Parties tend to have that effect on me too, Martle I quite like Sundays now, but I used to hate them when I was a teenager, finding them claustrophobic and boring.

"Abbey bells" are very musical first words! I've no idea what mine were, but my children's were "banana" and "light" (when a light was switched on) - they both had the same first words, very odd, though I think in a different order. Not as good as "Abbey bells".

I'm going to read for a bit now, and then try to get some sleep. Perhaps things will seem better in the morning.

Mine was "switch", I'm told...

Thanks, Jan. I'm not, though . I slept incredibly badly, and am behaving like an invalid today. When I get a good sleep I'll be OK, I expect.

Without getting to deeply into this, because my ignorance is as deep on the subject as my knowledge is superficial, I think that there's also a sense in which, as a culture, we talk about these things more often. It no longer seems to be socially unacceptable to talk about difficulties in relationships, which can be a very good thing. The idea of two people locked together forever when they made a mistake earlier on is not a pleasant prospect.
The problem comes when this is combined with an insufficiently considered approach to marriage itself. I was quite shocked when a friend of mine was contemplating their forthcoming marriage and said '... and if it doesn't work out, well that's what divorce is for!'.
If I was in my parents' generation, I imagine that I would have got married a couple of years ago. Even though I thought I knew her well at the time and we were really happy together then, I think that she would have been quite unhappy later on judging by what came out of the woodwork during the collapse of our relationship.
But enough.
I might upset people if I say that I would like marriage to be entirely 'divorced' (ahem) from its religious context. It should primarily be a secular, legal affair (IMO) with a further religious element added later on. A bit like birth registration and baptism.

My first words were not recorded. I was the fourth baby and apparently did nothing extraordinary. I imagine that juggling the rest of the family meant that record keeping got a bit fraught as well!

I rather spectacularly overslept this morning, having got in late last night. I had hoped to have got a lot of work done by now.
I've been feeling a bit anxious recently about the amount of work I have to get done over the next seven six days, but this morning I just feel a sense of resignation. I will achieve what is possible.

The high incidence of divorce is a sign of how much society has changed since, I would think, the late 50s/early 60s?  Illegitimacy is no longer a stigma, there are no longer "shotgun marriages" anymore.

I agree with Mary totally.

It's of a piece with how much life in general has changed, isn't it? My parents have been married for nearly 40 years; they lived in one house in the outer suburbs for over a decade, then moved to a house a bit further in, where they've now lived for nearly 24 years. My father worked for the same employer for over 40 years. I don't know if someone growing up today could have that kind of stability if they wanted to - in the city where I grew up people just leaving school can hardly afford to rent, let alone buy, and certainly not a house. Nowadays both partners need to work and even if you want to commit to a job long-term the concept of an employer committing to an employee disappeared quite some time ago so a relationship is under the pressures of two inevitably wandering careers rather than resting on one potentially stable one.

You can hardly expect one kind of relationship to endure when all our other relationships are so fragile, surely? Certainly just pointing the finger at couples seems ridiculous to me when all the other conditions we live under are so different.

Myself and MrsBBM have been married now for six years since 02/12/08!! Registry job as well which is a lot better in some ways. We were able to choose our music as well. Of, my recordings came in rather useful there!