Most of the people of your generation followed the Family Plan laid out by your parents, meaning: Marry early, start a family and maintain the traditional gender roles of a working father and a stay-at-home mother. Not everyone followed this plan, but most did. Which camp did you fall into?
Yours is an idealistic generation, one that honored hard work and getting by with as little as possible; your reward would come later. Complaining was not encouraged, not even about ill-suited or badly behaving spouses. It's very likely that you accepted your relationships as a part of your lot in life, and perhaps you didn't feel the liberty to pursue more fulfilling romances.Now you've got many decades of living under your belt and you may still feel constrained by the behavioral expectations of your youth -- or you might finally feel the freedom to have the relationships you want, not the ones you're stuck with.