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The Never Married, a New Normal

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Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#361

Post by ameminator »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #333
ameminator wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a personal judgement based on personal experience. I asked those same questions before deciding that maybe dating or marriage was not for me. However, you should make your own judgement call based off of your own experiences. Just be aware that something between 40 and 45% of first time marriages fail in North America (depending on the study).

> It's a personal judgement based on personal experience. ITT: parent poster is an unlikable jerk. or thinks they are, anyway. But you can marry someone you like, and courtship periods -- plus the modern "live together for a while and try it out" thing -- means you can find someone you like. Plus they're your spouse; your job is to try to keep them (sorta) happy.

I mean, pretty much. However, I've also been pretty happy and - more importantly - fulfilled, without marriage. It's to the point where I don't understand why someone would take the risk (in both capital and personal impact), especially when divorce rates seem so high.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#362

Post by [deleted] »

nine_k wrote: post #281
shadowgovt wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents' generation could raise two kids on one full time job. No way I'd try raising even one on a single income any more. So my wife and I can have a much nicer quality of life with zero kids.

This is a very understandable disposition. Not going to criticize. This trait also naturally removes itself from the gene pool.

[deleted]

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#363

Post by lotsofpulp »

Jcowell wrote: post #331
zwaps wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk of marriage is what makes the commitment meaningful. Of course, you can always substitute for marriage with other forms of commitment in partnerships, marriage is just a particular choice. In your writing, however, it rather appears to me that you do not see the value in committing to another person at all - in whatever shape or form. In that case, I would say that the desire for marriage is likely to remain…

> In your writing, however, it rather appears to me that you do not see the value in committing to another person at all - in whatever shape or form. In that case, I would say that the desire for marriage is likely to remain an enigma to you. No I think his problem is putting his assets on the line in order to have a commitment to which he think is ridiculous when he could just simply, ya know, commit.

> No I think his problem is putting his assets on the line in order to have a commitment to which he think is ridiculous when he could just simply, ya know, commit.

How does the other party know if the claim of committing is genuine or a lie? The sacrifice is the signaling mechanism.

It is like celebrating with a “high value” food or drink. Something that took time and effort to prepare, or cost a lot. Practically, you can share a meal from Chipotle and still obtain your calories, but the point of the exercise was not the meal, but the sacrifice.

Similarly, you can text someone “congrats” or you can sacrifice your time to go to their wedding. And on the other side, the couple can sign the documents at city hall, and text everyone a picture of it, or they can sacrifice and have a ceremony they invite people to.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#364

Post by runarberg »

gateorade wrote: post #345
runarberg wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A child of a single parent here (a bastard if you will). No it does not.

This is a nice anecdote, but it doesn’t mean anything. In the US at least, being raise by a single parent is a massive statistical indicator for basically every negative social outcome. Poverty, criminality, future generational single parenthood, etc.

I wasn’t raised in the US.

Aside from that my anecdote is no less scientific than your conjecture. Correlation is not causation, it is far more likely that this statistical indicator comes from a third variable, say poverty.

USA has a abysmal social safety network. Single parents are left to fend for them selves, without protections in the workplace (meaning they can loose their jobs), without child sick leave, without financial support, with unavailable and unaffordable child care, etc. etc. Of course a kid raised under these conditions is gonna be statistically more likely to correlate with other negative outcome.

PS. I’m slightly insulted you unapologetically put future generational single parenthood in the category of negative social outcome. As if you’ve already concluded that it is bad.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#365

Post by inkcapmushroom »

Dalewyn wrote: post #206
emodendroket wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I see what makes that more equal than treating all of your money as a shared resource between the two of you. Unless you have exactly the same income I think the opposite is true.

If you rely on your spouse for your finances in any way, it means they are superior to you. You aren't financially independent and thus aren't equal, at least not within any immediate timeframe.

If I make more money, and my spouse and I agree to split expenses evenly and keep our separate finances, and as a result I'm enjoying luxuries without them because they can't afford them, I hardly see how my spouse is more equal in this scenario. They'll probably resent me for not sharing my good fortune with them, and it will absolutely still lead to bad power dynamics in a relationship. If we don't split expenses evenly because I make more so that we can end up with roughly an equal amount of "fun money" each in the end, then it's just shared finances with extra steps and constant adjustment of percentage expense burden as relative incomes change.

Most couples will try to cover shared expenses with their combined income and then equally distribute the remainder, so that neither of you is left wanting. Of course if you're the one making significantly more (or a sole income provider) you might see this arrangement as mooching or unfair as you're contributing more. But there's more dimensions you can contribute to in a relationship than just financial, and hopefully both partners can recognize that.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#366

Post by lotsofpulp »

rrgok wrote: post #316
mlindner wrote: post #224

The new normal on how civilization gradually ends. People need to stop not having kids. You’re destroying civilization in the long term.

