I just keep hearing stories about people who can set goals, delay their gratification, be productive tax paying members of society, and still screw up their marriage because they can do all of that and still not understand what a marriage is. A fact which is even more troublesome considering that I could start a thread asking, "What is a Marriage," and get fifteen different "answers." All strong in conviction, some deeper in thought than others, and only a quarter of them being reasonably appropriate.
quote:One of the churches in this country on the fastest rate of decline is the Catholic Church...
I'm not sure where you get this, or even what you mean by decline. The last figures I saw had Catholics at about 24% of the country, fairly constant for at least the last 10 years.
quote: The lowest divorce rate is in Massachussettts.
There's an important error in those statistics. They fail to recognize the percentage of married people in the state. It's very easy to say there's a higher divorce rate in one state than another when all you count is number of marriages versus number of divorces. What happens when you do that is the real truth gets skewed. Unless someone can find some stats on percentage of married people in Mass. these numbers really don't mean a thing, other than that mariages in that state are more likely to succeed. It doesn't address the possibility that there just aren't as many married people there. Anyway...
The real problem that is affecting marriage is plain, simple selfishness. In the case of a marriage that ends in Adultery, the person who commits adultery is selfishly putting their own sex drive above the feelings of their spouse. They choose to commit adultery because they are not willing to sacrifice anything, even human impulses, for their spouse.
I think that's really the main problem. There are a lot of people out there who don't really understand what love is. It is not a matter of physical, or even emotional, attraction (though either of them may result, eventually, in the development of true love). It is a matter of willingness to sacrifice what you have, who you are, what you could have in order to serve another person. The most successful marriages are ones in which this type of thing happens with both people. The root of a successful marriage is that willingness to sacrifice. Marriages fail because one (and even both in some cases) person decides that they no long need to sacrifice their own desires for their spouse. The second that happens, things begin to fail. The only way they stop failing is when that person who has decided not to sacrifice chooses to turn around and starts making an effort to get things back on track.
Anyway...That's my take on it. And a slight rant/opinion.
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posted
I'd rather they leap into bed together than leap into marriage together.
quote:The real problem that is affecting marriage is plain, simple selfishness. In the case of a marriage that ends in Adultery, the person who commits adultery is selfishly putting their own sex drive above the feelings of their spouse. They choose to commit adultery because they are not willing to sacrifice anything, even human impulses, for their spouse.
I don't think it's pure selfishness. I think it's a misunderstanding, the same misunderstanding people have when they start smoking or get into the car with a drunk driver. You can have all of the warning labels you want or the Public Service Announcements that you want, but until people understand that smoking screws up your body or drinking and driving is irresponsible, they are going to keep doing it.
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Not entirely. If there is a large difference in the number of married people, then it is quite possible that the smaller number of marriages is a result of more people choosing to run around without anything "tying them down". Those are the kind of people that probably wouldn't succeed in marriage because they wouldn't try hard enough to keep it together. In area where marriage is more common, it is likely due to a social prejudice, which then forces those who wouldn't put in the effort to make a successful mariage into a situation where they have to get married. Eventually that lack of effort supercedes the stigma against divorce in those areas and the marriage fails.
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posted
in the last paragraph of the article that sndrake posted:
quote: The other study, published two months ago, said that even though the Northeast probably had a higher rate of couples living together rather than marrying, the divorce rate would be essentially similar even if the cohabiting couples got hitched.
quote:If there is a large difference in the number of married people, then it is quite possible that the smaller number of marriages is a result of more people choosing to run around without anything "tying them down". Those are the kind of people that probably wouldn't succeed in marriage because they wouldn't try hard enough to keep it together.
quote: I think it's a misunderstanding, the same misunderstanding people have when they start smoking or get into the car with a drunk driver.
It's still possible to say that the root of misunderstanding is still selfishness. The person who smokes can easilly look at the package and see it's harmful, but they choose to do so anyway to either fit in with a certain group or to get some kind of high. The person who gets into the car with a drunk driver can probably tell that person is drunk, but they let them drive because they are too scared to confront that person because of the posibility of being perceived as part of the group. I'm not saying this is the case in every situation, but I hope you can see that pure selfishness (even if it's in small ammounts) is the root of many problems.
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quote:It's still possible to say that the root of misunderstanding is still selfishness.
It's possible, but I think it lays blame instead of addressing the problem. I think most of the people who want to get out of their marriages are good people.
You call it selfishness, I call it misunderstanding. When I make a mistake, it's usually because I don't understand why to make the other choice.
