Scan the headlines about Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban and you’ll see how stuck we are. “Shock split”, “Finally over”, “Turning dramatic.” Nineteen years together, two children, no public scandal, and still the vocabulary of collapse rolled straight off the presses. Yet in 2025, a marriage that lasted almost two decades is somehow framed as a failure.

It’s absurd. By any rational measure, 19 years is a success. The median Australian marriage lasts about 13 years before divorce, and almost one-in-three divorces now follow 20 years or more. We’re marrying later, divorcing later, and living longer, which means more people will face the question of when to stay and when to leave. And leaving, in many cases, takes more courage than staying.

The data tells a quiet truth that the headlines igno

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