In the US, researchers estimate that 41% of all first marriages end in divorce [1]. I guess it's technically true that divorces are in the minority, but it does sound like there's a lot of regret there.
As someone who divorced, it doesn't mean that I regret my marriage. It didn't work out but that doesn't mean that we didn't also have good times or that the bad outweigh the good and from other friends who divorced, it doesn't seem that I'm the only one.
Divorce doesn't mean regret though. You can have a wonderful time with a partner and then decide the you want something else later, at a different point in life.
The website lists a breakdown of common reasons given for divorce:
- Lack of commitment 73%
- Argue too much 56%
- Infidelity 55%
- Married too young 46%
- Unrealistic expectations 45%
- Lack of equality in the relationship 44%
- Lack of preparation for marriage 41%
- Domestic Violence or Abuse 25%
(Respondents often cited more that one reason, therefore the percentages add up to much more than 100 percent)
All of those seem like regretful reasons to me. There's no evidence that unregretful reasons are a significant factor in divorces (even anecdotally I've never heard of this, but if you know one then I'd find that pretty interesting). Still sounds like there's a lot of regret out there.
Yes and no. You can have plenty of commitment for 5 years, and then you feel like doing something else and your commitment decreases. Infidelity doesn't mean the whole relationship has been bad.
My point is, there is an expectation that a happy marriage lasts your whole life, and while there is nothing wrong with a marriage like that, it is not the only happy solution. You can have a relationship end without regretting ever going into it.
I don’t regret any of the relationships I’ve been in. They’ve all made me into the person I am now, and I’m sure that at the time, starting and ending them made the most sense to me.
Sure, the failure of a relationship doesn't mean the relationship had no value, but the expectation that a happy marriage lasts your whole life is the very foundation of marriage. "I was committed for 5 years and then I wasn't" is as affirming to a marriage as "I honored your warranty for 5 years and then I didn't" is to a lifetime warranty. If you just wanted to be in a relationship with someone that realistically lasts 5 - 10 years, you don't marry them.
Every aspect of marriage hinges on it not ending before death. All religions explicitly spell that out one way or another. Religion aside, legally every government imposes life-changing financial penalties for ending it that way. The main reason governments do this is because culturally it was very common for the wife to stop working or stop pursuing a career in a marriage due to the implied commitment the husband has to the wife, but if the wife knows that the relationship has a 5 year clock then she would behave differently. Married couples have children due to the implied permanence of their relationship, if a 5 year expiration date was known upfront it would change behavior because it's well known that divorce is damaging to children.
If I buy something called the Forever Car that's very expensive but promises in return to never break down, and then it breaks down in the middle of an interstate trip...I guess that doesn't invalidate all the miles the Forever Car got me through, but it certainly calls into question the value proposition of the Forever Car. I may not regret that I bought a car but I certainly wouldn't have gotten a Forever Car. I would definitely say that a Forever Car that doesn't go the distance has something very wrong with it because it doesn't deliver what it promises.
I feel like "Married too young" is not like the others, I mean, something else is under that reason, perhaps one of the others. Because what is too young? Who decides all of a sudden "You know what, this is all great but we married too young, I'm out."
[1] https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/