nyc112: “Women can be just as abusive, it can be the other way around”
That is definitely true. I never thought otherwise. If there was something I wrote that seemed to imply otherwise, that was not how I meant it. I definitely have heard of cases like that.
“If there is abuse because of emotional issues in the marriage then that changes everything, no skills can help things”
I’m not sure about that. It may depend on how you define abuse. Abuse is a broad term. I know people who had bad marriages the first time around because they were abusive, but then had good second marriages because they worked on themselves meanwhile.
Also, I’ve known people who were abusive to some people but not to their spouse. There are many people in the world who are abusive to some people but know how to be nice to others. Sometimes, that is the reason that the first marriage doesn’t work but the second one does.
Also, whether or not someone can be considered abusive sometimes has to do with the way the second person deals with it. Someone who is more sensitive may consider something abuse that someone else won’t or will know how to deal with.
Of course, if you are talking about serious deliberate malicious abuse or physical abuse, that is another story. But to my knowledge, that is not the cause for most divorces in the Frum world.