The first round of divorces - my children's peers

I married at 22 and I do believe that was rather young. We actually stayed together for 39 years although the marriage was over as soon as I received my Asperger's diagnosis. It does take a lot of commitment to stay with someone who has a disability like that.

Although I had no intention of leaving the marriage, being "set free" did give me the liberty to reconsider who I really am in depth and come to a conclusion that led to a complete rebirth of my personality. Is that sort of experience common?

Yes those aptitude tests very revealing sometimes.
yes we got off track completely.

Isn't this thread about relationships working or not? Even when you can identify relationship instability, sexual dissatisfaction, infidelity, stresses and strains of debt, illness and fatigue, insight doesn't necessarily bring improvement unless both parties can invest the commitment. Psychometric testing has little or no part in that. Relationship counselling can at least help them bring the relationship to an end without acrimony, if they can't end it satisfactorily between themselves. It's probably been said before - humans enter and leave relationships over time and don't necessarily mate for life, especially when women can provide for themselves and their children nowadays.

Snap, we all seem to have the same qualification. Imo the main problem with personality tests is to decide what you are looking for. So many managers think they want people like them but the best teams are made up of a variety of people of different types.

The only tests worth using are ones which have the inbuilt lie detector but then all the reputable ones do. The first time I was tested I was amazed at how right they were. The tests showed not only the things I liked about me but also the things I was not so keen on. Since then I have found that although I know how they work they still find the real me. I don't think many would try to cheat as there would be very little point. I know it is off the point but I also like the ability tests and found them very useful in the work environment. Like the time I tested 2 AP managers with fairly basic arithmetic and they failed miserably. Both said they were never any good at 'maths'. Why were they in AP?

Jess one memorable appointee to a therapeutic team I worked with sabotaged her tests, told the intervewers, and convinced them she would make a useful psychologist for testing offenders whilst completing her PhD. She took a risk, but stood out from the rest and becase she gave an impressive inerview she got the job.

Sorry about the diversion...........

Agreed when - but what would be the point, I always say. Pretending to be that bubbly outgoing rhino-skinned sales person - just perfect for the role when in reality you are shy, sensitive and retiring. The one I used to use most had a pretty good lie detector scale, which when used with the rest of the profile used to flag up the occasional "faking good" person, along with one or two who on the same scale came out too bad to be true as in sent by job centre and didn't want the job
Also to fake a psychometric you need to know what the recruiter is looking for - and not looking for - in terms of personality.

I have the same qualification, Jess 1 and 2 in BPS accredited psychometrics at Cambridge Uni, which has a fabulous psychometrics centre. Many occupational and relationship/personality psychometrics are limited in use unless used as part of a battery of tests, repeated over time to account for changing circumstances, mood, purpose of test etc. Psychometrics are so often used inappropriately and can be skewed, especially if you have studied them and know how to answer the lie scales consistently.

Slightly off topic here aren't we. I am BPS level 1 and level 2 qualified and my interpretation is that if the things tests are measuring change significantly over time they are not measuring "personality" - they are measuring something else. There are minor shifts in scores over time but not big ones.

Jess they are actually very good personality tests, from the market leader, one of the 2 most recognised and used by most members of the BPS. That is why they caution that life expereince can change our personality. Being tested by a member of the BPS (they will only seel them to members), using the best researched tests available gives them great validity. That is why they are responsible in giving guidance to their customers that the personality can be changed by life expereince. Mine most certainly has.

Which tests were you using?

My friends and even my sister and mother were staggered when I said I could no longer stand to live with my husband. I wasn't deliberately deceptive - it just seemed pointless to worry them and make my husband unhappy when it was still impracticable for us to separate.
My sister did understand when I explained about 'silent screaming' because she had felt the same way about her husband. She said that she and my mother had been appalled when I married him and could not understand what I saw in him. If only they had said so at the time, I might have had the courage to stop the wedding but they thought that because I was a 'clever girl' I must know what I was doing.

True of course is that sometimes long term, seemingly happy marriages end too for unexpected reasons.

At the time when he was leading a country into major change, the then President of South Africa F.W. de Klerk, suddenly and surprisingly left his wife (his 'university sweetheart') of 40 odd years for the wife of a friend. The timing couldn't have been worse as far as other more important matters he had on his mind went, because he was busy handing over to the ANC and jointly preparing the country for the first democratic elections. I remember seeing a television interview with him (he didn't give many interviews about his personal life but I suppose he thought one would get the Press off his back) - and I was struck by the way he simply said that he was 'powerless in the face of falling irrevocably in love in the old-fashioned way'. All parties concerned were in their mid-sixties at that time. He is still married to that woman, and sadly his first wife was murdered in her home in SA (in a gated community) a few years later.

Yes, I agree, absent. I have known couples who stayed together for over forty years in spite of apparently being constantly at each other's throats. They were very uncomfortable company, though.

