty hard to give up. Not answering to anyone, not having to consider anyone’s feelings and just doing what I want when I want is pretty damn good.
Now of course there may be some people that laugh at the 10 year marriage agreement, like my brother and his wife who are both still deeply in love after 27 years and would have never even have considered leaving each other after 10 years and thank goodness for these people who give you hope that a ever lasting love can be real. And then there are those people who would think 10 years is too much and would need a 5 year agreement and maybe those people never should have gotten married in the first place and just kept dating or living together. These people are the ones who want the big wedding and the idea of being married but maybe weren't that suited for domestic life in the first place?
There will always be exceptions but from my experience I think the shine starts to rub off at that 10 year period and if there was an agreement in place I believe that a lot of marriages would end a lot more amicably than many do, with bitter divorces, fighting and custody dramas which leaves everyone mentally exhausted and financially ruined.
If we all had the option of signing off after 10 years would there be so many affairs occurring? So many people chatting up strangers on Instagram and Facebook? So many people getting caught out by their partners? I really don't think.
Anyway it's just a theory of mine, but I reckon I'm onto something for sure.


Katie xx