Being at the beginning of the end of a 29 year marriage, I can relate to this post. Going into a marriage with the mind set that divorce is never an option can be good because it creates commitment and willingness to work at a marriage and not run at the first sign of conflict.
It can also be a negative, by eliminating the consequences for actions. It can lead to the thought that "I can do whatever I want, because they will never divorce me."
When I told my mom that my wife and I were separating and probably getting a divorce, she was sad, but not surprised. We thought we had been putting up a good front, but in reality were only fooling ourselves. One of mom's comments that really struck me was, "It takes two to make a good marriage, but it only takes one to make a bad marriage."
Unless both people recognize there are problems, and then are willing to do the hard work and sacrifice to work through the problems, the marriage will continue in a declining spiral into new low levels of "normalcy".
A very difficult and complicated topic, as well as very emotionally charged for many. I have been considering blogging about my journey, to help others going through similar situations, and provide insight to people trying to help friends who are going through it.