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Sad now though the way marriage has been so degraded and talked about these days.l mean if people really think it's just about a piece of paper then they mustn't have been married.
Me , as l was sayin and l've thought a lot about it last few yrs but l am in two minds bc it seems to have such little respect these days and it's true you often hear people getting married talking about divorce when they haven't even married yet.That's how bad it's become. And so l often think well why bother then , never met a woman yet though who didn't want marriage. Well no one l was interested in anyway.
l mean if people really think it's just about a piece of paper then they mustn't have been married.
For many of the people who have concluded that it's "just a piece of paper," they reached that conclusion through the experience of being married.
I've met plenty of women who said they didn't want to get married. Some have never been married, and some were divorced. These women hadn't just gone through a breakup, but showed no interest in marriage for the years that I knew them. They had good careers and were financially savvy. Some were single mothers, some were happy being the cool aunt, some didn't like kids.
Sad now though the way marriage has been so degraded and talked about these days.l mean if people really think it's just about a piece of paper then they mustn't have been married.
Me , as l was sayin and l've thought a lot about it last few yrs but l am in two minds bc it seems to have such little respect these days and it's true you often hear people getting married talking about divorce when they haven't even married yet.That's how bad it's become. And so l often think well why bother then , never met a woman yet though who didn't want marriage. Well no one l was interested in anyway.
Women you meet, all want marriage. Once you sample the ware, considered it sold. So, don't touch the merchandise if you are not buying. You won't get out of the store without a messy struggle if you do.
This is true, but I've also seen my share of men who use a woman as their meal ticket. I know 2 different women at work whose husbands are like that. One of them has openly admitted it.
My husband is going to be able to retire this year because I'm rockin' the breadwinner role. He wouldn't have been able to otherwise. The way I see it, I adore him and I feel like he deserves all the good things I can possibly facilitate in his life. This is just another of those things. He gives me something that is beyond price, generous, loving, and enjoyable companionship. And he pulls that off without coming off as too soft and squishy and submissive, if that makes any sense. The person who can be genuinely perfect for the life you want to live, is the one to marry, I figure. As for the money, if you can make it work, you can make it work! While my husband's contributions to the household finances are not as much and will likely decrease even more in the years to come, he isn't a very expensive dude. He's not draining to my financial situation. He is frugal and financially responsible. It makes a big difference.
I wanted to address some of your other points but in a general sense and I don't really feel like multi quoting here...you talk a lot about studies and statistics. And yeah, for making a point in a forum, there's little better to stand on. But who lives their life that way, though? My own life defies several of the points that you mentioned. My first husband and I cohabitated for 10 years before marrying, and the kids were fine during all that time. But it is possible that had I left instead at some point and single parented them, before his serious mental break and the trauma that went with it, maybe my boys would be more mentally healthy now. Maybe not, since the main issue seems to be a condition with my youngest that he probably inherited. But the absence of serious trauma might have helped. Who can know? Not me.
I mean, people call me an outlier when I point out that my experiences don't fall neatly with some statistically backed narrative, but EVERY person is living a story, a situation...it makes little sense to me, to make your choices based on statistics. I could have refused to date or allow myself to be loved after my first divorce because "statistics" say that a second marriage would be more likely to fail. I think that would have been stupid, and it would have denied me something wonderful, that has made me very happy!
And regarding some being sad that some of us consider marriage a piece of paper, the paper is one PART of it. There are a bunch of different elements to marriage, and you can do some of them without messing with the piece of paper at all. For some, religion is a part of it, but a lot of us are not religious. I'm not. I don't consider my marriage to be less valid because it's missing an element that matters to other people. The love and commitment, with the marriage I'm in now, was already there. It did not spring into being the moment we filed a document with the state, or said our vows. And really, I think, I think it's a little crazy and weird, to think that the threshold of not-married/married would make the difference between loving someone or not, feeling committed to them or not...how do you flip a switch on your emotions? That makes no sense to me.
Yes it makes us human but it also leaves scars that others and ourselves tend to pick at. We are more defensive about things that we normally might not be. My sister is going on 40 in a couple of years and she holds onto everything and she blindly rushes into a relationship with out letting go of anything. She fails to notice just how damaged the guy in question is, dooming the relationship.
Yeah. This is why I've never rushed into relationships and never will. Life in general beats us up, so why enter into one relationship after another that will beat us up even more?
We might not be conscious of it, but too many "failed" relationships can harden us. The best way to avoid becoming cynical and bitter, imo, is to be very choosy about relationships and try to learn from them (and about ourselves) before getting involved in another relationship.
I think some people use relationships as a way to avoid themselves.
My husband is going to be able to retire this year because I'm rockin' the breadwinner role. He wouldn't have been able to otherwise. The way I see it, I adore him and I feel like he deserves all the good things I can possibly facilitate in his life. This is just another of those things. He gives me something that is beyond price, generous, loving, and enjoyable companionship. And he pulls that off without coming off as too soft and squishy and submissive, if that makes any sense. The person who can be genuinely perfect for the life you want to live, is the one to marry, I figure. As for the money, if you can make it work, you can make it work! While my husband's contributions to the household finances are not as much and will likely decrease even more in the years to come, he isn't a very expensive dude. He's not draining to my financial situation. He is frugal and financially responsible. It makes a big difference.
