Why married couple separate ways after being married for more than 20 years?

I too was one that had stayed married for twenty years and i stayed because I was young and did not know how to go about on my own till I was in my mid Thirty's [was married at age 16] I then also had better support system backing me too.

I think in a lot of cases they stay together for the children. Once the children have moved out and on with their own lives, the couple find themselves alone with each other and just can't do it anymore. I know I should be a more positive thinker but as my children got older and more independent I felt my husband pulling away, doing his own thing, not consulting with me. I have got to put myself in a more positive mindset and put more work into it because I feel that if he could afford it he would leave. Heck, he's almost said as much (just not sure whether he is really serious or not). Walking away from a marriage is the easy way out. Both people in the relationship need to put in an effort to keep the marriage strong and alive.

Could be due to fear, cultural reasons, shame, embarrassment, etc.Any number of reasons. I don't agree that a couple should stay together just because they got 10 or more years behind them. We're only looking at them from the outside and don't see the things they have to deal with every day, like maybe that 20 years was 20 years of hell for them and they just now got the courage to get out. Compromise only works when both partners are willing to meet in the middle and sometimes that is not the case. As others mentioned, change is another factor. As we become older, we will change as will our way of thinking and many other things. It's called growing up and some people can not handle that even when it is a change for the better. Or some folks put on a big facade before marriage and once you find out the reality, its much too late. They try to deal with it the best they can, try to accept it and they just can't do it anymore.

Makes me think twice about getting a relationship even because of this recent divorce stories and more and more single parents popping out of the blue.

Some people change and they do not like the same things anymore. Really sad when that happens.

confusing, really. I also cannot comprehend it. I just wish married couple continue to profess their vows in marriage everyday and for those single people, not to be disheartened by this.

Perhaps they have been so busy during the years taking care of children, house, work, that they have grown apart from each other, and they didn't really realize it until the children were grown.

i hate seeing marriage break and all the more when it has been that long. Well in whatever circumstances, i always believe that broken marriage arise due to the couple's inability to be selfless.

People change. They love in the beginning, but that love wanes sometimes. It is probably because of the events that happen in their lives. Love is a verb. Some decide not to continue that loving because of hardship, because they both just got tired of each other.

In the initial stages there is so much they do that they need each other to achieve it. A day comes when there is hardly any interaction required and they prefer to pursue their own interests. This can be done staying together and so I too wonder why they leave each other.

In most cases, a struggling partner live in hope that things will change and a marriage will turn up smoothly. But at the long run, these hopes never bear fruits, that is when one decides to leave for good.. part ways for real

I think you have gotten some really good answers here. Most of them i was going to say as well. I can only go by what I have seen myself and one thing that comes to mind is as we age people change physically and in other ways too. Sometimes one spouse ends up needing health care that the other spouse never saw for their future.

As others have already said I guess many stay together for the children & once the children leave the nest there's nothing left for the couple. People just grow away from each other

it's also a big question in my mind. In fact, there is this one myLotter whom i interacted with in several discussions and i found out that after decades, she and her husband both decided to get a divorce. They got divorced at their 60+ age. Imagine that age, they still fell out of love

Well, we don't know what went wrong to their relationship. In some cases, married couple stayed together for the sake of their children. However, this is not seen in other countries. It is most likely typical in Asian countries. There are some cases that they fall out of love and found someone who could provide the same excitement of being in love.

Just because people are married, that doesn't mean they do not change. I'm not the same person I was five years back. Sometimes when the changes are drastic, in the long run compatibility issues arise. We live in a world where we can be responsible and happy at any age and a marriage shouldn't be stopping you from being happy responsibly.