Ken Keyes says, and I tend to agree, that "A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror." So where does that leave us.
quote: in the last paragraph of the article that sndrake posted:
But they can't prove that, can they? It's very easy to say that it wouldn't affect the divorce rate if more people got married, but the truth is that it just might.
posted
I think that having a higher percentage of people who would not succeed at marriage not marrying is precisely the point. While neither extramarital sex nor divorce are good (in my opinion), I think the former is preferable to the latter. The ideal isn't to have as many people as possible marry and stay together; it's to encourage people to take marriage seriously and not enter into a permanent relationship unless they intend to stick with it and work to make it better. That might mean a lower marriage rate. It's a small price to pay if a larger percentage of those marriages work.
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quote: I think most of the people who want to get out of their marriages are good people.
I'm not saying they aren't good people. But good people can make some major mistakes that really do some bad things.
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quote: That might mean a lower marriage rate. It's a small price to pay if a larger percentage of those marriages work.
That's a very good point. But I think a lower percentage of selfish people would help more (Why am I spending so much time on this thread. I need to do my homework)
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posted
I'm easy, all you have to do is try. It has to be a whole-hearted effort, putting everything at stake, but you just have to try. It doesn't matter if you succeed at doing anything.
quote:in the last paragraph of the article that sndrake posted:
Just wanted to clarify - I only posted the first part of the article. It goes on for a few paragraphs more. Here's the second half of the article, including some input from a Christian conservative. No one disputes the basic data. (Pay special attention to the second paragraph - it falls into the "we are good and funny people" category. )
quote:Others, like Patrick F. Fagan, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, say it has nothing to do with differences between faiths.
"People who worship frequently no matter what their faith tend to divorce much, much, much less," said Mr. Fagan, making an argument that might unwittingly suggest that Northeasterners are more devout than other people. "All this talk about this faith, that faith, born again, not born again, to me is irrelevant."
Many experts believe the explanation to be more multidimensional, with high divorce rates tied to factors like younger age of marriage, less education and lower socioeconomic status.
"The higher the educational level, higher the occupational level, higher the income, the less likely you are to divorce," said William V. D'Antonio, a sociologist at the Catholic University of America, pointing out that Massachusetts has the highest rate of high school and college completion. "Kids who drop out of high school and get married very quickly suffer from the strains of not being emotionally mature and not having the income to help weather the difficulties of marriage."
Theodora Ooms, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, said that a recent Oklahoma study found that when Oklahomans marry, they are on average two and a half years younger than the national average.
Ms. Whitehead, who lives in Amherst, Mass., said that New England is a region that has "more stability" than other regions. "People stay here, their families stay here, and there's more social and family support for people, a more communal versus individualistic culture in New England compared to the cowboy states."
She said religion may underscore those regional differences.
"In states with lots of evangelicals, the more individualistic Protestant religious faiths may actually also encourage more go-it-alone attitudes than communal ones," Ms. Whitehead said. And these are also states where the culture encourages sexual abstinence before marriage, she said.
"If your family or religious culture urges you not to have sex before you get married," she said, "then one answer is to get married, and then you're more likely to divorce."
posted
It really confuses me when people start talking about protecting children, children who are not their own, from their own parents and then on other threads believe parents should be have the ultimate say in their children's education. It seems to me that if we accept the premise that the family knows better how to run itself than the state, that parents know best how to raise their own children, that society should leave families alone, unless a family asks for help.
I don't mind educating parents as to the benefits of not divorcing before they can get divorced, but not allowing them to get divorced when they want to...that's ridiculous. Whose marriage is it, anyway?
The idea that we need uncle sugar looking over our shoulder in order to approve who gets married and who can get divorced is ridiculous and just one more silly bit of government oversight foisted on everyone because of moral elites who don't believe others can run their own lives without them watching over everyone's shoulder.
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Whenever people bring up not allowing people to divorce without jumping through hoops it scares me - I think because I've gone through a divorce. I shudder to think of what my children would be like now had the marriage continued.
However, I am supportive of measures being taken before a marriage occurs, such as premarital counseling. But yeah, making divorce more difficult just isn't something I can support. I find that people who tend to want that to happen are usually people who didn't go through a bad marriage. While you always have control over your own choices, you don't have control over your spouse's choices and their actions.
quote:The lowest divorce rate is in Massachussettts. (That, as Mark Shields pointed out, is where the court OK'd same-sex marriage.
The COURT OK'd same sex marriages. There was not a public referendum. It's a smokescreen to believe that the people of MA are more marriage minded than those sof KY, and showed their support of marriage through the passage of this law-- because they didn't. They were never asked.
