quote:I can see that being a problem, but I would never marry someone still in school, because I think part of being ready to get married is being financially independent.
Wait until you're about to embark on 8ish years of grad school. That'll put a whole new perspective on things.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Wait until you're about to embark on 8ish years of grad school. That'll put a whole new perspective on things.
I can imagine it would, and if I should ever find myself in a relationship developing to that point with someone who plans on being in school that long, my views may change.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:So if someone marries you, I guess they better not want to ever go back to school, huh?
<rolls eyes>
If I married someone who, after we were married, wanted to go back to school, the situation would be completely different than going into a marriage in a financially unstable situation.
I'd also ideally like to get into a marriage situation where we're both secure in what we want to be doing.
Now obviously, things can change - things like what you want out of life, how happy you are in your job, how happy you are in your marriage, or (gasp) even your opinions!
Not wanting to get into a marriage with someone financially unstable is a preventive measure. Haven't we been discussing, through this entire thread, what makes a marriage work? Hasn't it been said over and over again that regardless of what happens before the marriage, a huge part of marriage is adjusting to and dealing with problems that arise?
Everything I've said thusfar is preventive: wanting to live together before getting engaged is a preventive measure, a security precaution, trying to ascertain that we are compatible people before we make the enormous decision of getting married. Similarly, not wanting to marry someone who isn't financially independent is another one of those things. I don't want to get into a marriage where there's a huge imbalance of any kind: financial, romantic, sexual or otherwise.
But once I'm in the marriage, I've obviously chosen to commit to that person. At that point, there'd have to be some long talks about what they wanted to go back to school for. I certainly wouldn't approve of my spouse going back to school just because they felt like it - that's irresponsible and selfish. It would be equally irresponsible and selfish of me to deny her the right to go back to school if she's serious about it.
quote:If I married someone who, after we were married, wanted to go back to school, the situation would be completely different than going into a marriage in a financially unstable situation.
I was speaking of someone who knows now that they want to go back to school at some point in the future.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:I was speaking of someone who knows now that they want to go back to school at some point in the future.
In that case, my opinion doesn't change. If you plan on making yourself financially unstable, I don't intend to raise a family with you anytime soon.
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posted
You have a very different definition of both "financially unstable" and what it means for spouses to support each other than I do.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:You have a very different definition of both "financially unstable" and what it means for spouses to support each other than I do.
We have a different definition of most of the things central to this thread, which is what I've been trying to say .
Dag, to further explain where I'm coming from on this, I'm in precisely the situation you're describing: I have a good job, but I never finished my college degree, and I fully intend to go back sometime in the future, because what I'm doing now isn't what I intend to be doing for the rest of my life.
I wouldn't want to marry me right now.
Simply put, my future is too uncertain to do any long-range planning around. I'm totally unwilling to let someone provide for me to that level, and hopefully the person I marry feels similarly (because that particular attitude manifests itself in many other ways that would lead to the kind of compatability I want in a life partner).
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:I understand your yearning for stability, and desire for a guarantee. I say that not to be patronizing, I know that you know there are no guarantees, but all the same everyone wants one. But i don't know that anything you just listed has a proven track record of marriage together down the road. Speaking personally, having struggled financially while I was a student during our first few years of marriage has strengthened it, rather than hurt it.
I'm happy for you (and I say THAT not to be patronizing, too)!
There are several reasons, though, why I want that sort of stability.
1) The "good job" I speak of right now is running my own business. We do moderately well, but the startup period was one of the worst periods of my life, because of the financial instability. I was eligible for food stamps for almost a year (but too proud to take them, "thank you" japanese upbringing!). My credit is STILL trying to recover. What I've learned from this is that financial stability is absolutely VITAL to my happiness/sanity - which would obviously affect any relationship I'm in. It also makes me wary of these qualities in others, because I know how it affected me.
2) One of the most important people in my life got married when she was deeply in love, and in school. Their relationship ended in a year because of financial instability.
It's a bias and, like all biases, will probably stop me from having a few relationships that might otherwise be successful, but isn't that how all biases work anyway?
[Edit] What I'm still really trying to say here is that we all have different standards and ideas about what makes a successful marriage. I recognize and respect that for many people, not cohabitating before marriage works, and working out the kinks during the marriage is part of what makes it work. But I don't think that means my way of doing it is "socially irresponsible."
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Single parents have less time, less money, and more stress than families with two parents. It is because one person must both serve the outside world enough to support the family and serve all the needs of the family.
