Marriage In America

[erpowers]

There is a discussion going on at the ESPN basketball discussion board about a basketball player whose wife has given him a yearly allowance of sex with another women. Some of the conservatives are blaming this on liberal. Conservatives at least one at the discussion board tried to blame the divorce rate on the "liberal mindset" of not wanting to do anything that is hard. I do not agree with the conservatives on this. However, I decided to post here and ask members of DU what they thought was the cause of the high divorce rate in America. I do not think marriages in America fail because people do not want to work hard. I think too many people go into marriage with the idea of having a fairy tale marriage. I tend to think that people are never told how hard it is to make a marriage work and then when they hit hard times they think they are just losers who are having a bad marriage and that they have to get divorced. I think the fairy tale happy ever after is what is causing marriages to fail in this country. I do not think people in America realize that marriage is not supposed to be 100% happy all the time.

[redqueen]

1. Yes, the 'happily ever after' myth... but also an unreasonable expectation

of what 'love' feels like.

I think many people confuse infatuation with love, and when it fades, they get a divorce.

Also, I think marriage is an outdated ideal. The "till death do us part" stuff was thought up when people only lived into their twenties.

[donco6]

2. I think marriage is an anachronism.

To think that you can find "the one and only" in life and stay with them forever and be eternally happy - it's all bullshit. People change. Life changes. I see relationships more as two people moving into close orbit for a time, then moving on. Sometimes it can happen that people can stay together. But often it's because of outside pressures (kids, family, locale, religion, whatever). But if people could get past this idea that divorce is some big sinful failure, we'd all be better off.

[LaurenG]

3. You make really valid points, I would add

that we also aren't taught that there are times when you just don't feel like being married. It's the way it is and unless there are really big issues anyway things will return to normal. Feelings change after time and bonds do deepen and absolutely nothing lasts forever. Also, maybe we are all marrying the wrong people, lol.

[Sammy Pepys]

4. I, fortunately, was never personally touched by it...

But a lot of people I knew grewing up had divorced parents, and much of my extended family has divorced couples in it.

I don't know if it has anything to do with working hard at it, but the vast majority of divroces I'm familiar with basically had to do with falling outs on some level or another.

Except in one case I can think of, money was never the problem (and even in that case it was pretty minor). A couple had very specific problems, such as fidelity and mental illness, but most were just a little bit of everything that added up over time.

[BlueJazz]

5. Marriage is one of those things that you just have to learn (Mostly)

..on your own.
Couples are under so much pressure in these times that I'm surprised that the rate of divorce isn't higher.
Sex is thrown in folk's faces continually and also the "Joy of taking a chance" that it takes a fairly strong bond between to individuals to not stray...

On another Note..Heh..Heh You said "wanting to do anything that is hard" aka Beavis..

[jrw14125]

6. check out the statistics

highest divorce rates are in the red states, particularly deep south. massachusetts, gay marriage and all, has the lowest

[W_HAMILTON]

7. I keep starting a reply

Then deleting it out, because I have alot of feelings about this.

To blame it on liberal-thinking is just stupid. You could just as easily blame it on conservative, fundy-type thinking. You know, you're just SUPPOSED to be married by your mid-20's, and you're just SUPPOSED to start a family around that time -- that's what all the "normal" families do, right? Well, not really, but that's what alot of fundy-types condition their offspring to do. So people rush into marriages, without truly understanding what type of commitment that is. After a few years, things aren't perfect, one spouse or the other (if not both) begin thinking about other people, and thinking that their marriage is going nowhere, and boom -- they get divorced. Or they cheat, and try to keep it secret, because Lord knows you don't want to break the image of having a perfect Leave It To Beaver type family!

But I don't think this is a liberal/conservative thing, other than the fact that conservatives are the ones who champion the idea of marriage being so holy, yet plenty of them enter into extramarital affairs, or end up getting a divorce, rinse and repeat three times over.

There are lots of reasons, but I think rushing into marriage is the main problem. I see some people who feel the "pressure" to pop the question after being together barely a year. That just blows my mind. Marriage is supposed to be for a lifetime, so if you have only been with someone for a year, why rush it? Be with them for a couple more years and see how things go. If you love each other, you love each other. You don't need to get married as proof, the love itself should be proof enough.