The court decision to allow same sex marriages is a recent one; the numbers about divorce rate are (as far as I can find) eight years old.
Drawing a line between these two is, at the very best, unsupportable.
This article from the Boston Globe gives some answers that seem highly more likely.
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quote:Whenever people bring up not allowing people to divorce without jumping through hoops it scares me - I think because I've gone through a divorce. I shudder to think of what my children would be like now had the marriage continued.
However, I am supportive of measures being taken before a marriage occurs, such as premarital counseling. But yeah, making divorce more difficult just isn't something I can support. I find that people who tend to want that to happen are usually people who didn't go through a bad marriage. While you always have control over your own choices, you don't have control over your spouse's choices and their actions.
Space Opera, you said it better than I ever could have. My only change would be "I shudder to think of what I would be like now had the marriage continued," as I have no children. Thank God, actually.
My first husband wasn't abusive in any traditionally provable sense -- I had no bruises, that is. But he did mock me, belittle me (telling me I looked like a boy during sex, for example, and laughing), frighten me (he would hit things or throw things, but not at me). My best friend, a lawyer, believed me, but few others in his life thought of him as anything other than a really nice guy. And my self-esteem was so low by that point that I had little energy and belief in myself to keep arguing the point.
Of course, when he blew up in red-faced rage with two different counselors at the university -- storming out, threatening to sue the university for their incompetence -- I had two skilled and experienced professionals who confirmed for me that this was neither a healthy nor safe situation to be in. But if he hadn't lost his temper then, or if he hadn't agreed to counseling, that would have been all my hearsay.
How would I have proved it? I certainly wasn't skipping around with glee at being able to sleep around again, just having gotten bored with the humdrum of married life. I was barely functioning. And he called the dean of the medical school and the chancellor of the university and told them I was going crazy. Even involved the campus police when he couldn't find me after we had been separated, having talked the superintendant of my building into letting my "husband" (he still was, but we were formally separated) into my apartment without my knowledge.
People started picking up on it by then. But he was a respected member of the university community, in charge of a student housing building and an excellent grad student -- had I not left and thereby pushed him to the point of over-reacting when he lost control, this wouldn't have come to the surface.
So why didn't I see this in him before we married? There must have been signs I missed, right? That is what some of my family insists. They absolutely adored him, though -- I was even disinvited to Thanksgiving at an aunt's, as she kept the door open for him.
We were friends before we married. We worked on learning how to support one another, techniques for handling disagreement, ways to show love. He made sure I got the counseling I never went for after I'd been raped -- he was the first I'd told about this part of my history, and he was as sweet and supportive as only a student in training to be a counselor could be.
So what changed? I started getting more confident. I progressed toward my degrees, one of which was an MD, and he constantly was working with MDs who didn't look up to him. (Physicians are notoriously dismissive of the ideas and opinions of non-physicians.) He started mocking the profession (aha, sndrake, there's probably something here that explains my touchiness), and then that extended to me. And as I got more externally powerful in my life, he felt less so. We went from friends to -- if not enemies, at least combatants, at least some of the time. Other times we pretended like everything was fine.
Were I the woman I am now, I would not have let it get to that point. But for all my smarts, I didn't have a lot of practical sense, having never dated before college and having little experience of what healthy relationships were for a comparison.
Anyway, thank God for no-fault divorce. I drew up my own decree after long hours in the law library, citing irreconcilable differences and an irrevocable breakdown of the marriage. He didn't challenge it. (By this time, we'd lived apart for more than 4 years.) My best friend held my hand, and it was over in 10 minutes.
I'm still paying him, BTW. $250 a month for 5 years to cover loans he took out "on expectation of access to a doctor's salary." Of course, the breakup sentt him into counseling himself, and he is a much more balanced and kind person now. More the man I married. He actually offered to wait until I was out of residency before I started making alimony payments, as he was making $60,000+. Still unable to make ends meet, though -- he spends money like water, which was another problem of the marriage. But more importantly, I hate who I became with him, and even seeing his name on email makes me sick with dread and shakey scared all over again. We don't talk much, even though he now wants to be friends.
I'm glad he is out of my life.
[ November 22, 2004, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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posted
Oh, Sara...I'm glad he's out of your life too. Thank you so much for sharing that. I can completely relate to looking back and wondering what kind of person *I* would have been had my marriage continued as well.
I think your experience shows that no matter how much we prepare, we cannot predict what is going to happen in a marriage. People are fluid, and marriage - which is a product of two people - is naturally fluid as well. And we can only change ourselves, not the people around us. I'm glad you found the strength to make a positive change for yourself.