This is not because of any stigma - this is because of numbers. The number of adults have been halved but the amount of responsibilities have not.
I agree 100% with this (and I should know).
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:If you mean love as an action performed by each spouse that underlies all interaction between them, then I think it's essential.
I would call that commitment, not love.
I would also say that it is the most important element in a marriage.
I agree with this too.
quote:Originally posted by katharina:
quote: I prefer the scenario where you don't decide to get married because you are in love, you decide to get married because you are compatible.
I refuse to believe that not everyone deserves to be in love with the person they marry. That the "love, honor, and cherish" must needs be for some only a nice idea, as they enter into a legal arrangement.
That's so offensive to me. It's been suggested several times to me (including once by my idiot brother), and I always want to ask the person offering it as a solution if they were in love with their spouse when they got married. As far as I can tell, it is a solution always suggested for other people.
IMO, it's not a question of "deserve" at all. And I've done the "getting married because we're so in love" thing. And while I do hope to find love again, I don't expect to be in love with my spouse until AFTER they are my spouse. I would actually be very hesitant to marry someone I was strongly in love with; I already know that sort of emotional state compromises my ability to judge compatibility.
So much for a solution suggested for other people. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: I would actually be very hesitant to marry someone I was strongly in love with; I already know that sort of emotional state compromises my ability to judge compatibility.
So your ideal situation would be to become friends with someone and establish compatibility, and then fall in love with them? It could happen. I hope it will. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
That's workable, but it's not separate finances.
Wasn't really suggesting it was, it's really no different than keeping extra cash for myself in a drawer somewhere. I understand the desire for control of at least a little of your own finances, and this is a wrokable way to address that feeling. But I agree that combined finances are best unless you both are uncommonly honest and communicative. Totally separate finances, to me, suggest that you're still thinking of your relationship as "me and her/him" as opposed to thinking of yourselves as "us." This is rarely a good sign for a lasting relationship.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Totally separate finances, to me, suggest that you're still thinking of your relationship as "me and her/him" as opposed to thinking of yourselves as "us." This is rarely a good sign for a lasting relationship.
The key words there are "to me." What will it take to disabuse people of the notion that there's one right way to look at what works in creating and maintaining a marriage?
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(That's why I always use qualifers like that. The worst words in the English language: "is," "am," "are." They encourage people to think in absolutes.)
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I would just point out that I, in all my social conservative wisdom, do not see the past as any sort of golden era of marriage.
Especially the era in which the expansion of women's rights were NOT met by a cultural call to bring males further into the family life. We had an era of peace and prosperity, and what did we ask men to do? We were encouraged to carry on as normal, and worse, buy into materialism and luxury.
Rita the Riveter changed the face of the workforce-- but G.I. Joe never learned to take care of Junior.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
As the representative of long term non-married heterosexual monogamous relationships on the board, I'm wondering if we fall into the "uncomonly honest and communicative" category. I think Steve is actually betting on my childhood protestant guilt complex to keep me honest.
I'm the main finance manager, mainly because I'm the more anal retentive of the two of us. We have two checking accounts and mine goes to one bank and his goes into another. I actually have more access to "his" money, than he does to "mine". It's all tracked in one Quicken account on my computer. However, his car loan is through my bank, and the housepayment comes out of his account.
Most of the reasons for separate accounts are practical, and our finances are probably almost as merged as a married couple. As the child of a military officer, I'm allowed to belong to USAA savings bank which is somewhat of a glorified crdit Union though it provides a bunch of other services including insurance. Since we aren't married, I can't actually add him to the checking account, even though his name is on the insurance policy. But USAA isn't actually "local", and so Steve's account is with a common national chain, for those times when local is better. I'm fully on his account, though he is the primary, since I'm the one who normally writes the check for the bills. Timing also plays into whose checking account pays what billsm because Steve gets paid twice a month, while I get paid bi-weekly. So the house payment comes out of his account because I know exactly on what day of the month the money will be there, and my own paycheck jumps around too much.
posted
You’re uncommonly something, all right. Honestly though, I think your and Steve’s relationship is different from the “we want to get married but we’re going to live together for a few years first” type.
And remember, I said people may have good reasons for living together, just that reducing the chance of divorce isn’t a statistically valid one.
