Marriage Failed Quotes & Sayings

Marriage has failed because you could not rise to the standard that you were expecting of marriage, of the concept of marriage. You were brutal, you were, you were full of jealousies, you were full of lust; you had never known really what love is. In the name of love, you tried everything which is just the opposite of love: possessiveness, domination, power. — Rajneesh

There was nothing quite so shaming, so degrading as a marriage that had failed. — Daphne Du Maurier

Somebody who has been in a very bad wreck is going to be very conscientious about not speeding through a yellow light ... You just learn so many good lessons when you go through a failed marriage. — Amy Grant

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

She often spoke to falling seeds and said, "Ah hope you fall on soft ground," because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman. — Zora Neale Hurston

(Divorce)
We'll remarry someday when we've grown,
Like royalty who've earned the throne.
An aisle made of gold,
To have and to hold.
My dress made of rags,
A suit that's so torn.
All eyes are on me,
But mine only on you.
You give your hand,
A king to his queen,
But know this darling,
Mulligans aren't for the weak.
By changing the rules,
We're changing the war,
The wounds that we've known,
Battle stains on the floor.
But from this day on,
The same as before,
You are the apple,
My eyes still adore.
Worth more than one shot,
Though we'll face the worst a lot,
Better days will come,
If we stay and don't run.
And if a wave takes us out,
I know we'll figure it out.
And if the current takes us in,
I know we'll do it all again. — Crystal Woods

Ranger is one of the few civilians in Trenton with a permit to carry concealed. He owns office buildings in Boston, has a daughter in Florida by a failed marriage, has worked worldwide as a mercenary, and has a moral code that isn't entirely in sync with our legal system. I have no idea who the heck he is . . . but I like him. — Janet Evanovich

Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root. — Emma Goldman

Getting a divorce is always horrible because you feel you've failed. Everyone hates to give up on a marriage. You think your family's broken up. — Jerry Hall

After my second marriage failed ... I said, 'You know, could I have a relationship with a man? A loving relationship with a man that would involve intimacy?' For a while, before I did get into a relationship, I saw, for a few years, either women or men. And I found that I could be attracted to both. — Clive Davis

It was, of course, a great failure in a woman's life - to never have achieved even a doomed and unsuccessful love. But she was not quite sure whether she had failed or not.
When she was young there had been moments, of course. But those moments had never amounted to much more than a little fever of admiration - a little flutter and agitation in a ballroom - so slight a feeling that the cautious Dido had never considered it a secure foundation for a lifetime of living together. And then, sooner or later, she had always made and odd remark, or laughed at the wrong moment, and the young men became alarmed or angry - and the flutter and the agitation all turned to irritation.
Dido could laugh and gossip about love as well as any woman but, deep down, she suspected that she had not the knack of falling into it. — Anna Dean

If a drug failed as often and had as many side effects as western marriage, the FDA probably would not approve it. — Ron Davison

If you have to be told how you should feel then those feelings are not strong enough to make you feel alive; they become rules that don't fit your life script. Not every person will place the same importance as you do on one of the six human needs: certainty, variety, significance, connection/love, growth or contributions. When you know what is most important for yourself and learn to recognize what need is the most important to others, then you can begin to unlock the real reason behind conflict. — Shannon L. Alder

Yes, I have 'failed' at marriage - a lot. — Tracy McMillan

Modernity, in contrast, is based on the firm belief that economic growth is not only possible, but absolutely essential... Modernity has turned 'more stuff' into a panacea applicable to almost all public and private problems, from religious fundamentalism through Third World authoritarianism down to a failed marriage... Economic growth has thus become the crucial juncture where almost all modern religions, ideologies and movements meet. — Yuval Noah Harari

Loving she realises is a verb. It is an act. It is not enough to say you love someone, and then forget about them, or trust a relationship will stay strong simply because you share a house or children or a life.
Loving requires acts of love. It requires thinking of your spouse, doing things for them to make them happy. It requires acting in loving ways, even when you are tired, or bogged down with work, or so stressed you are waking up every night with a jaw sore from grinding your teeth.
They forgot to do that, she now knows. They forgot to love each other. They expected love to continue, without putting any work into it, and today she knows this is why her marriage failed. — Jane Green