I was pretty sure I couldn't stick with anything, though -- after all, if I'd leave a husband, what vows wouldn't I break? My family takes marriage very very seriously, with my mother living in poverty to spoon-feed my father and do all his personal care 24/7 after his stroke.
Was I just a quitter? If I had tried harder, couldn't I have made it work? It took years to work through that one, and it's something I'm revisiting now in counseling. I have self-worth issues which just kind of spiralled out of control in that marriage. Our weaknesses were perfectly matched for disaster.
Amazing, though, how insistent some members of my family are that I must have done something wrong, either in the marriage or in selecting him as a mate. However, looking back, I would have made the same choices given the same information at the time. It wasn't that he was evil, just that the dynamics of married life with each other over the years brought out the least healthy parts of both of us. I just would have gotten out sooner now, that's all.
[ November 22, 2004, 09:25 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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quote:Drawing a line between these two is, at the very best, unsupportable.
Scott, I agree.
Now tell people like Pat Robertson.
Thanks for linking to the Boston Globe article, because it really does provide an analysis that's interesting. Some of the political baggage associated with liberals may enhance stable marriages within a state, while some of the conservative political baggage may do the reverse.
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posted
Pat Robertson doesn't listen to people like me-- I say something, he gets fuel for saying, "Mormons are trying to destroy the concept of marriage. . . again!"
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Sara, what you have just described is my exact reasoning for not having married any sooner. I don't mean that in any way that berates you. I just knew myself well enough to know that I would have destroyed anything that could have been good, but most likely, I would have been attracted to or brought out what was bad.
Even when a marriage is good, it still requires work by both partners for it to work well over the long haul.
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posted
First of all, Boris, I think you nailed it. Second, Irami, I don't think selfish=evil. It's a vice just like any other. We've all got one. (Personally, I have several.)
Back to the selfishness, what's really scary is most of the women I know who are in a lousy marriage but don't get divorced do so for selfish reasons. They don't want to give up the big house. They don't want to have to get a job. They're afraid of being alone.
But then, I've always been a little confused by the "defense" of marriage. How does one defend something that isn't theirs? Much as my family asked her not to, my sister still married the lazy alcoholic two weeks before she left for boot camp.
Florida has a three day waiting period and offers a discount if the couple attends counseling before hand. She did not get married in our church since Pastor Dan requires counseling before performing a ceremony. He probably would have refused anyway since the hubby is a drunk who can't hold a job. Even with all the support in place to help her make a good decision, my sister still married the bum. She knew it was stupid, and she did it anyway.
Who knows. Maybe he'll grow up and quit drinking. Maybe he'll be good to her and work with her to develop a mature, healthy relationship. Personally, I'm betting it'll last less than three years.
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Trevor, thanks. It was a small thing, but the timing was exquisitely chosen to have the most cutting effect.
quidscribis, I know. The thing was, I really was quite mature for 22 years old, and I had very good reasons for getting married (relatively) young. My parents had been 65 and 45 when I was born, and I pretty much grew up watching my father die. I wanted children so badly, and I swore I'd marry someone close to my age, early enough to start a and raise a family while still young.
I wasn't going to make the same "mistakes" my mother did. The hubris of youth.
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posted
Another note: MA has no-fault divorce. It also has a (6 month?) cooling off period, divorces aren't instantaneous.
Scott: It's a much more subtle distortion to say that the residents of MA didn't have any say. They were the ones who voted for the state constitutional amendment that was interpreted (and I think fairly so) to include legal marriage to be more equitably applied.
We also had plenty of times to really voice opinion... Before the actual tentative amendment that passed last February, there had been 2-3 attempts to try and get an anti-same sex marriage amendment on the books; the last one wasn't even able to muster enough support to bring it to discussion. This was all very clearly documented in the newspapers, so the average citizaen had opportunity to follow this, and if so outraged, to try and pressure their rep., to pass an amendment, or a law (laws both anti- and pro- both died in committee I believe, though I can only be sure of pro- laws). The citizens weren't helpless victims, taken advantage of by the insipid governmental system of the state.
After the initial ruling, in MA, a majority believed in some sort of legal recognition. In a comment in the page below, they go through Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and Merrimack College (local college) polls, all showing strong support for some recognition. I'd think that these results were somewhat higher than actual figures, because I think MA isn't as liberal as the Republican party would like you to think.
posted
Soctt, I'll also add that there is later data than the often cited 1994 data, that these more recent reports are using. I double-checked myself, and it seems that for the last 10 years MA divorce rates per capita are constant, while others (I think I noticed the TX one, because of the Globe editorial) shows TX having lowered their number, but still being significantly higher.
quote:Irami, I don't think selfish=evil. It's a vice just like any other.