I based my speculation on conversations I’ve had in pre-marital counseling (lots more young couples in my new appointment). Goes something like this: “We’ve been living together for 18 months and we already consider ourselves married, but now we want to make it official.” “I see. Do you have a joint checking account yet?” “Um, no.” “Do you intend to have one after you’re married?” “Of course!” “How do you think that might affect your relationship?” *panicked look* Eventually one of them brings up their different attitudes toward credit or saving vs spending or whatever their particular issue is.
Does it mean that there aren’t couples who discuss finances and come to a workable agreement on their own, or who basically agree and for whom finances aren’t a conflict point? Of course not! But it does give me fuel for speculation on why living together first does not decrease the rate of divorce. (And, incidentally, why pre-marital counseling does reduce it.)
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Here you can find some statistics on lots of these questions. Here are a couple of relevant ones -- attitude on pre-marital sex. In 1972 27% of the US population considered it OK -- in 1996 44% considered it OK. That still leaves 56% who consider it wrong -- when 56% of the country agrees with you, you don't live in Bizzaro World.
As for extramarital sex -- the tolerance for that has actually declined -- from 4% to 2%.
And the number of people who actually DO live together without marriage is much smaller that the popular entertainment culture would have you believe (which is one of the problems I think.) In 1972 only .02% of couples living together were not married. In 1998 7.1% of couples living together were not married. Yep, it's an increase. But NOT anywhere near a norm as popular entertainment cultural would have you believe. You've been lied to and you believe the lie. Who's living in Bizarro World now Tom??? I think it's you.
Posts: 780 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Unfortunately, the percentage of couples currently living together unmarried vs married really tells us nothing about how many of them lived together before marriage. I mean, if every couple lived together for 2 years prior to marriage, and then got married and lived together for 40 years before one spouse died, the percentage of living together couples who were unmarried at any one time would be just under 5%.
And the 56% who consider pre-marital sex wrong include all the people who are already married and have been for years. I suspect that a study of people currently dating would show a much lower percentage. Note – I don’t think this is a good thing.
I wish there were more characters in fiction who got married before moving in together – that would reflect my experience as well as the way I would prefer the world to be. However, I don’t think the demographics back it up.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Lets see, it went from 27% to 44% in 24 years, a change of a little over .708 % per year. Assuming (fallaciously, but this is just a simple thought exercise) the rate of change remains constant, since 1996 (nine years), 6.375% more have converted, that would make slightly over 50% now saying pre-marital sex is okay.
Plus, there's a remarkable bias on those surveys among some in America -- I can think of several people I know who would answer that premarital sex is wrong . . . but also have lots of it.
posted
I don't think the statistics tell the whole story. First of all, the characters being referenced were young. My Grandparents generation certianly does disapprove of premarital sex and cohabitation. But that does not reflect the reality for a younger generation that is being portrayed.
Second, even if 56% disapprove of premarital sex, 80% have premarital sex anyways. I take it in the vein of my mom disapproves of swearing but has been known to do so herself. This number also suffers from the generation gap. It tells us nothing of what people who are in their 20s believe.
Finally, the couples currently living together does not reflect the percentage who at one point cohabitated. At the point that a large portion of the population is already married or too young to be in a serious relationship that leaves a very small percentage even available to cohabitate even if ALL of those people choose that option.
In sum, I think that while a book that shows all generations having tons of premarital sex and cohabitating together is probably misrepresenting society. I don't think it is at all a misrepresentation of the generation shown in the novel or most commonly in the movies.
Posts: 416 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Plus, there's a remarkable bias on those surveys among some in America -- I can think of several people I know who would answer that premarital sex is wrong . . . but also have lots of it.
A) That's not bias. B) Just because you do something doesn't mean you can't think it's wrong.
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posted
These people I know do not act as if it is wrong, they pay it lip service as part of their self image. From what I read, this is pretty common.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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kacard, The content of your link does not support your assertions and also has relevant information that I can't understand how you could responsibly leave out. People were not repsonding to whether premarital sex was ok, but rather “Sex before marriage is not wrong at all”. Also, you neglected to mention that support of “Sex before marriage is always wrong” in 1996 was at 24% of people surveyed, which, as I said, I don't see how you could think that not mentioning was responsible.
posted
When someone puts up a link it's so you can go there and see for yourself. I put up the info that interested me. And gave you the opportunity to read it for yourself. Irresponsible??? Please. What's irresponsible is touting your assumptions as if they are truth.