[Blue Belle]

13. I agree with your statement about people popping the question too early...

I've been getting a lot of grief from my friends and family because my boyfriend and I have been dating for over 2 years and we haven't gotten engaged. These are the people who were on the "Marriage Fast Track" and got engaged only 6 months after they met and married less than a year after meeting. Nearly all of them are in unhappy marriages and a few are teetering on divorce. My point is, you don't even start to get to know the real person you're dating until after 6 months have passed... we all project our most marketable self for the first few months, but then all your peccadillo's start to get exposed. People on the fast track don't see those until its too late... its nt going to be a fairy tale - no matter how great it seems on the movies and TV. I think it's a bullshit standard that everyone feels they need to live up to, and I think that marriages fail because they've been sold an unobtainable idea. My parents have been married nearly 50 years... and I know for a fact that those days haven't always been a skip through a meadow and they haven't always seen eye to eye. Marriage is work.. and it isn't always easy. If you ask anyone who has been married that long they'll tell you it isn't the fairytale.

[gkhouston]

14. it's your life... live it on your timeline

and that's coming from someone who got married about a year after the first date. OTOH, we'd been friends for several years before we began dating, so we weren't exactly strangers. I think the time invested in getting to know each other has paid off because the partnership aspect of a marriage is a lot more important than the romance aspect. Romance waxes and wanes, but if you've got a solid partnership, you can weather all sorts of storms.

[Yupster]

16. But people in the past got married much sooner than we do

today and the divorce rate is much higher than it was back then. So, it's hard to argue that the reason the divorce rate is so high today is people get married too soon, because when people got married sooner the divorce rate was lower.

[gkhouston]

17. In the past, women were less likely to get a divorce because

how in the hell were they going to support themselves if they did? Assuming they could even get the divorce. And society really looked down on divorced women, so there was cultural pressure to suffer in silence. If your marriage wasn't that great, sometimes you became emotionally disengaged people sharing the same house, separate bedrooms, living roles defined by your gender, interacting minimally. These days, people just pack it in and leave.

[azurnoir]

8. Part of the reason

the divorce rate is so high, is that women have other options than to stay in a bad marriage. Not having children is one of them(think limiting birth control and banning abortion) also up until recently there were better social programs than in the past(another reason for faith based charity), now the GOP has also cut funding for child support enforcement although in many states "child support" was more to remunerate the welfare system. The reason I'm pointing at so many "womens" issues is that for many years stats have shown that women are more likely to leave a bad marriage ie a habitually cheating or abusive husband than the men who were doing these things.

Sorry don't mean to man bash, and I know women are also capable of the same behaviors, but even today more often it is the man.

[orpupilofnature57]

9. Business mixed with sex and marriage was invented by Hamiltonian

Americans, who owned the ancestors of that Basketball player. Lest we forget Shame , status and fear of losing face ,were the original reasons for escalation of Backstreet Abortions and divorce, all Repuke attributes.

[bleedingheart]

10. Everyone's marriage is different - What works for me may not work for you

I have met married couples that carry on like two singles who share a house.
I have met married coulples who behave and act like one person (a bit creepy).
I have met couples who started off faithful, strayed and then ended up back at faithful again.

I try hard to not pass judgement on how other people are married.

In the case of a wife allowing her husband a cheating allowance, well...that is her option. If you are married to a famous man with a lot of money, you have to be honest with yourself and realize that tempation is going to be stalking him all the time. Every woman knows her husband and knows whether he is the type to be unfaithful. This woman is probably very realistic and also probably realizes that some other woman is more than willing to step into her shoes if she makes a big deal about it. Is it right? Well I can't say it is or isn't.

My mother in law didn't like how my husband and I conducted ourselves in our marriage. She didn't like that I am an independent person and that I did not fawn over my husband all the time. She created a great deal of trouble...and one day I asked my husband. "were you okay with us before she butted in?" and he realized that her impression of marriage was different from ours...

[SPKrazy]

11. I Think It Is The Homosexual's fault........

:sarcasm:

trying to convert all those conservative males to their side of the fence!

;)

[etherealtruth]

22. Either that or Bill Clinton's fault ...

:sarcasm:

[SPKrazy]

24. Or Maybe Bill O'Reilly's Fault?

Loofa Loofah

[TlalocW]

12. I think the divorce rate is

Around 25% instead of the 50% that most people talk about.

If you put 15 married and never divorced people in a room with Elizabeth Taylor, because she's divorced 8 times, you've got a divorce rate of 50% according to the way it's currently figured out.

It's like that joke about two guys talking. "Says here that 43% of car accidents are caused by a woman!" "Well, they need to find her and take her license away."

TlalocW

[TallahasseeGrannie]

15. I think that divorce has become much more socially acceptable

and easy to obtain, therefore people give up easier and call it quits. Also, most women now have a way to earn an income on their own and do not choose to stay in situations they might have stayed in 50 years ago.

And here I'm giving away my age: (and I'll get flamed) I think the sexual revolution my generation foisted upon everyone has not done monogamy any favors.

[Yupster]

18. You're right Granny

that divorce is much more acceptable today, and in many ways that is good because not so many remain in abusive marriages. It's also good that never marrieds are able to raise their kids without as much scorn as they used to suffer.

