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There is the assumption in your post that stability is preferable to change. I don't agree with that premise at its core (outside of family raising reasons). Many marriages are stable and life long, but are the people happy? Is it what is best? Healthiest? Being able to leave when things aren't working is very important. It is healthy. I don't know any person that has left cohabiting after years on a whim. It is an incredibly emotional experience and done after much work and soul searching, but yes, it is easier than having to go through a divorce (and less expensive) and that is a good thing.
I also hate the notion of there must be someone at "fault" when a divorce occurs. Some people, lots of people perhaps, just grow apart. There is no fault in that necessarily, it is part of growing as people.
There are big fallacies in your post, the first of which has to do with vocabulary. Stability is not synonymous with stagnancy or ossification. Never has been, never will be. Stability is simply the belief that there are some things you can count on, day in and day out, giving you the mental freedom to pursue the passions of your life. Have steady drama in your life, and it gets pretty difficult to do anything well at all in any arena of life.
I mean, I have done all kinds of cool things with my life. Started business and sold them. Taken risks. Tried new things. But my wife has always been there for me and always will be. See how that works? While, right now, we're in the last few years of educating our children, the day will come where we can go on new adventures. Living on a sailboat still seems to hold us in thrall. Knock on wood, the money looks good enough for us to do it. Does marriage prevent your climbing K2? Most likely, unless you have buckets of money and a spouse who doesn't mind absences of months on end. But for just about every other reasonable objective in life, it's no impediment at all. And blaming your marriage for holding you back is tantamount to an excuse.
And, yes, there is a fault when a divorce occurs. Sometimes it's one person who is responsible, but typically it's both who share the blame. For they have failed to really put the needs of the relationship above their own personal needs. No, it doesn't mean that you subjugate your ambitions in order to be married. What it means is that you communicate your ambitions before you get married, and every day after you're married. For marriages die not from a lack of excitement, but from a lack of conversation. And conversation requires talking AND listening.
This business about growing apart? That's not a problem in and of itself, no matter what some shallow therapist might say. It is a symptom of a disease, of two people who fail to connect with each other every single day and who fail to make each other the priorities of their lives. My wife and I have very busy professional lives and we have three kids. We have friends and passions and hobbies that often take us in opposite directions.
But, no matter what, we talk to each other every single day. When our kids were little, it might have been 9 pm. When they got older, we shooed them out of the den as we enjoyed a glass of wine or beer together. But there's absolutely no question with each other that our spouses deserve our absolute attention. Not just hearing the words, but recognizing what is behind the words. Three years ago, I had a three-week trip overseas. Because I was in a timezone ten hours ahead of my wife, it was hard to touch base with her. So we actually went three days without talking. It was weird, as if a vital organ had been torn from me. I felt incomplete. At times like that, you realize what a good marriage does for you. It adds to your life rather than subtracting from your fun.
So when people grow apart, that means they are failing to do that simple act of devotion to each other on a daily basis. It's the equivalent of failing to change the oil in the car. Sure, it can run for a while without problems. But let it go too long, and the results will be catastrophic. In the same way, marriages run on conversations, the ongoing dialog between husband and wife. For you are doing something far more important than burning up the sheets. You are building your life together, which is altogether even more satisfying in the long run.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
There are big fallacies in your post, the first of which has to do with vocabulary. Stability is not synonymous with stagnancy or ossification. Never has been, never will be. Stability is simply the belief that there are some things you can count on, day in and day out, giving you the mental freedom to pursue the passions of your life. Have steady drama in your life, and it gets pretty difficult to do anything well at all in any arena of life.
No, they are not synonymous, but they are not exclusionary either. Stability isn't inherently good, just as change (what i think you call "drama") isn't necessarily bad.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
I mean, I have done all kinds of cool things with my life. Started business and sold them. Taken risks. Tried new things. But my wife has always been there for me and always will be. See how that works? While, right now, we're in the last few years of educating our children, the day will come where we can go on new adventures. Living on a sailboat still seems to hold us in thrall. Knock on wood, the money looks good enough for us to do it. Does marriage prevent your climbing K2? Most likely, unless you have buckets of money and a spouse who doesn't mind absences of months on end. But for just about every other reasonable objective in life, it's no impediment at all. And blaming your marriage for holding you back is tantamount to an excuse.
