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blogging, insanitybytes, marriage, opinion, research, statistics
Recently I read about this bit of research and then stumbled upon Matt’s post, “THE COMING DIVORCE DECLINE? I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT”
Ha! I get the distinct impression he doesn’t believe it! I do. I’ve been researching and observing things on the ground that lead me to conclude that divorce is indeed declining. And I think the state of marriage is actually improving over all.
So a bit of history, my own parents had a nasty divorce, huge custody battle that spanned years, and basically engaged in a lifetime feud that nearly destroyed me. Today nearly everyone in my family is divorced, a few times over. Nearly everyone in my husband’s family is divorced. All our friends are divorced or never got married in the first place.
I was left feeling kind of like an odd duck, believing in marriage, but marriage in my world was portrayed as a great evil, and later when I got married myself, people where speaking doom and gloom over us constantly.
I started studying marriage long ago, not in a self-help sense, but in a cultural context. What have we as a culture done to the whole concept of marriage and why? While people are certainly responsible for our individual choices, when you have an anomalie like this, something has gone awry collectively, culturally, spiritually. I needed some answers and also some reassurance. I am laughing here, but my world is so upside down and crazy, I have actually had to defend marriage, had to defend my own marriage.
So I had to figure out what I believed about marriage and why. Am I engaging in a great evil? Promoting patriarchy? Responsible for destroying Western civilization? Shaming the ancestors? Selling out? Am I wrong to value marriage?
Those questions may sound slightly hysterical, but honestly I’ve heard them all, I’ve been accused of them all, and they were painful at the time. (That “selling out” one is humorous today, so perhaps I’ll keep it. Selling out was a angry reference to, “I hope the sex is good, you sell out.”)
So, I do not come from a world that is supportive of marriage, nor a world that tells you marriage and family are kind of like a foundational building block for our communities. I like to refer to marriage and family as a collection of little tribes within a larger tribe. If everyone is just a rugged individualist off doing their own thing, you wind up with something more like the Wild West or a drunken frontier of chaos, and a whole lot of people living lonely and disconnected lives. Often hard, short lives. Marriage is actually good for your health.
Really ironic to me, while we as a culture are looking down on traditional marriage, shunning it, we also have this huge gay marriage movement trying to portray marriage as so important it is like, a basic human right. I just cannot reconcile that contradiction of narratives. It makes no sense to me. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
I needed to understand so I could forgive, too. I was literally born into this raging storm and on the front lines of the divorce wars. In the process I actually met other people like me, and many younger too, basically the children of boomer parents who had seen a whole lot of divorce and broken families as children and we wanted something different.
So the sexual revolution, feminism, huge cultural shifts, the economy, and a really self focused generation, did a lot of damage to relationships in general and to the institution of marriage itself. So too did a lot of marriages in name only, or faith based marriages rooted in hypocrisy.
Those of us on the outside looking in weren’t sure which was worse, to keep chasing the idealism of marriage through five divorces or to just make a mockery of marriage by remaining married in name only while living out your real values on the down low. Either way, we didn’t have a lot of reasons to believe and trust in much of anything.
Many of us chased the idealism anyway, insisted on believing in something we could not really see reflected in the culture around us. Love Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Facts don’t always tell the whole story. Sometimes the truth is not something you can see, but something you simply have to believe until the evidence and substance comes to light. That much lauded and passed around urban legend, the divorce statistic that says, “half of all marriages end in divorce,” has been debunked six ways past Sunday, but it still permeates the narrative today. Higher divorce rates are actually generational and cultural. There are specific demographics that drive those numbers up. The divorce statistics for your own age group may be more like, 12 percent.
It’s a messy journey and we people are deeply flawed, far from perfect, so we’re bound to get it wrong, early and often, but over all, yes, I think there is hope on the horizon.
ColorStorm said:
How dare you continue to shame grandmothers and wither crops with your defense of marriage!! 😉
But to defend marriage, yikes, how low can we go as a society.
Btw, 36 yrs here, yesterday, so yeah, I too speak from experience that the time tested institution aka marriage is best described as it was prescribed, tks to the Creator.
Divorce tho? I do think people marrying frogs or gerbils is waning. Lol
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ha! Yep, some days you just have to wither a few crops, I guess. 🙂
Happy anniversary!
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The V Pub said:
I think that feminism, in some ways, really hurt the institution of marriage by portraying women, who choose to raise a family instead of entering the workforce, as inferior. I know this – the women in my family (mothers, aunts, and grandmothers) worked harder than anyone to make sure that the family was healthy and cared for. There wasn’t this male/female antagonism that I feel is prevalent today.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Amen, Rob. I think that’s very true. I didn’t mention it in the post, but another feminist message against being a wife and mom is, “don’t waste your life.” As if all the things women do to invest in people is somehow a waste.
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Alex said:
I saw those stats Matt pooh-poohed when the article came out, and I do understand his skepticism. Reading between the lines, it does seem that it’s LATE marriages that are mostly among the upper-middle and upper-classes and not necessarily for the purposes of producing children (as evidenced by the chronically low birth rates of American-born citizens).
Still, it’s A positive sign. One of the most destructive things, not spoken about, is how to encourage marriage amongst the so-called “lower classes” who’ve seen their livelihoods and their very reputations as human beings worthy of respect and dignity repeatedly destroyed.
