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The Never Married, a New Normal

psychologytoday.com

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Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#91
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married." Depending on your location you might already be married in a common law marriage.

> Depending on your location you might already be married in a common law marriage. Generally, where common law or informal marriage is recognized at all, it requires both shared intent to marry and publicly presenting as married. I know I’ve seen fiction where it requires little more than cohabitation, but that’s not a real thing.

In Canada all you need to do is live together in a "conjugal relationship" for 12 continuous months.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#92

I’ll risk it and defend marriage to this crowd. To me getting married was about getting out of myself. As someone who got married later in life, I’d spent decades living only for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Relationships were shallow and lasted only so long as convenient. By choosing to get married and intentional build a family, I knew I was sacrificing a lot of ego and choosing to give…

Starve the ego, feed the soul.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#93
post #10

My partner and I have been together for 7 years, we bought a house together, haven’t found a compelling reason to get married. Marriage is a complex and binding contract that for two high earners is a tax disadvantage. The most prominent benefits I’ve learned are some situations around visitation rights, and avoiding being compelled to testify against your spouse. It comes from a very dubious history of the husband e…

Married people report significantly higher levels of happiness/life satisfaction in the middle and later stages of life than non married people. This is a durable finding across many studies.

Somewhat, there are studies that control for "never married" vs "divorced", and other studies that lump them together.

In the cases of "never married", their happiness level approached that of married people in the last 10-15 years. Whereas divorced people were absolutely miserable, especially in the first few years following the separation.

This suggests that it's the divorcees who bring down the average happiness level of the "single" group, not that "marriage" brings up the happiness levels.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#94

I’ll risk it and defend marriage to this crowd. To me getting married was about getting out of myself. As someone who got married later in life, I’d spent decades living only for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Relationships were shallow and lasted only so long as convenient. By choosing to get married and intentional build a family, I knew I was sacrificing a lot of ego and choosing to give…

I can sacrifice my ego through meditation and acts of charity/volunteer work. No need to risk half of my current assets and future income on the whims of some potentially capricious other person, who probably doesn't like me very much anyways. Good luck to you, however.

[flagged]

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#95
Marriage is a signal of commitment to society.

It used to be that more social opportunities, status and privilege were afforded to married people.

The prevailing culture cares less about this signal. Or rather - there’s less of a prevailing culture than there used to be.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can sacrifice my ego through meditation and acts of charity/volunteer work. No need to risk half of my current assets and future income on the whims of some potentially capricious other person, who probably doesn't like me very much anyways. Good luck to you, however.

[flagged]

Every week 2 hours at a local organization. There are other ways in which i give back to my family and my community, which i don't intend to discuss here. Further, on this point, i do not need to justify these to you or any internet stranger. Who are you to police others and their morality?

I never said what gender i was or what gender i was interested in. I do know that i would probably earn a higher salary than my partner, which would disfavor me in a divorce. Perhaps it is you with the prejudice, assuming that women would earn less?

Finally, people in general are capricious. People change all the time. It seems like a large gamble to make on another person, based essentially how they feel.

Either way, maybe you should examine your own self before judging others. Humility has intrinsic value in and of itself and can be found in many places.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#98

Marriage is a signal of commitment to society. It used to be that more social opportunities, status and privilege were afforded to married people. The prevailing culture cares less about this signal. Or rather - there’s less of a prevailing culture than there used to be.

[deleted]

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Depending on your location you might already be married in a common law marriage. Generally, where common law or informal marriage is recognized at all, it requires both shared intent to marry and publicly presenting as married. I know I’ve seen fiction where it requires little more than cohabitation, but that’s not a real thing.

In Canada all you need to do is live together in a "conjugal relationship" for 12 continuous months.

Or have a child together. But common-law relationships and marriages are not the same thing in Canada, whereas other places where common-law marriages are recognized, they are legally identical to other marriages.

Re: The Never Married, a New Normal

#100

When you look at some repeatedly married people, both now and in history, and ask "why?" the only conceivable answer is, "They both felt they had to BE married." For all the usual reasons, they thought it was unacceptable to be single, both to society and to themselves. For the latter, it was the feeling, "I'm a loser whom nobody wants." In many societies, it IS almost unacceptable to be single. Thankfully that's les…

What would happen if folks could only marry once in their lifetime? Nothing to stop you from having a partner after a divorce, but you could not marry them.
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