married and started affair with an old flame....

I don't think it's too late, Montana. It will take some effort on his part and some understanding on hers, but it can be done.

Will someone - anyone please explain the concept of marital-commitment to me?

Does it mean:

I'm going to be with you until I find someone better.
I'm going to be with you until you no longer make me happy.
I'm going to be with you until I hook up with a former lover who is better than you.


Or does it mean:

I married you because I chose to fall in love with you and I am going to remain faithful to you, myself, and our children. I know there will be bumps in the road, good times, disagreements, agreements, your looks will change, my looks will change, devastation will occur, good times will occur, but together - we will enjoy and endure.

To me, the fact that there are young children in the picture is key. Two adults decide to get married. One of those two can decide they want out and end the marriage. Two adults who have become parents should, IMO, realize that they have produced off-spring who didn't ask to come into this world. They were brought into this world as part of a plan (hopefully) that the two adults considered and decided would be a good thing. Maybe they were naive and didn't realize what being parents would do to their intimacy or other aspects of their relationship. Maybe the couple would have grown in separate directions whether there were children or not. However, the fact remains that your children deserve two parents who have their best interests at heart until such time as those children are able to support themselves.

I am not suggesting that two adults should stay in a miserable marriage because they have children. I am suggesting that two adults should focus their energies on improving their relationship with each other through openness, honesty, and perhaps counseling so that they keep their end of the unspoken bargain they made with their children when they were conceived.

Will someone - anyone please explain the concept of marital-commitment to me?

Does it mean:

I'm going to be with you until I find someone better.
I'm going to be with you until you no longer make me happy.
I'm going to be with you until I hook up with a former lover who is better than you.


Or does it mean:

I married you because I chose to fall in love with you and I am going to remain faithful to you, myself, and our children. I know there will be bumps in the road, good times, disagreements, agreements, your looks will change, my looks will change, devastation will occur, good times will occur, but together - we will enjoy and endure.

To me, the fact that there are young children in the picture is key. Two adults decide to get married. One of those two can decide they want out and end the marriage. Two adults who have become parents should, IMO, realize that they have produced off-spring who didn't ask to come into this world. They were brought into this world as part of a plan (hopefully) that the two adults considered and decided would be a good thing. Maybe they were naive and didn't realize what being parents would do to their intimacy or other aspects of their relationship. Maybe the couple would have grown in separate directions whether there were children or not. However, the fact remains that your children deserve two parents who have their best interests at heart until such time as those children are able to support themselves.

I am not suggesting that two adults should stay in a miserable marriage because they have children. I am suggesting that two adults should focus their energies on improving their relationship with each other through openness, honesty, and perhaps counseling so that they keep their end of the unspoken bargain they made with their children when they were conceived.

A divorce can sometimes be better than years of silence. (Silence is what I remember, but some marriages bring worse for the children.)

Here we go:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1299893#1299893

But since 1980, the two groups have taken diverging paths. Women without undergraduate degrees have remained at about the same rate, their risk of divorce or separation within the first 10 years of marriage hovering at around 35 percent. But for college graduates, the divorce rate in the first 10 years of marriage has plummeted to just over 16 percent of those married between 1990 and 1994 from 27 percent of those married between 1975 and 1979.

"The National Center for Health Statistics recently released a report which found that 43
percent of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years. The study is based on
the National Survey of Family Growth, a nationally representative sample of women age 15 to
44 in 1995. Bramlett, Matthew and William Mosher. "First marriage dissolution, divorce, and
remariage: United States," Advance Data From Vital and Health Statistics; No.323. Hyattsville
MD: National Center for Health Statistics: 2 1.

"Data in the Census report were collected from both men and women, age 15 and over, and a
different methodology was used than in the NCHS report.

"About 50% of first marriages for men under age 45 may end in
divorce, and between 44 and 52% of women's first marriages
may end in divorce for these age groups. The likelihood of a divorce
is lowest for men and women age 60, for whom 36 % of men
and 32 percent of women may divorce from their first marriage by
the end of their lives. A similar statistical exercise was performed in
1975 using marital history data from the Current Population Survey
(CPS). Projections based on those data implied that about one-third of
married persons who were 25 to 35 years old in 1975 would end their
first marriage in divorce.

"This cohort of people, who in 1996 were about 45 to 55 years old, had
already exceeded these projections as about 40% of men and
women in these ages had divorced from their first marriage. Current
projections now indicate that the proportion could be as high as
50% for persons now in their early forties."