Posts: 780 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
You didn't include information in that link that specifically contradicted what you were claiming that it said. This wasn't additional information. Unless you're using a defintion of "interests me" that means "confirms what I'd like to believe", this was information that interested you, just it disagreed with what you wanted to claim. It is directly relevant to the claim you made about both the contents of the link and the wider issue of how premarital sex is seen in society. But you didn't include it and your claim only works if this information didn't exist. For me, that's irresponsible. But then, I expect that when people link things, the links don't explicitly contradict what they claim (edit: through selectively choosing what parts of the linked content they include) they say.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
What's clear, though, is that the "Bizarro world" comment was unsubstantiated and basically wrong unless one considers 24% of the people to be "bizarro."
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Dag, No it's not. OSC's claim wasn't that some people don't approve of premarital sex, but
quote:I wish Lee Nichols would do the anthropological research to find out how most Americans live and toss us an occasional novel set in our world, where people wait for marriage and don't find it acceptable when other people move in with each other without benefit of wedlock -- not because we're religious fanatics but because we know that this is what civilization in general and our children in particular require of us.
This statement doesn't conform to reality (which is another, gentler way of saying that it only works in Bizarro World). Just about everyone on this thread has acknowledged that.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Yeah, I think 24% is indeed a small enough minority to consider "Bizarro," at least when you're under the illusion that you're speaking for the majority.
Would you agree that someone who firmly believes that a majority of Americans are non-Christian is a little deluded, Dag? Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
24% are those who consider it always wrong.
There's lots of room between that and not thinking that "promiscuous sex is harmless to consenting adults."
Regardless, Tom, is it too much to ask for a little graciousness to our host. You and Squick seem to take great delight in being quite insulting to him fairly often.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Hey, OSC often writes articles which are quite openly -- and sometimes deliberately -- insulting to me, my friends, and fully half of the American population. *shrug* He gets what he pays for in that regard, especially if he's not careful enough to do his research.
He doesn't speak for the majority of Americans, and yet behaves as though it's self-evident that he does. He should probably get over that.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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porter, Then let me point it out to you (edit: responding ro your now deleted post about how OSC isn't saying that he's speaking for most people):
quote:I wish Lee Nichols would do the anthropological research to find out how most Americans live and toss us an occasional novel set in our world
posted
Dag, OSC isn't saying that people don't think that "promiscuous sex is harmless to consenting adults", but, as quoted, that in most peoples' America "people wait for marriage and don't find it acceptable when other people move in with each other without benefit of wedlock", which seems to be soundly refuted by the evidence, in both cases.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Dag, OSC says many things that are insulting, awful, and untrue. If you mean by being gracious that I shouldn't point out that these things are awful, insulting, and untrue, than I do think that this is too much to ask.
The way I see it, there are certain standards that we try to uphold at Hatrack. Oftentimes OSC's writings or his behavior on Hatrack do not conform to those standards. It's entirely possible that Hatrack could be a place where a person can get away with things because of who they are, but I wouldn't want to belong to such a place.
I also don't think that what I see as some people bending over backwards to show how OSC isn't doing and saying things we should disapprove of is responsible, but then again, apologetics is often in the eye of the beholder.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:If you mean by being gracious that I shouldn't point out that these things are awful, insulting, and untrue, than I do think that this is too much to ask.
No, I mean that these things should be pointed out in a manner that isn't as insulting as both you and Tom do fairly often.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Sorry, missed the quoting, but its not OSC's opinions on sex and marriage that are getting the bizarro world comments, but his opinions on most people in America agreeing with him.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
OSC did say that. However, that wasn't the part that we were talking about here (which is why I immediately edited it out of my post). We can certainly dispute whether or not that bit is divergent with reality, but whether or not it is does not in any way effect the Bizarro World aspect of his statement about "most Americans".
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I don't view the bizarro world comment itself as particularly rude, but that may be in large part because I view it as a legitimate literary allusion, and a somewhat amusing one at that. Its also an effective way of encapsulating a situation. Some of the other comments have definitely been rude, though, and I would be unlikely to use the bizarro world allusion independently, instead saying just that he's wrong, that his being wrong often undermines his arguments significantly, and demonstrating how I know he's wrong.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: I don't view the bizarro world comment itself as particularly rude, but that may be in large part because I view it as a legitimate literary allusion, and a somewhat amusing one at that.
A legitimate literary allusion to Superman. Rock rock on. Although I agree that it would probably be better recieved in a place that's not here.
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I hope it will. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Honestly though, I think your and Steve’s relationship is different from the “we want to get married but we’re going to live together for a few years first” type.
