Look at the recent posts in my Main Man @Thinker's house -- Mrs. Thinker seems to think that marriage and marital love are "supposed" to be synonymous with the first tingly flush of infatuation. Mrs. SP Herself whipped out a similar notion just last night: "I always thought that if people were meant to be together, they'd be together."
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But instead, Fantasy collides with Reality -- and because we are oh-so-fallible, we humans, we work desperately hard to preserve our perception, our dearly held belief, that THE FANTASY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE "TRUE REALITY": Aaagh! There are problems in our marriage! I'm unhappy! Walkaway! Walkaway!
Well bullsh*t! I can't help it that you had stupid preconceived notions about marriage, and that you've been evaluating everything that's happened in light of them!
Holy Guano, Batman! I think I said roughly the same thing about preconceived notions here here:
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I do generalize - and if playing with that idea, I would challenge anyone to find me a statistic that shows that the majority of participants in dates present an accurate picture of themselves. My point should have continued by pointing out that I believe that most relationships that fail is because this initial portrayal is believed by the "other person" (see above) to be the real deal, and the relationship, marriage, and happily ever after are built around this. Pardon me if my cynicism is showing. Is the marriage failure rate because of this?
So, let me continue with a two-pronged explanation to the explosion of divorces, regardless whether they are purely statistical or not.
First of all you are spot on here:
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Either there are more Dumb-Asses than ever or....Walkaway Herself [with all due respect to @aliveandkicking's occasional bursts of gender-based indignity] no longer has to put up with DAMS. Because she can get a divorce.
YES! It's the easy thing to do! And life today is about easy!
Now, for the second item, and I'll again preface this endeavor at explanation with an apology for cynicism. My own experiences have been enough for me to feel fairly certain about my prognosis, but I will make an attempt to not obfuscate the issue.
I have seen many unsuccessful attempts at marriage counseling - many recommend finding out ahead of time if a counselor is "pro-marriage". It is a common and pervasive theme in modern psychology that most emotional issues are caused by repressed feelings. I'm certain there are many in that professional line that would hem and haw about my gross overstatement, but I've engrossed myself in the subject, and it is my non-professional opinion. Been sexually abused? Express your feelings. Husband doesn't understand you? Express your feelings. I do not argue that there is not therapeutic and healing from these types of things, but is that what all problems in life revolve around? Not expressing your feelings? By Jove, we can solve that problem right quick-like!
If the comedic line in a movie's psychological scene is "How does that make you feel?", then we can pretty much ascertain that feelings are pretty important.
Enter stage left - our specially selected MC. So chosen by Mr. Jonf because she met Mrs. Jonf's requirements - said requirements being "No Christian counseling, must be a woman, must not think marriage is the best solution". Hindsight being 20/20, dear reader, the criteria were certainly not in my best interests, but such was my zeal to retain our holy matrimony.
Back to our feelings situation - our first and only session, Mrs. Jonf's description of Mr. Jonf included "Strong, great father, loyal, handsome, good provider, intelligent, good conversationalist." Not exactly the description I was looking for (sexy, smoldering, Brad-Pitt-look-a-like) but I'll take it. When asked if she was attracted to me, the astonishing answer was "Yes". MC, upon discovering the background of sexual abuse in Mrs. Jonf's history insisted on one-on-one counseling, to which an agreement was readily reached.
Fast forward 5 weeks, and Mrs. Jonf came out of the counseling session with these feelings, "You are to blame for everything bad in my life, including my childhood sexual abuse."
Blink, blink. Regardless how impossible the implications of me affecting the lovely Mrs. Jonf at the ripe old age of 5, can we rewind back to the earlier description, and start over from there?
Long story short, and after much tearful accusations, MC, in her infinite wisdom, suggested to the vulnerable Mrs. Jonf that she should embrace whatever her feelings, and go with them, regardless what they were, because, in so doing, she would be her truest self, and her feelings were true, not matter what they were, because they were "true to her".
I consider myself a reasonably intelligent man, but that bit of circular reasoning left me completely speechless - a situation in which I rarely find myself.