Dr. Jan Yager, a sociologist, friendship expert and author of When Friendship Hurts, states, "For some, admitting to a broken friendship has become like admitting to a failed marriage. Over the last two decades, a myth of lifelong friendship has emerged, even as the ideal of a lifelong marriage has, sadly, become an unrealistic reality for many people. — Liz Pryor

When his wife died, for a while it was the end of the world, because part of him had died with her. As the long, slow recovery proceeded, he had gratefully and guiltily accepted the return of equilibrium. But he had not paid attention to a parallel phenomenon: his reversion to what he had been before his marriage. Though changed by whatever he had learned during their years together, and by whatever healing had taken place, he had fallen back into the old patterns of withdrawal. Nursing the dreadful wound of her absence, he had failed to notice the subtler void opening up within himself. — Michael D. O'Brien

None of this was part of the plan all the girls I'd grown up with had been given. Not a written plan, unless the book about Cinderella counted. The plan was in the water we drank, the air we breathed. It was poured into the pavement on the streets we called home. Marry a nice man, one who was a good provider, and live happily, or at least comfortably, ever after.

Safe to say I'd followed the plan. I'd married a banker. Had a baby. But the plan had failed me. It left me alone huddled in a window seat with every emotion I'd refused to let myself feel seeping through my pores until the air in my bedroom was heavy with sadness and angst and confusion. (p. 235) — Julie Mulhern

I love marriage. I failed at marriage, but I'd rather go into anything with gusto and fail than go into it half-assed. — Kirstie Alley

It is merely the egoism of men, who wants to bury a woman like a treasure. All attempts at using vows, contracts, and holy ceremonies have failed to bring permanence into the most changeable aspect of changeable human existence, namely love. Can you deny that our Christina world is rotting? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Why has marriage failed? In the first place, we raised it to unnatural standards. We tried to make it something permanent, something sacred, without knowing even the abc of sacredness, without knowing anything about the eternal. Our intentions were good but our understanding was very small, almost negligible. So instead of marriage becoming something of a heaven, it has become a hell. Instead of becoming sacred, it has fallen even below profanity. — Rajneesh

I've often thought if I didn't make my marriage work, I would have failed at my one true shot at happiness. — Bethenny Frankel

In particular, it is said, the most masculine of men do not do well in marriage. It is argued that "a need for sexual conquest, female adulation, and illicit and risky liaisons seems to go along with drive, ambition, and confidence in the 'alpha male.'" But Lipton argued that marriage was traditionally a place where males became truly masculine: "For most of Western history, the primary and most valued characteristic of manhood was self-mastery. . . . A man who indulged in excessive eating, drinking, sleeping or sex - who failed to 'rule himself' - was considered unfit to rule his household, much less a polity. . . . — Timothy J. Keller

How much could the person you love change, and still remain the same person to whom you'd made your promise? We don't expect our lovers to remain the same over the course of a long relationship. In fact, if you're married at sixty-five to the same person you married when you were twenty, your marriage has probably failed. But there are changes, over time, that spell doom for a marriage, although exactly what these are, and to what degree, varies from couple to couple. For some people, vast changes over time make no difference to the fundamental sense of devotion one soul has for another. But for others, relatively small changes can push things to the breaking point: gaining or losing weight, gaining or losing faith, gaining or losing wealth. How does any relationship survive in the end, when change is the only constant? — Jennifer Finney Boylan

I failed at the biggest things there are in life. I failed in my health, I failed in my marriage, I failed in everything, and I've picked myself up and gone on. — Sharon Stone

Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation. A — Irvin D. Yalom

There is no loneliness like that of a failed marriage. — Alexander Theroux

I don't consider my marriages as failures! It's idiotic to assume that because a marriage ends, it's failed. — Margaret Mead

And as it grew up and began to enjoy itself
What would we do with an unpredictable,
Powerful, bounding fox?
That long-mouthed, flashing temperament?
That necessary nightly twenty miles
And that vast hunger for everything beyond us?
How would we cope with its cosmic derangements
Whenever we moved?
... If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox
Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage
I would not have failed the test. — Ted Hughes

