Whatever happened to relationships?

It’s not just you MawB . I think there is often a case of “the grass being greener on the other side” or at least they hope it might be. I didn’t watch the program but I know what you mean .

I think it reflects the lives of the media folk who make these programmes. DD worked in the media, technical side, until a just over a year ago. She was quite scathing, and she can be very scathing, about the creatives in her industry.

She said that they lived a life completely out of touch with other people. Nobody she worked with or came across would admit to anything other than left wing politics, nor would anyone dare admit having religious beliefs. A disproportionate number at all ages and levels were single and divorce and marriage was generally seen as the fools option.

It is not really surprising that we get the programmes we do.

DD now works for an engineering research centre. She finds it wonderfully normal with diversity at every level from the nationality etc of her colleagues to their normal range of political opinions, religious beliefs (or none) and marital arrangements.

TV dramas have to be just that, dramatic. If they reflected ordinary, everyday life, we'd all be bored stupid trying to watch them (mind you, I usually am anyway)!

Hasn’t it always been so just not out in the open so much it’s in our faces now before it was hidden

Well the Turners in Call the Midwife and Mr and Mrs Barnaby in Midsomer Murders are very happy and faithful

Which sort of proves Hetty58’s point - nobody could be more boring than the Turners

Yes those stories are not real life, but they reflect and exaggerate real life IMO. Affairs and cheating are very common and sadly always have been.
However I do sometimes wonder if the irrational, casually cruel behaviour we read about sometimes on Gransnet for instance hasn't been kindled by story lines absorbed from TV soap operas.

A case of life imitating art?

No maw it isn’t just you, I feel the same. I was yelling at Pete on Cold Feet to walk away and cheering when he did I know, I need to get our more. Yes it does all happens in real life but sometimes, just sometimes people do the right thing and walk away. Why don’t we we see that more often on TV, surely you don’t have to be boring to resist temptation? Or maybe I've just been boringly happily married for the past 50 years!

Well I expect there are quite a few people on Gransnet who have had extra-martial relationships that have resulted in one or more divorces.

I also suspect that it is much easier to remain faithful if you are in a happy and fulfilling marriage than if you are having a really miserable time.

Did you read my original post Eloethan (carefully) ?
Watching “The Split” - lovely family, got it all so why is the wife having an affair at the office
Yes it’s fiction, but my point was not about people having a really miserable time

Around 40 yrs ago when East Enders started, that was the one TV programme that was banned, some of you might think that was extreme. My wife’s logic was “I don’t want my children to grow up thinking that behavior is normal”, they all in turn passed that on to their own families.
I understand that TV shows have to be dramatic but that does not mean that bad behavior should be every day entertainment and portrayed as normality. Not just children either I’m sure a diet of violence and adultery influences many adults too

I felt exactly the same watching The Split last night.
I suppose, as someone said, if they all got on and had a normal life it would make boring TV. I find it sad all the same.

Davidhs absolutely, adults surely are just as susceptible. The pernicious drip drip drip effect of whatever they see on the screen can make any sort of behaviour seem acceptable and exciting and even desirable.

Actually, I wonder what the drip drip effect of having serial adulterers in Government and in the Royal Family has on people ?

Why does anyone watch the Split ? I watched the first episode of the first series and felt that sorting out my button box woukd be a better use of my time.

Exactly suziewoozie, the more these actions are shown, the more certain people think it is the norm. Businesses pay money to brainwash others. I also think the same on basic grammar was/were. I found the off button after the first ten minutes of watching Split.

I haven’t got a button box Suziewoozie ?

I don't think morals are included in everyone's makeup.

Either that or they're so loose they're not worth having.

Are we really so influenced by TV dramas?

Watching a murder mystery doesn’t make you want to murder does it? So why should watching someone having an affair make you want to do the same ?

I know there are situations where splitting up is the right thing to do - in the case of domestic violence, for example.

But I do think that many people don't actually work at making their relationship work and that some youngsters go into marriage thinking that if they don't like it they can get divorced. Consequently they give up before they've had time to resolve issues and the 'grass is greener' idea then looks attractive. The media just promotes this.

Last night I caught up on Cobra, which is on Sky. The relevant bit to this thread is a couple with very high-powered jobs who only get together occasionally.
She met up with a man she had been in love with before she was married, who had then disappeared for years. And slept with him. The husband had had several liaisons over time, and she knew about them and had not done anything about it.
There was a short discussion when nothing was settled, when the main plot took over again. There are 2 episodes left.
Why I am putting this here is that, even in real life, having an affair does not mean the end of the marriage. If the marriage is the most important thing, playing away is not
the end of the world. People are not made to be monogamous.

Maw they don't have it all though they are recovering from the husbands infidelity -not that tit for tat affairs are a good idea

I remember watching one of the early episodes of Eastenders when a pregnant 16 year old decided to keep her baby. I’m sure that encouraged other unmarried teenagers to do the same. What we see on the screen can influence our life styles.