Sounds like it could have been my house.

 

Most likely recently divorced flatulent people.

 

Didn't vote.
Why
Substance abuse was listed with physical abuse.
There is a massive difference between one partner ending up with an addiction, potentially even from something like legitimate chronic pain to beating your partner, pouring boiling water on your partner while they were asleep, mutilating your partner's genitals, attacking them with a knife then making them tell the doctors that they had a history of self harm, ae cetera.
You have the thread named "reasons for a divorce" I'll take this to be "Good reasons for a divorce"
I would see a married partner with a substance use disorder as coming under the "in sickness and in health" part of the traditional marital vows.

As for financial, definitely not. For richer or for poorer.

Boredom? Nope. You should know who you are marrying. Marriage shouldn't be taken lightly, or gone into without knowing the other person entirely, preferably for a few years. It's probably a common reason, but it isn't a good reason.

Infidelity points to unhappiness in a marriage, if your partner is cheating, or vice versa marriage counselling should be tried first and the problem discussed at length. Divorce may be the only option, though if you have children it may be better to wait for them to grow into adults before getting a divorce. Neither marriage nor divorce should be seen as simple.

For physical abuse, definitely. It's important to get away from an abuser as quickly as possible. Sadly most spousal abusers (both male and female) usually get their spouse to stay with.them under the false belief that they will change, to leaving an abuser usually requires help from others.

Grew apart; this one is complicated. Again it comes down to whether or not you have children in the marriage. It's scientifically proven that letting your children grow up in a two parent family gives better outcomes than a single parent family. If you don't have children and you simply grew apart and both agree you would be happier divorced then yeah, it's a fair enough reason. If you do have children, you should always put your children first, even if it means a decade or two of unhappy marriage.
Case in point; I have a family member (an uncle) who now (prefers to be) referred to as my aunt. S/he had a child and waited until they were 19 to break the marriage off. I haven't exactly pried into the intricacies of things, though I would assume the marriage was for the child and maintained as such. Her/his child is doing well, is married and s/he now has a grandchild. I doubt it was easy sticking through 20 or so years of marriage knowing that you didn't even like women, as a partner or having that dawn on you a few years in, though it seems the marriage was kept on for the sake of his child.

 

I disagree that substance abuse should fall under the category of "in sickness or in health". Someone who is "sick" still wants to be part of the family. Someone who chooses to abuse substances and later gets hooked on them is effectively leaving the marriage they had with you and entering in to a new marriage with their drug of choice. If you've ever heard testimony of recovering addicts they seem to back that up.

For example, I remember one guy saying that if his (I think it was cocaine, but that's not important) drugs were in the street and his baby was in the street and he could only save one of them from an oncoming car, he'd save his drugs.

That is NOT how a "sick" parent or spouse would act. That's how someone who doesn't care would act to someone completely unimportant to them.

I guess my summary would be that if someone divorces a spouse who is a substance abuser they are actually the *second* person to leave the relationship, and that's probably for the best.

 

Mmmmmm nope, don't agree. Drugs are a powerful thing. Doesn't mean they don't love their loved ones.

 

Well, we'll have to disagree, I suppose. Marriage is a partnership, and drugs are selfish. When they get to the point where they love their drugs more than their family, IMO they've quit the marriage. Saying they love their spouse is a lie if they choose their drugs over their spouse every time.

 

I am assuming you have not had to deal with drug abuse up close and personal? Just curious.

 

Nope, not personally. Just seen it destroy the families of friends, and result in the deaths of children of friends. Not a great thing, IMO.

 

Nope it’s not. At all. But it’s also a lot more complicated than how you’re seeing it.

 

How so? I agree that when woman comes home from work to find her t.v., couch, etc. have been sold by her druggie husband to ... wait for it... buy drugs, it's a bad situation, but it's not really a complicated one.

 

It is a complex one.
There have been people who have sold their TV, couch, etc to pay televangelists.
Does that come under the same category?

 

If done without their spouses knowledge or consent, absolutely. If a couple spends 20 years scrimping and saving to raise children and save for retirement and one of them decides to give all their savings away and leave their spouse destitute, it's the same thing. All those years of effort they put in were taken by the one spouse without regard to the feelings or needs of the other. It could well be the case that after something like that the spouse will *never* be able to save enough to retire and will end up losing their house, etc.

Is that what a loving spouse would do to their spouse? No. But, I don't want to deviate too far from drug addiction yet.

 

Drugs/Alcohol can completely consume a person. It does not make them love their loved ones any less. It's a very powerful evil disease.

 

Ohhhh Morgotha.....you really don't understand the power of it.

 

@Morgotha
Well the people who sell their possessions to pay a televangelist in return for prayers are usually seen as mentally ill.
Drug addiction does come under the DSM.
Would you divorce someone because they had become senile, developed schizophrenia, etc?
This is where "in sickness and in health" comes in. You are supposed to be their closest partner and in sickness, their carer.

 

Exactly, it IS a disease and should be treated as such. It by no means, means they are doing ANY of it on purpose.

 

You're mistaken, I understand just fine. I don't CARE about the power of it. The spouses of these people end up as real victims, (as opposed to the "I'm offended"-type victims that you see on t.v.) whether of theft, or abuse, or rape, you name it, they end up as victims. That's NOT what a marriage is - at least IMO.

Again, IMO, when someone gets far enough down that road to where they can't turn back regardless of what interventions their spouse tries to do, their spouse should get out for their own safety and security. If the addicted spouse ever gets their act together, they can consider taking them back, but there's no reason to ruin two people's lives over one person's actions.

 

Yeah I think I better bow out of this convo. LOL

 

The DSM is what we consider abnormal or bad *today*, it's not rooted in any kind of fact. For example, homosexual behavior was once in the DSM as a disease. Do you believe homosexuals are crazy and need to be cured?

Someone who has become senile to the point of being dangerous, or schizophrenic to the point of being violent often can't be kept at home, but must be institutionalized. Are you suggesting that a spouse should have the authority to lock up their addicted spouse until they are cured?

 

Again, who cares if they are doing it on purpose? Recently a woman was prostituting out her 5 year old daughter for drugs. Do you say, "oh, the woman's sick, so you can't really blame her or anything..." Baloney. When your actions do bad things to other people you have to be accountable for them, period. Innocent people shouldn't have to suffer for your "disease".