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I'm not sure what you are driving at. My parents were married for 30 years. My father has an MSW from a top university and an LCSW. My mother worked for the school district for 30 years and retired. Going to college is not that relevant to how a lot of people adjust to their post-college lives. M parents actually adjusted quite well. My father had the G.I. bill, they bought their first house, then their 2nd, then their 3rd. Each house was a further step up. My mother had deep unresolved issues related to child abuse and other parental issues.
My family is actually full of long term marriages. There have been a few divorces, followed by long term marriages. Several marriages have reached 50+ years (my peers).
You are very defensive.
You are the one who made of point of saying that your parents went to college. If this wasn't relevant, why did you mention it? You also ended your first post with the statement that you suffered due to your parent's marriage. Who is the "everyone" to whom you are referring in the last sentence of the first post if not you?
I was responding to your posts, which included:
"What I also realized after talking to one of my father's brothers years ago is that my father didn't really love my mother. I think he liked her, and I think he liked her well enough to marry her. But I think thete was pressure to marry, generally speaking. As time went on he was increasingly unhappy and she was too, but they stuck it out because of "the age of non-divorce." Also, my father was a marriage and family therapist. He thought that it would hurt his career if he got divorced. So that had a lot of bearing on their attitude about "can do" and "can't do."
It seems to me that a lot of such marriages took place and everyone suffered for it to varying degrees."
and
"My parents met at college before my dad had to go off to the war."
I kick back at people who bait me or take issue with my posts as if I am completely wrong and they are completely right.
It is a discussion. If you perceive it as defensive, that is your prerogative. Doesn't change the fact that when someone gets the wrong impression or is unnecessarily critical, I'm not going to keep quiet.
The "everyone" is everyone in my nuclear family. Excuse me for not being crystal clear and minutely correct.
How can you possibly know the true character of your potential spouse when they are posing? It happens a lot. Too much.
My point is that there are no guarantees in life. Not ever. Not with parents, marriage, children, jobs, neighbors.
That's one advantage of living together before marriage (which rarely was ever done before the 1960s "sexual revolution").
Hopefully any abusive or other "red-flag" behavior will become apparent when unwed couples experience each others' true sides (true colors) on both good and bad days.
In the 1960s, New York State required adultery as the only permissible grounds for divorce. The comedy movie "A Guide for the Married Man" shows a married man paying a photographer to take pictures of him in bed with a hooker, as evidence.
Young comedian Woody Allen in the 1960s, quipped, "The Ten Commandments say "Thou shalt not commit adultery. .... But New York state says you have to."
Last edited by slowlane3; 03-12-2022 at 02:30 PM..
This thread is related to the Boomers and Pessimism thread in the Retirement forum.
I saw several different posts in the other thread about parents who had a positive outlook and took advantage of postwar prosperity and opportunities.
About 20 years ago I had the realization that in World War II almost every soldier had a girl at home waiting for him, and almost every girl had a guy she was waiting for to come home after the war.
What I also realized after talking to one of my father's brothers years ago is that my father didn't really love my mother. I think he liked her, and I think he liked her well enough to marry her. But I think thete was pressure to marry, generally speaking. As time went on he was increasingly unhappy and she was too, but they stuck it out because of "the age of non-divorce." Also, my father was a marriage and family therapist. He thought that it would hurt his career if he got divorced. So that had a lot of bearing on their attitude about "can do" and "can't do."
It seems to me that a lot of such marriages took place and everyone suffered for it to varying degrees.
My father served in WWII. He caught Malaria and spent time in a VA hospital and after that he and my mother married, he was 25 and she was 16. There were no jobs at that time in the foothills of the rural Appalachia mountains so dad had to go north to find work. Mom did not want to be left behind in fear of losing him so they went ahead and married. It was not uncommon to marry young at that time and there was not much other than marriage for women. I never actually asked but they seemed happy enough, my father more so than my mother, but they never considered divorce. I do believe they were very much in love when they married.
Well, the reason I quoted "reasons' is that people are now divorcing over rather petty things. Like a kid that gets bored of a new toys after few months and wants a new toy. People have likened their partners to that of a new model that you just simply get bored of after so long.
I dont think that is often true at all. Perhaps to an outsider trying to look in it may seem petty but there are usually deeper underlying issues going on. Divorce is always very difficult emotionally and certainly sets both back financially, it disrupts lives, it is painful. I dont believe may people go through that over petty things or boredom.
I'm going to be seeing my father in the next 2 weeks. I'm going to ask him about this issue. I think he's able and willing to talk about it now - the fact that he felt pressured to marry, the fact that he found out waaaay too late that my mother was emotionally and mentally ill (took him a long time to figure it out because she was a playacting extrovert).
You really should have that conversation. Both my parents passed and there are so many adult conversation I wish I had had with them. Now it is too late and I will never have the answers to some things I wish I knew about their lives.
My parents went to school together and my mother waited for my dad when he served in WWII. They married in 1946 and she died 10 years ago today, 12 days after their 66th anniversary. Never saw two people more in love.
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