Why don’t marriages last long anymore?

My mom and I were talking earlier this morning about random stuff and ended up talking about failed marriages, and the overwhelming numbers of it in this modern age.  If it’s about love, if they think the emotion is dying, they can surely make a conscious effort to keep loving their spouse until death – that is, if they really want to.  Because love is not just an emotion, it is also a decision and a conscious effort.  I know I don’t have the right to talk about it, being not married and all, but just thinking about how couples in the past managed to make their marriage work, I really can’t think of any excuse why married couples of today can’t.  In this day and age, why does it seem like it’s a growing trend to just decide to walk away when things get tough?  My mom laughingly said married couples in the past really stick with each other no matter how they make each other’s life miserable.  It’s true.  I witnessed my grandparents (my mother’s parents) sitting and facing each other as they quarrel.  I remember the day when I was looking at my grandmother while she was making her “litany” of rants and how my grandfather just laughed at her and told her to quit talking.  They used to quarrel a lot, but when my grandmother died, I saw my grandfather cried.  It’s a very touching moment, but I was too young to realize that.  It’s just now when I look back and remember that picture of my grandfather crying over my grandmother’s death that I realized that my grandmother and my grandfather had this love, if not friendship, for and with each other through the years of being married to each other.  So, it really makes me wonder if the so-called “irreconcilable differences” really is a valid reason to end a marriage, or just an excuse?  But as I said, what right do I have to question this growing trend of married couples going their separate ways anyway when I don’t even have any idea what a married life is like?  Maybe I’m too idealistic when it comes to the topic of marriage, but that’s because I’ve seen couples who managed to make it work despite and in spite of their differences.  I also would like to mention the marriage of my favorite historical woman Marie Antoinette to King Louis XVI.  They were never really attracted to each other at first.  Their marriage was arranged for political reasons only.  But as years go by, they managed to develop a genuine love for each other and managed to make their marriage work.  They stick with each other through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, and until death parted them.  They have shown the world a very beautiful story of love, commitment, and loyalty.  Marie Antoinette knew she is putting her life in grave danger when she decided to stay at her husband’s side during the Revolution but she decided to stay with him nonetheless.  Why did she stay even though she knew that by deciding so means certain death?  Marie Antoinette’s bravery, the nobility of her character, her overflowing love for her family, for her adopted country, for its people, and her overwhelming sense of duty are remarkable at best!  She did everything she could to make her marriage with Louis XVI work that she deserved to be noted for that.  She’s a very good example to women, and to mankind as a whole for that matter.  What I’m really trying to say here is, if the individuals who are in a committed relationship will focus on how to make their relationship work instead of focusing only on themselves and their own interests, they can successfully make their relationship work.  If there’s a will, there’s a way, right?  So, why indeed don’t married couples try harder to make their marriage work anymore the way married couples in the past used to? That’s something worth pondering about, isn’t it?