Though there were problems already, Laura and Dan's marriage went downhill when he lost his job. How does this financial pressure change their relationship? If Dan hadn’t been laid off, do you think they would have stayed married?
Created: 05/03/13
Replies: 15
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Though there were problems already, Laura and Dan's marriage went downhill when he lost his job. How does this financial pressure change their relationship? If Dan hadn’t been laid off, do you think they would have stayed married?
Join Date: 01/29/13
Posts: 45
Join Date: 04/21/11
Posts: 324
Join Date: 07/16/11
Posts: 22
Finances can be huge roadblocks in marriages even if one does not lose a job. I think what I found most distasteful about Dan was his inablility to be grateful for anything. I understood his anxiety and his lack of tenderness, but it carried over into every aspect of his life.. Did she see this before marriage...? Did he always see the glass as half full?
Join Date: 09/16/11
Posts: 165
Join Date: 05/19/11
Posts: 12
I believe that their marriage could have survived if Dan had shown Laura just a little bit of tenderness. Financial pressure puts a strain on any marriage, but if you stand together as partners then it can be overcome. Dan was angry, and pushed Laura away from him. He was a miserable person and made it hard for his wife and kids to want to be with him.
Join Date: 12/19/12
Posts: 37
I think the marriage would have survived, just because Laura would have stayed complacent with the everyday routine. It took him losing his job to open her eyes to the fact that he had changed from the man she married. It then took the trip for her to see she could do something about it.
Join Date: 05/19/11
Posts: 12
I agree with Mystinamarie's above comment. The other factor in their relationship is that she never got over her first love. She was never deeply in love with Dan. She only married him because she got pregnant. Would she have married him if that hadn't happen?
Join Date: 03/22/12
Posts: 353
I believe that financial problems can tax even the best of marriages. I am not sure this was the strongest marriage to begin with and when Dan lost his job he felt powerless and impotent. I admit that he did not handle the stress of it well and his behavior towards Laura caused an even larger gap in their marriage.
Join Date: 07/28/11
Posts: 436
Join Date: 09/14/12
Posts: 111
I think the financial problem was the straw that broke the camel's back. I feel that Dan had always been an abusive husband. Emotionally and mentally putting Laura done every chance he got. He was intimated by her intelligence. He always felt second best after her relationship with Eric. You can't compete with a ghost. He took his insecurities out on her on a daily basis. There sex life was awful for Laura anyway, he just cared about satisfying himself. They had very different idea's on how to raise children which is a real problem in a marriage. She just made do with Dan because he seemed like a nice loyal guy, but she never had any passion for him. If you don't even have it at the start - it's not coming later. So many years of that had to finally come to a head. The fact that she was clinically depressed was no surprize. I think the marriage would have ended even if Dan hadn't lost his job.
Join Date: 08/04/11
Posts: 27
I think the loss of Dan's job was a major factor in the quality of the couple's marriage. He became depressed, accusatory and difficult to live with. All of these factors caused unhappiness in Laura's marriage. So when Richard invited her to spend some time with her, she was open to it. I think that if her marriage was not so stressed because of financial matters, she wouldn't have considered doing something with another man.
Join Date: 05/19/11
Posts: 22
Often there are problems in a marriage that are overlooked until "the straw that breaks the camels back" occurs. Losing his job, became the catalyst for Laura's total frustration and acknowledgment of the deficiencies in her marriage. It might have survived had this stressor, shifting the balance between them had not occurred, but that's doubtful.
I believe that woman come into their own at some point in their 40's and become disenchanted when their dreams and reality are so divergent. There is a pull to actualize their life and drastic changes often need to be made.
Join Date: 04/12/12
Posts: 294
Dan's job loss brought out Dan's emotional detachment even more than it was before the lay off and that increased Laura's ambivalence toward him. So it amplified the problems that were already there. Neither one of these people thought much of themselves. Once children aren't a common responsibility, Ben was in college and Sally would be heading there in a year, many couples find they don't have anything in common any longer. I don't think this marriage would have survive even if Dan hadn't lost his job.
Join Date: 04/21/11
Posts: 324
I don't think Dan was abusive nor do I think their sex life was awful. I think Dan was emotionally distant which can make connecting with someone even someone you love, difficult. And I agree with Navy Mom. After the children leave home you look across the table and wonder if you still have something in common with that person sitting there or if you really want to grow old with that person.
Join Date: 04/24/13
Posts: 14
Dan and Laura's marriage was never built on a very strong foundation. It was a compromise for Laura in the first place and Dan knew it, so this was a big difficulty from the very start. I don't believe that either one of them really felt good about themselves in this relationship, Dan especially. Over the years he became more and more cold and distant, and the loss of his job exacerbated this tremendously, as it caused his self esteem to take a nose dive. I think that the financial pressure speeded up the break down of their relationship, but it is my belief that it probably would have eventually ended in divorce even if he had not been laid off. The children were both so important to Laura, and when they were both gone from the home, she would have been able to refocus her priorities somewhat and see her life with Dan in a different way. I think she would have come to the realization that they no longer (if ever) met each others needs and had grown apart. I think she would have developed the courage to divorce him even without the catalysts of his being laid off, or her affair with Richard.
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