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"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing." Anais Nin
Ah, yes. By the title of this piece am I about to attack the sacred cow? The institution that classic novels are written about, movies of every description from comedy to tragedy, TV shows, family, friends, coworkers, neighbors? It’s everywhere in every culture. It can be sublime but it can be ugly. Sometimes within the same marriage. Because . . . marriage evolves with or without us. And who do I think I am? I have experience. Don't we all? Like cancer, almost everyone knows someone with cancer or a diseased marriage.
I’ve been interested in marriage, scientifically, for many years. When my own marriage ended I sort of began a lifelong study of the institution we call marriage and by “study” I mean-observation. Sit down with an address book one day and alarming information can be found. Include the office list of coworkers. Throw in some neighbors. Spend time per address and really dig into the folks listed therein and the facts pour out of the pages like a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Then there are celebrities, Congress, and corporate giants. But it’s just simple deduction, my dear Watson. Marriage doesn’t work well.
Certainly statistics prove the sad state of marriage but not entirely because some choose not to divorce and they simply live in misery. Or complacency. I can just hear the shouting “but my parents were happily married 80 years.” Those folks are more rare than hen’s teeth. It’s like hearing about someone who lives to 105 and smoked and drank and ate steak every day. How many of those are there in the world? Most people who smoke and drink and eat poorly do not make it to 105. Some are lucky if they make it to 40.
Of the marriages that go the distance a good number of them are together because they have to be for a variety of self-imposed reasons. Many would have given anything to be free but could not or would not leave. But don't take my word for it. Since this is posted on the Internet it means readers have a somewhat comfortable familiarity with how research works. Go for it. It’s easy but let me help a bit. I’ll post some interesting things to read at the end and cite some statistics. Please dig in if stomach issues aren’t a problem. It isn’t reading for the faint of heart. It’s depressing but it’s enlightening as well. It’s a learning experience. If we learn from it. (I did.)
But that’s not really what this particular post is about. I’ve written about that before. We all know the statistics and they are not pretty. What I really want to touch on is why? Why isn’t marriage changing and why aren’t we, individually, demanding better marriages? Why can’t we learn early on how to select mates and once selected why can’t we see that if we marry at 20 by 40 we will be different and perhaps too different for our mates? Why can’t we accept changes in our mates without divorce? Of course, if our mates end up with addictions or become mean and/or violent we have issues that are more serious to deal with but many marriages just end because one person is bored with the other or really hates his golf or hates her shopping or hates his nights out with the boys or hates her snoring or hates kids (even their own) or hates being in bed with the same aging body day after day night after night week after week month after month year after year and so on. Most couples seem to divorce out of monotony and not animosity. I know many. Traditional marriage vows vaporize into thin air. For better or worse but not for mediocre? And do all of us need to marry? Can we live life without marriage and kids? Is it our duty or our desire to marry?
So more interesting to me are the statistics on folks not getting married. Some of those statistics include people who have divorced and decided not to marry again along with those who plan on never getting married or who thought at the time of the studies they were not getting married. The reasons for both groups are often—the same! If someone is married for 20 years and things don’t go according to the Cinderella story it is somewhat likely they will not look for a second marriage. But that story affects those who never married because they have observed so many failed marriages in their own family, their friends, coworkers, neighbors, and so on. In particular, young educated women who have developed careers find it hard to find a husband with the same values and goals regarding lifestyle choices whereas many years ago, i.e., in the ‘40s and ‘50s, women placed high significance on marriage for security. Today’s young women provide their own security so they look for something else in marriage.
I recall in my youth some teen girls were a bit shallow if boys asking them out on dates didn’t have the right car! I thought that was terrible and never considered that an important part of a boy’s value. But now that theory has morphed to a high level. Does the young man have a good education followed by a good job followed by a home or at the very least a decent apartment while saving to purchase a home and does he take quality vacations, does he have a solid retirement plan, does he smoke or drink, does he maintain a healthy lifestyle, does he have a nice family, and dozens of other qualities that a self-sufficient modern woman requires? Is love enough for the modern woman? Certainly it’s desirable to find a mate with the qualities we hope for and love would be a big plus but years ago love came first then the life values and lifestyle choices came hit or miss thereafter. Some cultures spend considerable time selecting the right mates for their children and then force the children to marry. Western cultures don't like that idea but I certainly understand why it exists. I wouldn’t have wanted my parents to select a husband for me but then I didn’t do so well on my own. Could their choice have been worse?
It seems prudent to study a relationship early on before latching on to a lifetime of misery just because one’s toes curl. Toe curling doesn’t always carry over on the long haul and is often replaced by a different love. After the toe curling there must be mutual caring toward each other and the overall value of the relationship and where it’s going. Nothing can flatten one’s toes like living with a partner who was just a happy-go-lucky partier years ago but eventually turned into a lurching and drunk blackout danger to society. People change in marriages and sometimes there are good changes and sometimes not so much. None of us have crystal balls so we need to be a bit more scientific. When we meet someone and on the first date they have four or five martinis while checking porn on their smart phone, that’s a sign. The sign says “RUN.” Read the signs. They may be able to hold that amount of liquor at age 25 but will they be able to do that at 45? If they are even alive at 45?
