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Most fairy tales end with the same sentence: "And so they were married and lived happily ever after." In real life, unfortunately, that ending does not always apply. This article is about people who are married but do not live happily ever after.
We should bear in mind that marital disruption and divorce are not the same thing. Marital disruption is the process by which married persons somehow break the emotional bond that held them together. Whether that rupture is permanent or only temporary, it remains the private affair of the persons concerned until they ask the State to endorse it and give it lawful status. Divorce is simply the seal of the State on what has already happened.
No one knows how many marriages are permanently disrupted in the United States, but the total is obviously greater than the number of divorces granted annually. In the first place, many couples live together in a continuous state of marital breakdown. Their feelings for each other may be as arid as if they were casual acquaintances, but they stay under the same roof because, for whatever reason, neither is inclined to change his or her status. If that condition changes, the disaffected partner becomes one of perhaps a million husbands or wives who simply leave home every year without notice - some permanently, some not. Finally, in this category are the married couples who live in permanent separation from each other but do not seek divorce.
Not everyone realizes that separation may be either formal or informal. If they wish, a married couple may solicit the court's endorsement of such an arrangement as though they sought a divorce. The difference is that neither can marry anybody else. Some couples make this choice because of religious scruples. Much more often, separation is an informal arrangement that is accepted as second best by someone too poor, ill informed, or apprehensive to invite the attention of the courts.
Massive tomes have been written on what makes a marriage come apart. There are lengthy discourses on sexual maladjustments, on financial irresponsibility, on the husband who leaves hair in the sink and the wife who does laundry in the bathroom. There are endless lists of those special qualities mat supposedly contribute...