Greatnan Not everyone is good at guessing the potential success or failure of someone else's marriage. in 1998 Mr absent and I had our after-the-wedding party in the pub that was located just across the road from my house and was the place where we met. I found out much later that the landlord had opened a book on how long our marriage would last. Apparently he lost a lot of money and was very cross with me.

Jess, my eldest grandson is now approaching 30 and says he is very ready to settle down, as all his friends are married/engaged/having children and he feels too old for the club scene. He has had two long term relationships but they broke down because the women were not ready to settle down. His current girlfriend does not want to share a home with him and suffers from severe depression, so I don't have much hope for their relationship. He has been falling in love since he was four, when he would turn scarlet if a certain nine-year old girl came to his house. He is very envious of his younger brother, who has been with his wife since he was 18 and has two gorgeous little girls.

I was engaged at 17, married at 18 and divorced at 39. I knew the day I got married that I was making a mistake but I was just not brave enough to call it off and hurt my husband to be. My divorce was just putting right something that was wrong. On the other hand, one of my grand-daughters has been with her fiance since they were both 14 - some of you have read their story on my 'Will you vote for...' thread. I do believe they will be together for life.

It is impossible to generalise, although it is often easy to tell which couples are not going to make it, whatever age they are when they marry. I worry when young women want to spend huge amounts on their wedding as though that one day is going to be the most important of their lives. Do they feel let down once the day to day routine of marriage kicks in?

Movealot those do not sound like very useful tests you were using in your job. The ones I used to use would have been much more confident ("reliable") that they were measuring aspects of personality that were fairly stable. People are not, for instance, high on dominance at 20 and low in dominance at 35. It does rather depend on how much research has gone into the test construction.
Personality is not the same as maturity though. We, hopefully, gain in self insight and learn to moderate the extremes of our personalities and work on our weaknesses.
I was still a child when I married the first time at 19.
Natural to feel sad grannyknot - there are a lot of sad things about life. I have been clearing out all my books and papers and that has been full of little sad moments.
I always think it is a mistake to settle down too young - especially these days when if you are 25 your unmarried peers may be living a very free, studenty life. There must be a sense of missing out on freedom and fun that can be harmful to a relationship. On the other hand I know someone in her mid 30s that can't seem to find someone she likes enough to settle down with. All the men she meets are taken/gay/tossers . I think the fun thing is beginning to wear thin.

Moved - agree 're weathering the storms. I don't know whether my personality has changed much over the years, but my thinking certainly has, hopefully for the better.

Harri - a case of absence making the heart grow fonder then. Congratulations in anticipation of that milestone anniversary.

I think divorced parents should be forced to maintain their children.
They should not be the responsibility of the tax payer.
Even though I was widowed I looked after my 2 daughters.

Frank

Not really a tale Grannyknot DH worked away from home for 16 years, returned at weekends and holidays. Meant we always had things to talk about and stopped us from taking each other for granted.

I was going to be smug about this, but then realised that my son is actually married (in the Ukraine, to a Ukrainian girl who got deported) and although he is happily settled with another girl I suppose he will eventually have to get divorced. Not sure what his legal status is in the UK. On the other hand my daughter's been married for 16 years and shows no sign of splitting up as yet. In fact she's known her husband for 22 years and never shown the slightest interest in anyone else.
Sometimes you just seem to pick the right person. I've been married for 43 years but had never had a boyfriend for more than two weeks previously - not really sure why this one was different.

Grannyknot I don't know whether what you read is true but when I used to do phsychometric testing it was accepted that the personality test were only valid for 18 months - 2years. This is because life happens and changes us all the time.

I think that DH and I have been married happily for so long partly because we have faced many changes and troubles together and worked hard to make things right for our family. When we went back to see a group of old friends after about 8 years away we found them pretty much the same but we had changed a lot.

I was just 21 and DH 24 when we married. We had both had quite a few romances before but knew as soon as we met that we were destined to be together. 45 years now.

We are fortunate that our sons' friends who are married seem to be staying that way.

Wow harrigran lived together apart for 16 years ... thereby hangs a tale, I'm sure.

I have been with DH for 50 years this year, our marriage is happy but we did live together apart for 16 years. Women are much more independent nowadays and feel confident to cope alone if it is not working.

Same here Reddevil I too feel envious of people who are still together after 50 odd years. Quite a few of my children's friends (mid thirties) are now going through a divorce and yes it is sad, but thank goodness you can put a mistake behind you and hopefully start again. I'm half expecting the same thing happening to them.

GN (why can't I get 'bold' on my ipad?) I do so agree with you.
I married at 22 -peer pressure in those days and it wasn't 'done' to live together- and by my mid thirties, realised that we had both developed into 2 very different people who should never be together.
On the other hand, I have several friends who married in their late teens and are still together 50 years later- I always felt envious that they managed to 'grow up' together.
It therefore bodes well for your 2 to have waited till their 30's.
I do hope they have long and happy marriages.