Good. It works for you. Doesn't work for lots of long term married people. Climbing K2 sounds pretty cool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
And, yes, there is a fault when a divorce occurs. Sometimes it's one person who is responsible, but typically it's both who share the blame. For they have failed to really put the needs of the relationship above their own personal needs. No, it doesn't mean that you subjugate your ambitions in order to be married. What it means is that you communicate your ambitions before you get married, and every day after you're married. For marriages die not from a lack of excitement, but from a lack of conversation. And conversation requires talking AND listening.
You know, some people just grow apart. We're all growing, and hopefully changing, sometimes we just go in different directions. Nothing wrong with that. Move on to new experiences!
The thing here is you're saying what has worked for you (so far) would work for everyone if they just followed your rules for communication and dedicated themselves to each other like you seemingly have. Nothing could be further from the truth. People can do everything "right" and it still doesn't work anymore. Sure, people can stay for the sake of staying, if they want that stability. There is no one size fits all answer to this stuff.
What I've heard most often is that it's only the top 10% of men that 80% of all women want to sleep with. Actually reproducing has nothing to do with it. No idea if it's true or not.
it's hard to compare those percentages though. one is cumulative by age 40 (a childless 19 year old does not count against it) whereas the other is not (i.e. unmarried 19 year olds do count against it)
depending on the spin one wanted to put on it, one could instead point to the stat that ~80% of mothers are currently married (page 13 of CDC study)
The claim comes from genetics. I believe I was the last person who mentioned it. Here you go. This NYT blog piece from a few years ago points to the source:
The claim comes from genetics. I believe I was the last person who mentioned it. Here you go. This NYT blog piece from a few years ago points to the source:
It's interesting... but flawed. He asks what percentage of your ancestors were men... that's 50% (unless there was incest in the family tree). What he meant to ask was what percentage of your ancestors reproduced. He's confusing an individual’s ancestors with humanity’s ancestors.
But semantics aside, The big thing he left out though, was that in ancient times the cradle of civilization practiced polygamy--meaning one man could take many wives or he had one wife and several concubines. Look at King Solomon and his 1000 wives. All things being equal, 999 men didn't get to reproduce. Of course, that's an extreme--most men just took 2-3 wives (still that left some men out). Also, women often died in child birth so a man might have a wife, she has a baby and dies a few days later, so he takes another wife, etc. Then you have wars where the typical response of an invading army was to kill the men and rape and enslave the women and children (often castrating the young boys).
My point is, I have no doubt that ancient women cheated on their husbands too--but with the penalty being death in so many cultures, I think other reasons are probably more likely. And it would seem, based on the CDC statistics posted earlier and our modern culture, that it's kind of moot today--at least in the United States.
What would be interesting to do is project the future. There are many cultures today that kill female fetuses in favor of male (especially places like China where they have the one child policy). There are already repercussions there with female kidnappings and forced marriages. I wonder how that's going to play out with statistics.
The claim comes from genetics. I believe I was the last person who mentioned it. Here you go. This NYT blog piece from a few years ago points to the source:
According to this link, the 'source' is just some dude's speculation. He says, 'Maybe 80 percent of women reproduced, whereas only 40 percent of men did.'
There is no citation in the linked article, but it says that the guy giving the speech might have one. Did you listen to the speech? Did you find any citation?
ETA: Here is Baumeister's work homepage. It's interesting to note that his research focuses so heavily on narcissism, social exclusion, rage, and gender. Kinda sounds like he is studying a certain subgroup we see around here.
Last edited by NilaJones; 10-23-2013 at 12:18 PM..
While the stat might be a little off, there is truth to it.
Women are instinctually attracted to masculine men, confident, aggressive, big, tall, sexually confident and with larger then average penis size. They might settle with a ninny man, but they long for the described.
Why do you think every woman out there, has her, "huge penis" story, when only like 5% of men truly fall outside the normal range of size? Because men with big penises are confident and sleep with lots and lots of women, so your girl you're with now, has likely ran into one of these men. As a consequence, she may have had a child with such a guy and then later meets, "Mr. Average" stable guy to "settle down with."
As the above relates to penis size, it also relates to other characteristics. Most women want a stable guy who will treat them right, but also want a man's, man. When they realize they can't have both and settle into accepting a "good guy" as a life partner, they have realized, guys with all the sexual and attractive qualities they want and to be loyal and faithful are just not to be found. So they settle.
This is why only 40% of men have created offspring. The good guys, just don't get around as much, as they are blocked by women.
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