MC, of course, never talked to me, and specifically and clearly refused to counsel me individually or us together.
Shortly there after, Mrs. Jonf began entertaining propositions from men, started an A, and completely renounced any responsibility stating she "felt the marriage was dead, and therefore over."
What is my point? My intent was not to slander the unprofessional MC, but rather to indicate, in very broad terms, that modern society, modern psychology, and modern thinking simply revolves around, "What makes me feel good?"
First, what is DAM? (Plese tell me it isn't dumb-ass-man)
Second, you can stop excluding or highlighting my sitch...makes me feel like I'm ultra-special screwed Plus, my stich isn't as different as one might think...just elementally (or environmentally) different.
Third,
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Be a grown-up -- work the problem.
So simplistic. A) There are problems and then there are PROBLEMS. B) There is the matter of identifying problems (not an easy task when in the midst) and C) There is the matter of finding solutions to the problems.
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"Hey WAW -- maybe if you'd boned me more than once or twice a year I wouldn't have become emotionally unavailable, and then we wouldn't have had a 'problem.'"
To which WAW answers (if we're going balls out here), "maybe if I wasn't repulsed by you and the sex wasn't so boring, I might have wanted to do it more."
SP- You're pissed and having a field day which is educational and even amusing (thanks to your writing prowess)...but, I just think this is indeed mental masturbation. You care, you spent so long getting to a not caring place...now what? One minute, one hour, one day at a time. You've changed, you've learned a lot...you lead, clearly she's following. Where's it going to go? You don't know and find that intolerable now that you have a decent handle (IMO)...
You think too much. Love cannot be quantified; it is to be felt, and experienced. When you over-analyze it, you reduce it to something that it was never intended to be.
Some Fat-fingered responses via mobile, in reverse order.
If it please the Court, my esteemed colleague Mr Tails has advanced the notion that "love is a feeling." Yet we have seen introduced into evidence throughout the boards the proposition that those silly Walkaways are hung up on the idea that love is a "feeling" when in fact it is a choice - one ought not wait for the "feeling" - pshaw! - but must simply choose. Well which is it? Because if it is a choice then it is indeed (inherently) quantifiable - one will "love" a "little bit more" with each passing day - or so goes the notion.
@alive - I will accede to your request, though I will point out that I refer to your situation because it is one with which I am familiar - and in the instant case I was actually referring to your intervention up-thread in which you objected to WAHs being left out of the discussion.
@JonF - I completely reject this "life is all about easy today" meme. When wasn't it? Well, in Days of Yore, of course. But this assumes that a greater social good was served by having - let us estimate - 50% of the married population living in the seething angst of non-divorce divorce. Your line of reasoning depends critically upon what from my POV is an untenable assumption - that if divorce was "harder" things would perforce be "better." But I've seen no empirical evidence in survey data that shows that married Americans in, say, 1949 reported significantly higher rates of marital satisfaction than they do 2009 - the only difference is that in 2009 they are not trapped by the laws.
@alive - I will accede to your request, though I will point out that I refer to your situation because it is one with which I am familiar - and in the instant case I was actually referring to your intervention up-thread in which you objected to WAHs being left out of the discussion.
Well friend, admittedly, women are complicated.
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@JonF - I completely reject this "life is all about easy today" meme.
Now this is fodder for great conversation. When life was about survival, people had more grit. Lower expectations...sad to us but quite healthy in some ways. Look at how many are self-medicating in one way or another. We all feel entitled to "it all". We all feel slighted with less than "it all".
Can we please for Pete's sake, have "equality" for women without killing all semblance of chivalry and subtlety?? I know I seem off topic here but it is all in the same vein.
We do want easy. We want easy work, easy relationships, easy money, easy access and when we don't get it, we pop pills and throw tantrums.
Sorry but it seems an ailment specific to our modern culture. Not that it has ever been fab...alas, those pesky problems arise in every time and place but we are in a very indulgent, overstimulated and narcissistic phase.
