Not quite sure how I want to post this.

Chris and I have noticed a trend and a change over the period we've been married.

When we were young - say late 70s and early 80s, where there was marital strife, affairs and divorce it usually seemed to be down to the male half of partnership. Stereotyped certainly, but definitely present.

That balance seems to be getting shifted.

More and more recently we seem to be finding partnerships and marriages being broken by the female halves. It may be a 'blip' and it certainly isn't total, but it's defintely real. I wonder if this is a legacy of the de-repression of the 60s and 70s coming to fruition in the children of parents that grew up in those eras?

I don't often offer bible passages here, but we've also been kicking this one around in the context.

33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5 v33 (New International Version) www.biblegateway.com

It's particularly interesting because men are called to love their wives and women are called to respect their husbands. These are areas that the genders seem to have trouble with: men loving on an ongoing basis and women really respecting their husbands. Respect is something that seems to be harder and harder to find in popular media these days, and I genuinely wonder if this is a key root.

Any thoughts anyone?