25yearsmlc 10 yrs later I File D (part 4)

[Zues126]

Raising the quality of marriages is an important goal. Maybe it is the only way. And I would LOVE to hear your ideas about how this could be done 25!

Before we get to how though, I have to ask this- Suppose we couldn't improve the quality of marriages, and we simply had the choice of remaining in those marriages or getting divorced. Would divorce then be justified?

Most people that say they believe in marriage and are against divorce put in a small clause that goes "except in the event of abuse or addiction or adultery". The problem is that's too vague and could apply to 100% of spouses. Does someone buy too much on Amazon? Shopoholic! They watch porn? Adultery! They don't want to spend their free time together? Negligent and emotionally abusive! This isn't to say that there aren't some truly horrendous situations that arise that can't be tolerated, but the social movement to speak out against these intolerable situations has given a free pass to anyone that wants out for any reason. Why would you leave your spouse and have an affair? OH, YOU WERE BEING ABUSED AND THIS OTHER PERSON WAS JUST HELPING YOU FIND YOUR STRENGTH TO STAND UP FOR YOURSELF, GOOD FOR YOU!

Personally I believe these mediocre unhappy marriages should NOT be broken up. This if for two reasons.

First, I think that the true benefits of a marriage are way deeper than the superficial reasons that are observable with our five senses. Companionship, sex, going for walks, all great stuff...but even in a bad marriage there are deeper things like purpose, identity, witness to your life, stability, history, and some level of trust that can only be earned through years. Get a divorce and you can chase the walks on the beach and the sex, but you cannot ever replace the deeper and more meaningful offerings of marriage. How do you really trust someone who has been divorced twice? How do you really feel unconditionally needed by someone when they buy into the 'must not need anyone or I'll be forced to live with oppression I'm too good for' mentality and your former spouse already told you to hit the road? How do you replace decades of shared time during the formative years of your life? You simply can't.

Secondly, it doesn't even work. Today's narrative is that if we don't settle and we walk from a 'bad' marriage that we learn, and grow, and heal, and find ourselves. And that while it hurts we weren't 'compatible' and that it was a gift because we both meant well but it just wasn't 'right', and that now we must go look elsewhere because someone will be out there that won't be an addictive abusive cheater that will allow us to build the relationship we've always wanted that we just weren't ready for until we went through this cocoon phase. That's right, our first marriage is just the caterpillar and we are about to become a beautiful Monarch Butterfly! Oh, wait...2nd marriages fail more than firsts, and all we are doing at a macro-level is taking the same group of flawed humans and shuffling them around again and again, only this time with the baggage of broken families and disillusionment and without any of the benefits of shared history or true commitment. How can this possibly be a good strategy?

OK, I understand the idea that if people are willing to walk away from marriages it might force people to grow and be more demanding of themselves with the hope this would marital quality and thereby eventually lower the divorce rate. I'm just not seeing that happen.

In the end I am a believer in the camp that a marriage is forever, and I throw out the exceptions clauses that list pages of deal breakers that can be applied to all situations. Let's stay with our families and accept that we weren't put into this world to be fulfilled by others. Let's suffer together and have some occasional moments where your spouse does something that reminds you they know you better than anyone in the world because they've been with you for 30 years. Those moments trump a new sexual position in my book any day.

Now, if we can improve the quality of marriage as well then I'm all for it. But I'm not going to make my support of marriage conditional upon the stipulation of some future evolution of our ability to relate to each other.

All just my opinions of course. Just like I'm not too worried about it because I think that artificial intelligence is our best bet to work through this. I have less and less faith that we're figuring it out. Hey, AI just beat heads up no limit holdem. How much tougher can relationships be that a 5x pot bet on the river?