Monsieur, if a wife's nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to, marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates must be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would resist as far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I should be sure of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from bad laws and their consequences. — Charlotte Bronte

Every one of them has a story, and every story begins with a man who failed her. A husband who came home from the war, good for nothin' but drink. A father who didn't come home at all, or a stepfather who did. A brother who should have protected her. A beau who promised marriage and left when he got what he wanted, because he wouldn't marry a slut. If a girl like that has lost her way, it's-because some worthless no-account-sonofabitch left her in the wilderness alone! — Mary Doria Russell

The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The highest happiness on earth is marriage. Every man who is happily married is a successful man even if he has failed in everything else. — William Lyon Phelps

I was worried that being in a relationship would add to my responsibilities. That's why I've avoided them my whole life. I already have enough on my plate, and seeing the stress my parents' marriage seemed to cause them, and the failed marriages of some of my friends, I wanted no part in something like that. But after tonight, I realized that maybe a lot of people are just doing it wrong. Because what's happening between us doesn't feel like a responsibility. It feels like a reward. And I'll fall asleep wondering what I did to deserve it. — Colleen Hoover

On the eve of our marriage, there might have been good reason to really ask, "What is marriage?" Is it the impression and expectation that this man can make me happy - can be a savior that helps me forget the tragedy of my parents' failed relationship as well as my own as his child? What is certain is that marriage was not to be a commitment or covenant. — H. Kirk Rainer

Mom also hinted a couple of times that it was good I was going to college, since with one failed marriage behind me, I 'd have trouble landing a good husband and would need something to fall back on. "A package that's been opened once doesn't have the same appeal". — Jeannette Walls

For women, marriages foreclosed often resulted in an
accumulation of booty; for men, these failed projects of implausible optimism
were more likely to manifest themselves in material lack. It was
hard to resist the metaphorical impression that women got to keep the
past itself, whereas men were simply robbed of it. — Lionel Shriver

In an attempt to help me move on from my failed marriage, my mom set me up with Jesus Freak. In fact, the stoner hadn't even finished moving out when she told me not to worry, because she already had someone better lined up for me. I was just lonely and desperate enough to endure a four-month celibate long distance relationship with a guy who read 15 chapters of the Bible and prayed for two hours every day and expected me to follow suit. He wanted to give our hypothetical children Bible names and for us to move to Korea to become missionaries. — Kate Madison

And why does Father want me out there?
You do know it's a myth what they say about virgin sacrifices and dragons,
yes?"
"Of course I know that," he snapped in such a way that Dagmar knew
he believed the myth to be true. "And after them three marriages, you ain't
much of a virgin yourself, now is ya?"
"Those last two barely counted. — G.A. Aiken

Hell, I'd even failed with women. Three wives. Nothing really wrong each time. It all got destroyed by petty bickering. Railing about nothing. Getting pissed-off over anything and everything. Day by day, year by year, grinding. Instead of helping each other you just sliced away, picked at this or that. Goading. Endless goading. It became a cheap contest. And once you got into it, it became habitual. You couldn't seem to get out. You almost didn't want to get out. And then you did get out. All the way. — Charles Bukowski

Archer's eyes narrowed. "I can't believe you two.."
The whole time he was talking, I was singing "Don't Cha" in my head, desperately trying not to think about the marriage, but one of us must've failed, because Archer's mouth snapped shut, and he looked floored. Like someone just explained to him that you can have an endless salad bowl at Olive Garden. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I knew that my husband was a song that I had forgotten the words to and I was a fuzzy photograph of someone he used to love. — Catherine Lacey

Husband, when you tell your wife to go for counseling alone (because you think going to see a counselor is a sign you have failed) is like having a car you love overheat and deciding it's not manly to take it to the mechanic. You can keep on driving it but eventually you will ruin the engine. — Adam Hamilton

Unluckily," he said, without breaking into a smile, "you are right. There are several sad, gaping holes in my logic. I don't suppose you're interested in marrying a failed logician with necromantic tendencies, by any chance?"
Free took a deep breath. It didn't seem to calm the whirl of her head. "That's ... a proposal of marriage? I just want to clarify matters. You see, it could also be a madman's babble, and I want to be certain. — Courtney Milan