91–100 of 125 posts
It still is for 80% of the world population.
> We are still traumatised by this.
I don't think that 80% of the world population would be traumatized. Arranged marriages work absolutely fine. It is rather the alternative that is in doubt.
Three notes I would add: 1) In response to the "know yourself" bullet: I met my now wife at 15 - we learned a lot about ourselves between then and when we married at age 22. But we were pretty much committed to marrying by age 18, even though we learned a lot after. You can learn with another person. 2) Life pro tip on understanding other people (this is a quick reinforcement of a bunch of points in the article): if…
> The odds of first marriage are better than 50/50
That depends on a shocking number of variables. For example, http://www.maselliwarren.com/2014/03/20/divorce-rates-increa... "60 percent of marriages for couples between the ages of 20 and 25 end in divorce. For couples who are even younger, the prognosis becomes bleaker still."
http://www.maselliwarren.com/2014/02/28/factors-affect-divor... "“Marriages are more likely to last for longer periods of time when people marry at an older age, have a higher education and earn more"
There was another source citing evidence that too much relationship experience prior to marriage can confound marriage happiness somewhat, but it was from a Christian (and therefore biased and/or scientifically suspect) source. Here's something more scientific:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7893...
Anyone giving out bullet points about marriage needs to back it up with some credentials - who are you to be making these statements?
This comes across a lot like self-help advice from someone needing some help.
'Learn by teaching' is a disaster in the making - you simply don't have the life experience to teach anyone anything but what a thousand thoughts going in a thousand different directions look like.
The heavy-intellectualizing of this post and the pomposity of 'book of life' - please take a look in the mirror and humble yourself, whoever the author may be :)
Three notes I would add: 1) In response to the "know yourself" bullet: I met my now wife at 15 - we learned a lot about ourselves between then and when we married at age 22. But we were pretty much committed to marrying by age 18, even though we learned a lot after. You can learn with another person. 2) Life pro tip on understanding other people (this is a quick reinforcement of a bunch of points in the article): if…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may not matter whether you can make it work, but it'll matter if you're having fun while you're trying...
You can have fun with a wide variety of people. It may require letting go of your preconceived notions of "fun" and being open to new experiences, though.
I think those who are 'fun' to 'fix' are therefore at risk of dependency on that. Like a drug.
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You can have fun with a wide variety of people. It may require letting go of your preconceived notions of "fun" and being open to new experiences, though.
I used to think this way, but what happens when they become dependent on you for emotional/financial/whatever sustenance? I think those who are 'fun' to 'fix' are therefore at risk of dependency on that. Like a drug.
There are lots of people in this world who don't need fixing and can be quite fun to hang with.
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Your precise situation is a common theory for why women disproportionately initiate divorce.
But, in aggregate, women, more so than men, understand that raising children is a significant and valuable career choice.
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But of course you could take a step back and ask why they're tired of their partner. Sometimes that's a result of an internal insecurity, too. Put another way, you might say that a person who is 'tired' of their partner is in some perhaps fixable way insecure about the relationship itself, of which they are a part.
So if every (or most) relationships are fixable, what does it matter who you pick as partner?
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Thanks, I've been working on my over-the-top writing style as it sparks discussion and draws attention. > 1) What percentage of partners that end up leaving the marriage do so with another partner lined up? According to [1], surveys show that 55% of people say infidelity is a contributing factor in the divorce. And that's probably just the ones that know (as it is often kept a secret), so we can take this number as a…
> "These people are often fighting these feelings for years: weighing their natural biological impulses against higher-level rational thought. Rational thought that has been crafted from the narratives of a culture, encouraging marriage as a virtue." Ah, but I think this concedes too much! The thrust of your argument is basically that we can boil down this very complex web of variables that make up the decision tree…
Liquidity, my friend. It's not easy to end and start new contracts in this manner. Well, things like Tinder are making it easier. But remember why we have so much societal pressure not to bounce around from relationship to relationship. It would be chaos. It would create a terrible society where all human energy would be directed towards mate optimization.
That's why certain types of societies thrive and succeed: they stabilize these things, through marriage. Marriage is the ultimate destroyer of relationship liquidity.
Again, I must reference Unwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin
> And what about all those cases where the impulse does not win out? Would you reduce all of those to the calculation returning, "No, I don't think I could do better!?"
Correct.
> Regardless, the story of why people divorce is much more complicated and rich than this simple impulse to look around and see greener grass.
It's about optimization: getting what's best for you, given constraints. We come up with social constructs, like marriage and church and behavior shaming (constraints), to reduce chaos and direct our energies to building a better society.
Don't get me wrong, I really do like the idea of marriage. But let's be clear about what it is, what the trade-offs are, and what happens when such constraints start to erode. Hint: more women start initiating divorces, because constraints are lifted ("no fault divorce"). Then more children start growing up in single-mother families, an excellent predictor of poor academic achievement and crime involvement for the child.
Fascinating topic.