Would you think a marriage less valid if it was not for life? Given the rises in life expectancy, especially compared to what we used to have, could not life be an excessive expectation? I'm not sure if you've ever read Heinlein, but one of the things in his future universe is that people live at least a couple of centuries. And they have term marriages, where the couple is only married for a given number of years. Does that make their marriage any less valid?
A work colleague and I had a similar discussion awhile back on whether divorce necessarily means failure of the marriage.
If my wife were leave today, yes I would be sad and I would mourn the loss of the relationship and mourn the loss of the future I had expected.
But would it have been a "failure?" Or as you put it, would it have been invalid or less valid?
To invalid I would say no, not at all. It accomplished many of the things marriages are meant to do. We created a home of love and support, we raised children. We supported each other in sickness and in health, supported each others careers, I can go on and on. Those things would not be null and void if we divorced.
Would it be less valid??? Well, that's more debatable. It would have been nice if it had continued forever and forever was our original intent so in that sense we would have fallen short.
But the reason for the divorce would also have to be taken into account. If we simply no longer like each other and no longer wish to be together, then staying together because we said we wanted to 26 years ago, really doesn't make any sense NOW does it.
Unlike
@Diana7 , I do not believe most people divorce for no reason or for frivolous reasons. Divorce is hard and costly and always comes with a degree of sadness and consternation. I don't think people actually take it lightly and I do not believe the reasons she thinks are frivolous actually are frivolous. If someone does not like someone and does not want to be with them, I think that is a valid reason.
If the other person still likes them and still wants to be with them, yes they are going to be very sad initially. But in the end, do we really want to be with someone that doesn't like us and doesn't want to be with us??
I would rather someone leave me that did not like me and did not want to be with me, vs having that person feel forced and obligated to stay with because the said they'd stay with me decades ago back when they did like me.
I may have tears in my eyes as I sign my name on the divorce papers. But I'd rather do that and wipe the tears and move on vs being stuck with someone that didn't want to be with me because they weren't allowed to leave.