But.

The downside of that is that we now have such a high percentage of our kids growing up in homes without their parents and that has had devastating impact on our society as the statistics show the differences between kids raised by one parent and two. There are entire communities where almost no one has a father in the home. Those are the same communities that have the worst problems with adolescent boys.

Many due amazing jobs raising kids on their own, but when you look at the arithmetic, it is daunting.

[TahitiNut]

19. Show me a marriage where BOTH partners' parents were good role models

... and I'll show you a marriage that's 98% likely to succeed. Show me marriages where eityher or both sets of parents were dysfunctional role models and I'll show you a marriage that's 70% likely to fail.

I know of no better predictor of a good marriage than the marriages of the parents.

Sadly, there's almost nowhere else that people can learn about how to be married.

[MaraJade]

28. True

My mother was widowed after twenty years. My husband's parents have been married for
56 years.

[Katherine Brengle]

31. I don't know about this...

While I agree that growing up in a home with happily married parents is sure to be good "training" for the next generation, I do not believe that a marriage of two people who grew up in this type of home is destined to succeed.

Marriage takes commitment, work, and constant compromise. Anyone who is intelligent, compassionate, and resourceful can make it work with the right person.

[devilgrrl]

20. I wonder if the wife would be that permissible if the guy sold tires?

And would chicks dig him that much?

I don't know, a lot of times it seems like these "I'll let you fuck around" arrangements happen more often with the affluent as opposed to average citizens... I could be wrong. Having said that, how any of this can be blamed on liberalism is absolutely ludicrous.

[Blue_Tires]

25. devilgrrl nails it

some wives (and husbands) can be surprisingly lax and accommodating when their SO is some high-profile multimillionaire with a prenup, and divorce means the end of the gravy train....

having followed sports, arrangements like this are not uncommon...it's just unusual for someone to mention it so publicly

[Swamp Rat]

21. Marriage is a great way to obtain multiple citizenship.

:D

[phylny]

23. Hmm. Married for 25 years, I'm a liberal.

Father-in-law = conservative (divorced)
Mother-in-law = conservative (divorced)
Sister-in-law = conservative (divorced)

I think marriages fail because people don't expect the ebb and flow that comes with any relationship. Also, I was lucky enough to marry not only a wonderful man whom I loved, but he was also my best friend, and remains so.

And the frequent sex doesn't hurt :woohoo:

[MaraJade]

27. 20 years married for me--

To a loyal, loving man.

Not every man is a cheater at heart. You just have to be careful
when you choose in the first place.

[MaraJade]

26. That's why people should think first. . .

Sad, but most people spend more time choosing a car than a mate.

People who really want to be single, have a disloyal streak or a roving eye, have
times when they don't want to be married, feel that they need multiple sexual
partners, and so forth, are wholly unsuited for marriage. People like this really
should stay single. By staying single, harm to others, especially children, can
be avoided. And it is true that marriage is for whole, mature people. It is not
for children or people who think that others should make them happy. It is for
people who can weather change and adversity; in short, marriage isn't for weaklings
or cowards who are looking for a fairy tale easy life.

If a person isn't brave enough to accept that, then they should remain alone and have
the good grace to inform everyone of that intention BEFORE sex occurs. People who are
looking for mature relationships should be given the opportunity to opt out of sexual
interaction with anyone who is not suitable for marriage.

On the other hand, the immature ones can then interact together, which, to my mind, is
absolutely appropriate.

[Lexingtonian]

29. The tolerated but pseudo-invisible mistress

is a conservative thang. Traditional, even. But there are Rules. The Wife gets taken to all the good parties, the Mistress gets all the nightlife and 'business' trips. No procreation for Mistresses, either. But some decent money.

Divorces...well, younger people often make bad choices or compromises that unravel and break down the relationship. Older couples will avoid that but mature at different rates, grow apart (or, further apart) over longer spans.

I think you're onto something with the fairytale business. People start with an external ideal, a sense of what a good marriage is supposed to look like. They know what romantic relationship is like. But there is less of a sense of what a good marriage has to be at core, a living partnership in a shared task.

[Katherine Brengle]

30. I agree: too many people get married thinking that everything will be sun-

shine and roses forever--not taking into account the changes that they will go through over the course of life, not understanding how to form a strong foundation in a relationship, and not spending long enough together before marrying in order to learn the other person's quirks and issues--then when something hard comes along (one spouse loses a job, or some other financial crisis, or when a pregnancy happens and changes the dynamic of the marriage), they cannot cope.

Also, I think that too many people (especially younger people) see divorce as an easy-out policy--many will get married thinking to themselves, if it doesn't work out, we can just get divorced--marriage isn't regarded as quite the lifelong commitment it once was by many.