tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post8068124909673143727..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: The State of the American Marital EstateStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-21298147615774118972014-02-20T19:47:46.136-08:002014-02-20T19:47:46.136-08:00The divorce rate is actually 50% for first marriag...The divorce rate is actually 50% for first marriages, not 45%.<br /><br />And if I need to continually work on my marriage to avoid losing my house, kids, retirement account and freedom, well then, it's not worth it. I'll continue to play the field and enjoy my life on my terms.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-18769617596272920832014-02-20T17:21:18.423-08:002014-02-20T17:21:18.423-08:00K. Herman I am a kindred. Married 25 years. Both o...K. Herman I am a kindred. Married 25 years. Both our sets of parents divorced. All you say is also our experience. Selfishness characterizes the relationship. I had one second wife say it didn't matter she didn't approve of me because as a first wife I wouldn't last. That was over 20 years ago. They see us as temporary so don't invest emotionally in us but then both parent and spouse get angry that we don't also have the same emotional depth towards the partner as with the parent. I had another say to us both recently that married people just tolerate each other- implying no one really loves over the length of a marriage. They don't see us still after all this time. They don't understand the richness that a shared history gives- something that grows with every passing year. No one talks about it but I think family relations are also deteriorating terribly due to the current culture. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-2081557889787949662014-02-19T18:48:36.282-08:002014-02-19T18:48:36.282-08:00I wonder if so many people are relying on marriage...I wonder if so many people are relying on marriage to fulfill all of their social needs is a result of divorce. <br /><br />I know from my own experience and my husband's that having divorced parents makes family relations very hard. Each side pulls at you until you don't find anything of value, just relations to be endured. Sides are drawn up all the time. After a time, they also try to assuage their guilt in what they put you through. They also don't understand when you put an importance on your marriage that they did not place on their own.<br /><br />Divorce also dislocates friendships. Some of my friendships have waned because my friend would divorce and enter that other culture where they were dating and had the responsibility of children every other week. That is completely alien to how my life is set up. I don't go out til all hours because 1. the kids have to be attended to each and every day which is darn hard if you only came home 2 hours before they get up and 2. I have a responsibility to my husband not to be out partying all night (not necessarily put in order of importance). My divorced friends have a much different culture than I do. <br />K. Hermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-59664964261988598412014-02-19T11:43:58.102-08:002014-02-19T11:43:58.102-08:00I've long felt that marriage is, at its core, ...I've long felt that marriage is, at its core, about children. Simply put, there's no overarching reason to get married except to raise a family. Lovers can simply live together.<br /><br />So, if I were trying to research why lower economic classes divorce more often, family values is where I'd start looking. I'd also look at out-of-wedlock births (a condition glorified in you-go-girl culture), and consider its origins. Are young single women having babies out of carelessness? Desperation? By choice? Because they will be eligible for government entitlements? And does the baggage a child represents then become an important barrier to marriage?<br /><br />Then I'd look at race. Martin stratifies by college degree/no college degree. While that's valuable, we might discover that marriage/non-marriage is (like single motherhood) much more clearly a white/non-white thing. <br /><br />There are other factors too. Progressivist culture, including feminism and generic leftism, has been devaluing the nuclear family model for decades. College students get soaked in that ideology for four years. More recently, feminists have begun to talk out of both sides of their mouth on this as they try to reposition feminism to broaden its appeal to both men and women. After spending the last 40 years demonizing men and devaluing the homemaker/caregiver role, it's hard for feminists to convince men to embrace feminist values as New Dads. (The feminist goal isn't strong families; it's to trick men into staying home so women are free to move along career tracks into positions of power.)<br /><br />One other thing: there's a lack of marriage-enabling social skills. Here's a snip from the web:<br /><br />===<br /><br />Based on nine thousand interviews, focus groups on thirty campuses, and surveys of three hundred chief student affairs officers, Levine's study found that young men and women are hooking up more, but making fewer forward-looking commitments to see each other -- what was once quaintly referred to as dating -- than any previous generation. "They have extremely high hopes and aspirations for a successful, happy marriage," Levine says, "but they're doing nothing to work toward that goal."<br /> <br />Many of the students in Levine's survey said their parents' divorce was the most shattering event in their life-and the most life-shaping.<br /><br />http://www.enotalone.com/personal-growth/4919.html<br /><br />===<br /><br />The marriage thing is a mess. Sometimes we're told not to worry about the large cohort of young unmarrieds because these people will simply marrying later. But I don't believe it. And even if they do marry, it might not last. Another web snip:<br /><br />===<br /><br />What you can't know at twenty-five but learn, unhappily, by thirty-five is that, like the brief but critical period during which a mother and infant can form a deep, mammalian attachment, the life stage during which it's possible to adjust to the foibles and weird habits of someone who may want to sleep in your bed for the rest of her life may not last long, either At thirty-five, according to some oftcited research, a woman has a 5 percent chance of marrying... Desperate, lonely, under pressure to produce some grandchildren for the folks but perhaps a little too set in their ways, couples who marry late may be setting themselves up for failure-just like those of us who married too young.<br /><br />===<br /><br />I'm leary of all that self-expressiveness stuff too. A while back, Margaret Wente wrote a piece about how self-actualization is best achieved from an orientation toward the relationship and one's partner, and embracing that in all its complexity -- not by a what-can-you-do-to-fulfill-me focus on abstracted psychosocial wellbeing.<br /><br /> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/the-awful-truth-about-being-single/article7536781/<br /><br />Lastangonoreply@blogger.com