At the risk of being downvoted to hell. I'm genuinely trying to understand: what would the issue if civilization collapse and, in the extreme case, human species goes extinct? If you are not alive by then (which is probably the case), would you feel something?

> what would the issue if civilization collapse

Generally, a collapse is considered a bad thing. Surely for those underneath or on top of the thing that is collapsing.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#367

Post by emodendroket »

anonzzzies wrote: post #268
adam_arthur wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you concretely agree on the finances or you don't. If you don't have any explicit understanding/agreement, the vast majority of relationships are going to have problems. Having separate accounts forces you to come to an explicit consensus

I know 0 people personally who had issues over money, but I don’t live in the US. The divorces in my circles fight (but not even in court) over the kids. And most of my friends are married without a prenup. Some divorced: no problems about money. Nothing formal needed. I am not going to make some explicit consensus arrangement with my wife; if I felt that was needed, we wouldn’t be together.

Given that this is HN I expect the readership to be higher-income on average, which makes resolving money problems relatively easy as fewer sacrifices are necessary in the first place. It’s a pretty consistent finding that disagreements about either money or child-rearing are the most common cause for divorce.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#368

Post by ameminator »

lapcat wrote: post #300
ameminator wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a personal judgement based on personal experience. I asked those same questions before deciding that maybe dating or marriage was not for me. However, you should make your own judgement call based off of your own experiences. Just be aware that something between 40 and 45% of first time marriages fail in North America (depending on the study).

> It's a personal judgement based on personal experience. I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Are you saying that nobody likes you? If so, then maybe that's a "you" problem and not a "them" problem... > I asked those same questions before deciding that maybe dating or marriage was not for me. Forget marriage for a second, you don't even want to date ? If so, I'm not sure you're really one to be giving advice her…

Exactly, you should make your own judgement, based on your personal circumstances, including how agreeable you are.

In terms of dating, when I engage in that, I aim for pure companionship. It always struck me as wrong to use another person, either for intimacy or even as an emotional crutch. Relationships, when they do happen, usually last quite a while but may be a different experience for the other person involved, from their previous relationships.

However, these are personal anecdata. Is it so hard to look at the statistics and results and make your own conclusion?

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#369

Post by inkcapmushroom »

Llamamoe wrote: post #251
emodendroket wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that’s not what I’m saying. If you think “well I’m going to do this this way because it’s easier to back out,” it will encourage you to treat the relationship in a way that makes it less likely to last.

Still a healthier alternative to broken relationships continuing for years because of the high bar to leaving it that are the de facto norm for our civilization. Commitment encourages treating the relationship as a sealed deal and not putting effort into its maintenance.

Commitment just as often encourages treating the relationship as a sealed deal and thus putting much more effort into its maintenance. If you're being rational about it being in a failed marriage is a miserable experience that nobody enjoys living, so it makes more sense to put in effort to avoid that situation. If you're in a failed long-term relationship with an easy escape hatch you might not put in effort to fix things before they get really bad, because worst case you can just leave. In both cases if you aren't willing to put in work to fix the relationship there won't be any fixing it, so if you think you're that kind of person then yeah I would say you should avoid long term commitments to other people, marriage or no.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#370

Post by fuzzfactor »

jemmyw wrote: post #285
gameman144 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can speak to this in some degree: marriage is much more significant than a negotiated commitment for me personally. A negotiated commitment takes a specific form (the terms of the negotiation) but a marriage defines a commitment to be committed . I've heard some folks of my generation say things like "we got divorced because we fell out of love", which sharply contrasts with my view of marriage and falls more in li…

I don't really understand it tbh. I was with my partner for 10 years before we got married (for a visa) and we had 2 kids by then. It never occurred to me that I wasn't committed in every sense, and having that piece of paper made no difference. I kind of think that if you feel you need that official thing then it's a signal of not really being committed or loving in the first place, but that's more of a belief I'd t…

When an entrepreneur or other potentially risk-taking individual gets married, I silently think "Congratulations, now if one of you craters financially, you're both ruined."

What I enjoy most is a more faithful & trusting relationship than most marriages anyway.

Also depends on how much you like having a third party(s) involved in your relationship, for some people that's all they know or prefer, others not so much. Institutions can be so much bigger than any two people so the influence can still be outsized even without marriage.

"We don't need no piece of paper from the city hall . . ."

--Joni Mitchell

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