With regard to marriage, I was just trying to relay to a friend who is terrified of getting married and suggested it is outdated and someday there will be no such institution, that the broader social impact is significant. She seemed very moved when I described the loss of what is really modern tribes. Our kids, raised with no modicum of predictability or modeled loyalty are like emotinal nomads...marriage and family can serve as such a unique source of connectedness and security. I think losing that value is an enormous loss both individually and collectively. More "unintended consequences" for our oh so evolved culture. But what do I know?
Yes, scoundrel I am. And an egghead who looks things up, to boot. @JonF wrote "that modern society, modern psychology, and modern thinking simply revolves around" self-interest and self-actualization in criticizing MC, and that this self-centeredness (or lack of "grit," as another poster who shall remain nameless put it up-thread) is largely to blame for the "modern" ill of divorce.
Or, as that same nameless poster wrote, "We do want easy..and when we don't get it, we pop pills and throw tantrums. Sorry but it seems an ailment specific to our modern culture."
Really? --------------
"To be at risk for divorce, couples must first be married. Rates of first marriages have fluctuated dramatically over the past 70 years. In the 1920s annual marriage rates were approximately 99 per 1,000 single women. Rates declined during the Depression era (early 1930s) to 81 per 1,000 single women. Marriage rates then rose to an all-time high of 143 per 1,000 women in the post-World War II era and declined steadily for the next 30 years.
"The declining propensity to marry also is reflected in a decrease in the proportion of women who marry to avoid having a child out of wedlock. During the 1960s, approximately half (52%) of all women were pregnant when they married, whereas in the 1980s, only one-quarter (27%) of women were pregnant when they married.
"Since the 1860s...divorce rates increased after every major war, decreased during the Great Depression, and decreased during the post-World War II economic boom....However, most scholars believe that the single most important social change which made divorce possible was the increase in the employment of women and the corresponding economic independence that employment provided."
Patricia H. Shiono and Linda Sandham Quinn, "The Future of Children," Children and Divorce, vol. 4, no. 1 (spring 1994).
Well, well, well, well, well. An easy fix! Lower the glass ceiling. Get 'em barefoot, preggers, and back in the kitchen! Knock 'em up while they're single -- that'll make 'em marry!
Alternate hypothesis: This is way more complicated than "people used to have grit" and "people want everything to be easy." --------------------
"Changes in marriage patterns could also reflect alterations in the norms and attitudes surrounding marriage...The acceptance of a single life as a legitimate alternative to marriage would represent a marked attitudinal shift in the U.S.
"Throughout most of American history, the majority of people have probably regarded the failure to marry as undesirable. Not everyone married in 18th and 19th century America and many married only in their late 20s or in their 30s; but these decisions were more the result of social and economic circumstances than of personal choice.
"Historically, single persons have been denied access to many of the privileges enjoyed by married persons, but unmarried adults have achieved a marked increase in independence and freedom in recent years. In Colonial times, virtually all unmarried people resided in a family environment, either with their own parents or in the homes of others where they worked as servants. Unmarried persons remained dependent upon the families with whom they lived, and only at marriage did they become fully independent adult members of society."
Arland Thornton and Deborah Freedman, "Changing Attitudes Toward Marriage and Single Life," Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 14, no. 6 (Nov-Dec 1982)
(Now that sounds like a wonderful era of love-matches to me.... ) ---------------------
"Wars produced dramatic changes in the landscape of marriage and divorce in Western societies. From the Civil War to the present, wars involving the United States have delayed, accelerated, and undermined marriages...each postwar period has been marked by a dramatic short-term increase in the divorce rate.
"After the Civil War divorces increased from a rate of 1.2 per 1,000 marriages in 1860 to 1.8 in 1866. Similarly, after World War I, the rate rose from 5.5 in 1917 to 7.7 in 1920. After World War II the divorce rate soared to a new high, which many attributed to the fragility of hasty wartime marriages...A recent study of veterans from World War II and the Korean conflict (Elder and Clipp 1988b) found that traumatic memories of combat are associated with less stable, nurturing marriages. Only 43% of the men with such memories were still married to their prewar spouses."