Then, we all know relationships that hit the skids when the babies came. Loving children to the point of insanity is somewhat normal but that obsession with them often can bring down a shaky marriage in just a few years. I know countless women who raised kids alone when the tough times hit the family over the addition of children. It had nothing to do with the love the couple felt for their children but rather they were unprepared for the cost, the crying, the sleepless nights that go on forever, the throwing up, the cost, the endless diapers and smells, the weight gain that stubbornly hung on even when meals were hit or miss (and crappy), the cost, the trips to the doctors, some at the speed of light due to serious illness or injury, the lack of “couple” time, the cost, the lack of “me” time, fighting over religious choices that had never been discussed, the cost, the home growing too small over night [tiny babies have so much “stuff”], in-laws butting in with parenting advice, the cost, one parent finding working full-time horrendous but part-time or time off impossible, the cost, and the list goes on and it’s huge. Then there’s the cost.
Today’s young men and women are looking at marriage as a total package, including a hard look at raising kids, and some are deciding, nope, too much, not for me. Because they are capable of maintaining their own lives comfortably and do not need the additional income to enjoy a nice life, they are choosing to remain single. Some choose to have a child without a partner through a surrogate or adoption or insemination or whatever. I know I found raising two kids without a second person in the home much more rewarding than when that person was around. I was able to become a benevolent dictator and called all the shots and I never had to run it by someone else who may or may not have the same ideas about raising children. Huge gigantic arguments take place over parenting. Or one parent does it all while the other checks out mentally and emotionally. I don't think a lot of young people today want that and they know it’s out there.
I have young people in my life who have married and some who have not married. I’m impressed with the young married folks in my circle of acquaintances and family members and have noticed they do not resemble at all the marriages I grew up with or the marriages in my young adult life. There’s much more give and take, much more sharing of responsibilities, usually both work or at the least one works part-time when the kids are very young, and they seem to understand the complexities of changing as they grow older. At least, so far. The statistics still include that group but then the statistics also allow for those who never marry or are not marrying at a young age or those who choose not to have children. But we know how statistics are. Dig deeply enough and there’s a statistic to support any opinion.
I know there are a variety of instructional classes kids participate in regarding child rearing and family issues but I think these classes need to be stronger and larger and a more intricate part of education beginning with preschool. Every level of education should include the very basics of human behavior in a family and especially finances and babies. Those two issues are tremendous and if not handled with maturity and a solid background in what it takes to deal with those issues marriages will fall apart. Sadly, often a few years after the babies come. Religion doesn’t always keep couples together either. Some divorce because one member of the couple is too religious or not religious enough. Some change religions completely during the marriage. Some marry with different religions completely (toe curling) only to discover when the babies come it’s a lot more important than they thought it would be.
Because I have a big fat address book that I’ve maintained since my teens, and because I’ve had the good fortune to live in many different locations, I have known a large number of people. All I can say is, I’m sure glad I can put my addresses on my computer now because the divorces were causing cramping in my fingers when handwriting the changes. So much easier to type in the despair and misery.
But divorce doesn’t have to be miserable. It can be a boost to a sad life. It can bring peace and tranquility to shouting and uproar. It can bring second chances at changing lifestyles and release the bonds and baggage of long forgotten promises. It can set one free from suffering. It’s better to choose more wisely but when that doesn’t happen, be free. Life is short. As a popular advice columnist once wrote, it’s better to be alone than to wish you were. It’s my mantra.
The following link lists cold government statistics. Not emotional, just the facts:
Then here are a few interesting tidbits I found (but there are thousands of these):
The average age of a woman getting married in the United States is 27.
— Bride's Magazine
The average age of a man getting married in the United States is 29.
— Bride's Magazine
88 percent of American men and women between the ages of 20 and 29 believe that they have a soul mate that is waiting for them.
— University Wire, Louisiana State University
59 percent of marriages for women under the age of 18 end in divorce within 15 years. The divorce rate drops to 36 percent for those married at age 20 or older.
— "Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the United States," M.D. Bramlett and W.D. Mosher
60 percent of marriages for couples between the ages of 20 and 25 end in divorce.
— National Center for Health Statistics
50 percent of all marriages in which the brides are 25 or older result in a failed marriage.
— National Center for Health Statistics
65 percent of altar-bound men and women live together before getting married.
— Bride's Magazine
Research indicates that people who live together prior to getting married are more likely to have marriages that end in divorce.
— The Boston Herald
A recent study on cohabitation concluded that after five to seven years, only 21 percent of unmarried couples were still living together.
— The Boston Herald
55 percent of cohabitating couples get married within five years of moving in together. Forty percent of couples that live together break up within that same time period.
— Annual Review of Sociology
Children of divorce have a higher risk of divorce when they marry, and an even higher risk if the person they marry comes from a divorced home. One study found that when the wife alone had experienced a parental divorce, her odds of divorce increased to 59 percent. When both spouses experienced parental divorce, the odds of divorce nearly tripled to 189 percent.
— Journal of Marriage and the Family
The likelihood that a woman will eventually marry is significantly lower for those who first had a child out of wedlock. By age 35, only 70 percent of all unwed mothers are married in contrast to 88 percent of women who have not had a child out of wedlock.
— "Finding a Mate? The Marital and Cohabitation Histories of Unwed Mothers," Lawrence L. Wu and Barbara Wolfe
By the way, I have the fairy tale life I always wanted. I was married in 1967 and divorced in 1984 and I have lived happily ever after.
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