I don't marry all of the women I sleep with. Not only is it not a vice, I think it's wise. Look, I'm sure that there are people who think you have to get hitched to the first girl whose hand you hold. And maybe there are right, or maybe holding hands is nice enough and should be appreciated for it's own merits. There is a time and a place, and I think confusing the time and the place for marriage is what gets people in bad marriages to begin with. Understanding the belonging together of marriage which far exceeds the the other thing is the bedrock of a marriage. Not to cheapen sex, but it's not marriage, and it shouldn't be confused for it, either.
posted
I didn't mean to kill this discussion forthwith. Honestly, I have enough distance from this that I can discuss the subject of no-fault divorce objectively, and I can even take criticisms about my actions on the chin. Wouldn't have brought it up in a public forum otherwise.
I can pretty much guarantee that my opinions on the option won't change, but I'm willing to listen.
[ November 23, 2004, 07:57 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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Sara, do you think there are times where it is better for some or all of the parties involved (including the children) if a couple stays together even though they are unhappy? Or is it usually better to get out of an unhealthy relationship?
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posted
I'd think there might be a difference between being "unhappy" and being in an "unhealthy relationship."
I doubt anyone would characterize what Sara went through as a healthy relationship. But I can see lots of possible scenarios where someone is unhappy in the marriage but the marriage has not become unhealthy.
Certainly being unhappy in marriage isn't a good thing, and is something to be worked on. But it's possible it can be a long way from being unhealthy, isn't it?
posted
Yeah, poor choice of words. What I meant is that the relationship has become damaging to the people in it, not just that they'd prefer to stop being married.
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posted
I wasn't trying to pick at your post. I'm sorry. I was wondering where the line is - when does unhappiness become severe and constant enough to become unhealthy?
I know some people wouldn't see a big difference between unhappy and unhealthy. I'm just wondering where people draw that line.
posted
If you're unhappy, I suspect it will become unhealthy.
And "staying together for the sake of the children" is a load of horse puckey - all of my cousins' parents stayed together, they're miserable and most of us are refusing to get married and start families of our own.
Whether you live in the same house or not, kids do pick up their habits and form their expectations around their experiences.
posted
Yep, I think that staying together for the kids is always a bad idea. Children are so intuitive! Even if adults aren't fighting in front of them, children will pick up on the coldness and apathy in a disintegrated marriage. I truly believe it's better for children to grow up with 2 happy adults who live apart rather than 2 miserable ones who live together.
As for the difference between unhealthy and unhappy, I think in some cases that's not always a clear line. Unless you're in that relationship you're not in a position to answer. I dunno. It's felt like to me for several years that I have to justify to the general society why I got a divorce. A lot of people unfortunately make assumptions that divorce is an easy thing. In my experience whether your spouse is terrible or not, divorce is still hell. It wasn't easy for me to choose to end my marriage, though I had clear reasons for doing so. Now that I examine it - geez I'm touchy on this issue.
posted
I spent an hour on the phone last night with a friend I haven't seen in 10 years. He needed someone to talk to about an apparent pending divorce.
I did what I could to encourage him to work it out (I introduced him and his wife) and to give it an honest try in counselling. But in the end, it really bore down on one simple fact: he didn't want to remain married. There were no big events causing the break, just a slow growing apathy between him and his wife. Honestly, it was boredom I believe more than anything, they are and have been imminently bored with each other.
The money they make is good, they have no pressure from debt. They have no children and both are unable to (and neither have ever wanted to have kids). Neither has ever cheated on the other. They don't even argue.
They just hang out at home, separated one on the computer, the other watching TV, numbing themselves until it is time for bed. They have let their marriage swirl slowly down entropically.
It's sad and I have no idea what to say to them. The simplest gesture of one going to the other and showing some interest would do wonders. Or would have before the accumulated dust made them each too heavy to make that short trip down the hall to one another.
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quote:Sara, do you think there are times where it is better for some or all of the parties involved (including the children) if a couple stays together even though they are unhappy? Or is it usually better to get out of an unhealthy relationship?
I suspect sometimes it is possible to stay together and be better for the children, sometimes not. I have no idea where the numbers lie.
I would guess that a lot of people don't exert themselves to their limits to keep a marriage a healthy and happy one. I wouldn't think that I could tell which ones those were from the outside looking in, not with any real level of reliability.
So, it depends. Not a great answer, I know, but an honest one.
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The hubris of youth.