Eliza K. Pavalko and Glen H. Elder, Jr., "World War II and Divorce: A Life-Course Perspective," American Journal of Sociology, vol. 95, no. 5 (March 1990)
In other words, situational (rather than dispositional) factors, but situational factors seldom receive attention, especially from the individuals themselves IMO.
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Complaints "of rising divorce rates date back to the nineteenth century; most have a very modern ring to them. Wilcox (1891) cites the economic emancipation of women as a fundamental factor, one which also accounted for higher rates in New England states. Urbanization and industrialization were said to broaden knowledge and expose people to alternative modes of living.
"In The Marriage Crisis, Ernest Groves (1928) argued that divorce was rising because a new pleasure-seeking code was replacing a code of behavior anchored in obligation and self-denial."
Samuel H. Preston and John McDonald, "The Incidence of Divorce Within Cohorts of American Marriages Contracted Since the Civil War," Demography, vol. 16, no. 1 (February 1979). -----------------
"During the Progressive Years the divorce rate, which had been rising steadily since the Civil War, attained critical dimensions...In 1880 there was one divorce for every twenty-one marriages; in 1900 there was one divorce for every twelve marriages; in 1909 the ratio dropped to one in ten, and by 1916 it stood at one in nine.
"In 1881 the New England Divorce Reform League was established to conduct research...educate the public and lobby for more effective legislative curbs on divorce...Efforts to arrest the spread of divorce by legal means took two forms. State campaigns were waged to amend local divorce laws, and repeated attempts were made to achieve uniform marriage and divorce laws...through a constitutional amendment.
"After their admission to the Union in 1889 North and South Dakota retained Dakota Territory's generous ninety-day residence requirement. Sioux City, largest and most accessible town in the two states, soon developed a substantial divorce trade and gained national fame as a divorce colony.
"Antidivorce forces were active within the established Protestant churches. During the Progressive Era repeated efforts were made in all the great Protestant denominations to stiffen their positions on divorce.
"The attack on divorce hinged on the common belief that divorce destroyed the family, which was the foundation of society and civilization....Lyman Abbott, an influential Progresive editor and associate of Theodore Roosevelt once charged a prominent divorcee with being 'the worst type of anarchist' because divorce, like anarchy, threatened to destroy society altogether. President Roosevelt, in addressing Congress on the need for uniform [divorce] legislation, described marriage as being 'at the very foundation of our social organization.'
"Marriage and the family are, of course, quite different institutions, but critics of divorce did not usually distinguish between them."
William L. O'Neill, "Divorce in the Progressive Era," American Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 2 (Summer 1965).
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So let's all celebrate and defend and work on our individual marriages because they matter to us for a panoply of reasons -- but, um, let's not gild the lilly about how it was all sunshine and roses in Ye Olden Tymes -- and would be again, "if only."
Hey SP (AKA Smarty Pants), I didn't say that I need to be nameless but ooookayyy.
Identifying the value of marriage (or perhaps "intact families" would be a better phrase) doesn't require romanticizing old times...just maybe suggesting we don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
Divorce statistics aside, I still hold that modern thinking revolves around "What makes me feel good." You are arguing divorce statistics, and I'm simply searching for a root cause as to WHY the divorce statistics are what they are - beyond the obvious reason that all human beings are flawed.
Quite honestly, I think the core reason for divorce whether 1889 or 1989 usually can be peeled back to reveal selfishness - whether by an LBS or WAW - said selfishness just manifests itself in different ways. In 1889, I would put forth that most marriages consisted of Cowboy Jim catching Schoolgirl Susy's eye, and then they got hitched. In 2009, people will LIVE together for 5 years, have kids, then decide to get married, and then divorce. If you can't figure each other out after 5 years, then is there any hope for the human race?
Going forward, I owe you an apology, SP. Although I've enjoyed this discourse and delving into what makes all of DBing tick, I didn't mean to distract from your situation.
Whether we agree or not on specific issues, what counts is that there is perhaps a light at the end of the tunnel for you and the inimitable Missez. My kudos to you for making an effort at your marriage, and I sincerely wish the best of luck to both of you.
Plus, my stich isn't as different as one might think...just elementally (or environmentally) different.
