You are bringing up good questions before you jump into this. It takes alot of courage to do that.

I was together with my now ex husband for 17 years. We were married for 13. We started dating (quickly moving in together) when I was 22 and still in college. I do not consider the marriage a failure--it would be a failure if the marriage had continued even though it had lost its soul. We have started new chapters in our lives, and that's okay. I think there's alot of pressure to stay together regardless of the circumstances. I felt an enormous amount of pressure to stay married simply because I was married, even though the relationship had changed, I had changed, he had changed, but we had not changed together.

BTW, we never fought either, and that was a problem. And as Irulan pointed out, alot of women expect men to read their minds--that was destructive on my part. Communication from the beginning is very important.

We did not have children by choice. We thought that having children would bring too much stress based on our own childhoods. I don't think that the decision to have or not have kids is the only reason that marriages succeed or fail.

I'm in a long-term relationship now that is wonderful. If I knew what I know now, my marriage would have been very different one way or another (it might have been shorter, or it might be going strong, but different). I'm still learning to talk openly with my partner and not fear a potential negative reaction, but those are my issues that I'm dealing with on my own in therapy, too.

One thing that really would have benefited me and my marriage is counseling before we got married to work out some issues, as well as later on when we came across some very rocky times. We did not do that, and I think it was because I (and perhaps he, too, but I can't speak for him) was too scared about what counseling would reveal. I also think that I was too young to jump into such a serious relationship when I was 22. I had big plans that I put on hold (and never went back to) then, and that pattern continued during the marriage.

PM me if you want to.