I wanted to address some of your other points but in a general sense and I don't really feel like multi quoting here...you talk a lot about studies and statistics. And yeah, for making a point in a forum, there's little better to stand on. But who lives their life that way, though? My own life defies several of the points that you mentioned. My first husband and I cohabitated for 10 years before marrying, and the kids were fine during all that time. But it is possible that had I left instead at some point and single parented them, before his serious mental break and the trauma that went with it, maybe my boys would be more mentally healthy now. Maybe not, since the main issue seems to be a condition with my youngest that he probably inherited. But the absence of serious trauma might have helped. Who can know? Not me.
I mean, people call me an outlier when I point out that my experiences don't fall neatly with some statistically backed narrative, but EVERY person is living a story, a situation...it makes little sense to me, to make your choices based on statistics. I could have refused to date or allow myself to be loved after my first divorce because "statistics" say that a second marriage would be more likely to fail. I think that would have been stupid, and it would have denied me something wonderful, that has made me very happy!
And regarding some being sad that some of us consider marriage a piece of paper, the paper is one PART of it. There are a bunch of different elements to marriage, and you can do some of them without messing with the piece of paper at all. For some, religion is a part of it, but a lot of us are not religious. I'm not. I don't consider my marriage to be less valid because it's missing an element that matters to other people. The love and commitment, with the marriage I'm in now, was already there. It did not spring into being the moment we filed a document with the state, or said our vows. And really, I think, I think it's a little crazy and weird, to think that the threshold of not-married/married would make the difference between loving someone or not, feeling committed to them or not...how do you flip a switch on your emotions? That makes no sense to me.
You gave a very impressive account of your situation. I wonder why you would even do that. Surely, it can't be an attempt to seek validation. Even the Blessed Virgin Mary could not have done better than you going through what you went through with both your first husband and the present one.
You gave a very impressive account of your situation. I wonder why you would even do that. Surely, it can't be an attempt to seek validation. Even the Blessed Virgin Mary could not have done better than you going through what you went through with both your first husband and the present one.
LOL
I'm just like that, dude. Believe it or not, my walls of text have actually gotten smaller over the years. Other long time Relationships forum regulars can attest... It's just what I do. You don't have to read it. My feelings won't be hurt if you don't want to.
Validation? That's silly. Of course not. I do it to make a point, which is that real people living real lives, most of us don't make our decisions based on statistics. We are living, breathing stories. Doing what seems possible and good at the time, not what some study on the internet says has good odds of success.
Sometimes it goes well. Sometimes it goes poorly. No way to know unless you try. But I don't believe in forever. It's not real. If for no other reason, than the fact that people die. But that means that failure is just as temporary as success or anything else. Livin' for the journey, not a destination, and all that.
I wanted to address some of your other points but in a general sense and I don't really feel like multi quoting here...you talk a lot about studies and statistics. And yeah, for making a point in a forum, there's little better to stand on. But who lives their life that way, though?
Lot's of people do.
George Burns smoked everyday and lived to 100. When he finally died, the cause of death was heart failure, not lung cancer.
Occasionally there are data outliers. There are some people who smoke everyday, who still live long lives and never get lung cancer.
But that doesn't mean that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer nor that we should ignore the links between smoking and lung cancer either. Most people aren't data outliers, most people aren't George Burns.. My own grandfather died of lung cancer because he liked to smoke pipes and cigars. Luck is not a reliable life strategy.
The reason that it is useful to make decisions based on evidence and facts because their is an element of chance in all of our lives and its useful to know when decisions went your way or went against you, because you were making a good (bad) decision or because you were just (un)lucky.
George Burns smoked everyday and lived to 100. When he finally died, the cause of death was heart failure, not lung cancer.
Occasionally there are data outliers. There are some people who smoke everyday, who still live long lives and never get lung cancer.
But that doesn't mean that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer nor that we should ignore the links between smoking and lung cancer either. Most people aren't data outliers, most people aren't George Burns.. My own grandfather died of lung cancer because he liked to smoke pipes and cigars. Luck is not a reliable life strategy.
The reason that it is useful to make decisions based on evidence and facts because their is an element of chance in all of our lives and its useful to know when decisions went your way or went against you, because you were making a good (bad) decision or because you were just (un)lucky.
I don't need to know what % of smokers will one day develop lung cancer (and I do not know that information, actually) in order to know that smoking is horrible for my health on a number of levels.
But what % of car rides result in an accident? Not the majority. Yet I wear a seat belt, to mitigate the risk that if I DID get into one, hopefully I wouldn't die.
And I know people who are scared to get on a plane, but who are happy to drive a car every day. The statistics don't back up their choices. People are more afraid of sharks, than they are of dogs, but dogs kill far more people every year.
And given that I took the seatbelt level risk mitigation of taking my time to get to know my husband well, considering all aspects of the decision, all the boxes checked from the emotional to the financial to the sharing of goals and values, and so on...I think it would have been pretty stupid to refuse to get married just because I read somewhere that some % of second marriages end in divorce. That would seem like an odd way to live life and make choices, to me.
Sounds like you have a good wife whom you feel is a good person. Not every man is as lucky. Oftentimes, a guy is a quarry and falls into a trap setup by a huntress looking for a fool to carry her bag for life. So, you can't blame a man who fight to get out of every trap he falls into until he finds a good woman.
Oh my wife is a wonderful, playful woman but knows when to be serious. Has a career and is good mother to my stepson and our daughter.
I took some bumps when me and her broke up at first but then we found our way back to each other. I found a diamond in the rough.
I couldn’t see myself upgrading from her.
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