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insanitybytes22 said:
You make a really good point about the “lower classes.” Every older person I know who is still married tells the tale of once being dirt poor, myself included. Then these statistics always come out claiming your odds of staying married are better if you get a good education and build a nest egg before you get married. Ha! And of course,divorce court is plumb full of people fighting over money and property! So contrary to what many say, I don’t think economics play a huge role in marriage success. I do think we’ve created a system where it is much harder for poor people to get married. Marriage tax penalties,loosing your health insurance, and other financial stumbling blocks that are really de incentives for marriage.
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Alex said:
Married couples tend to do better by most metrics, especially when there are children involved. It seems to be yet another way for the elite to control the hoi polloi: convincing them to stay single and hedonistic while they themselves engage in the “bourgeoise” practices they loudly proclaim are so oppressive and something-ist.
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Doug said:
I’ve been up and down the marriage/divorce road myself and that is really not significant given many have; “we” are not alone. But I have walked away from it all with four observations the young will never listen to…
1. You should never have to “work” at it. The institution of marriage itself is NOT the important part that must be saved at all costs, contrary to what religion professes. Your wedding vows were toward each other.. no one else. What’s most important is the commitment toward each other.
2. Marriage.. the relationship toward each other, should NEVER be about sacrifice; your relationship should be a refuge from all that. You “share”.. not sacrifice.
3. There is always an “out” to get out of marriage. That should be the ultimate glue that binds a couple together… the option to leave is in itself the measure of the desire to remain together.
4. The goal of marriage is NOT to be for-ever, but rather to be for each other and let time take care of itself.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Interesting,Doug! I’m kind of with you on 1,3, and 4. Your first point “working on marriage,” I’ve written about myself. I think the harder you’re “working” on it, the more likely you are to mess it all up.A lot of women slip into this, there are self help books and flow charts galore. Then we develop unrealistic expectations and a desire to meet someone else’s standard.
Your second one, sacrifice, I have to disagree with. The very nature of love is sacrificial. I can see how that can become a sticky wicket, however. One is doing all the sacrificing and the other isn’t.
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Doug said:
“Sacrificing” is a negative required to get to a positive. It suggests you need to “surrender” something of value in order to attain “something” in another way. It figures right on up there with guilt. To be perfectly honest, IB.. sacrifice and guilt have created more mental health problems than all the sex crimes in history. I have to perceive from your own writings that you’ve had a life full of both these elements in one form or another… and to that I have to rhetorically ask, why were you forced into those things? (again, rhetorical).
As sacrifice relates to marriage, again I ask… why? When we give of ourselves it’s all about sharing a piece/part of us in some form… not surrendering something. Marriage should never be about “surrendering” anything. Sacrifice is not the thermometer of our commitment to each other. It’s like that old adage.. “give till it hurts”. Well, why does “hurt” become the measurement of one’s humanity?
Here’s the biggest problem in starting in marriage that the vast majority of all of us fail to comprehend… and I fell for it too… two people may be in love.. but those two people have entirely two different perceptions of what marriage is, should be, and the priorities… and very, very few couples actually talk about it.. and consider this…..
What two people in the throes of joyous celebration of love (and horny-ness) have given ANY thought toward gender roles and expectations into the marriage? What guy actually spends time trying to think of what his new wife may expect over time as it relates to expected gender roles and self-actualization needs and desires? What woman spends even two minutes trying to understand all that in their guy? We typically blow all that off as that “stuff” you learn about each other that falls into the “you’ll grow into it” category.
This is way I firmly believe couples should live together for at least 6 months before they get married. But religion gets in the way of that one usually.
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R said:
Ah, but I am an expert on this subject, yes, I have two degrees in marriage, I may have my facts wrong but only slightly, they were decrees, yes that’s it, divorce decrees, so I am very qualified to speak on the subject of clueless young, and middle aged men.
So this is my great wisdom;
Yes, that’s it. Basically I don’t know how to do it, and God does, so theoretically the better I know Him, the better I’ll do in the future!
Great post IB , and comments, I love all the different perspectives.
Thanks again,
R
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Doug said:
hehe.. I like that… you have multiple decrees in marriage. 🙂 Not to presume one bit your divorces were “lighthearted” affairs… many of us can certainly identify with you. Sometimes a bit of humor helps meander the pain of the experience. But good analogy. 🙂
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SLIMJIM said:
Was touched reading this post. What a beautiful testimony your marriage is in a world of so much broken marriages and heartaches. What a wonderful witness
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Mel Wild said:
Well said, IB. I will have been married 38 years next week! Yay! I came from a broken home, too. My wife came from a very healthy family. If we can do it, anyone can. 🙂
Btw, from his first point, I don’t think Matt understand statistics. Does he understand that a divorce RATE is the ratio of divorces per total marriages? For example, an 18% drop in divorces of a million married couples is still an 18% drop, and if it’s based on 500,000 marriages,18% is still 18%. And I would argue that lower number marriages may be a reason for higher success. People aren’t just “getting married” on a whim, they’re taking the commitment more seriously.
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heatherjo86 said:
This is quite an insightful post. “The sexual revolution, feminism, huge cultural shifts, the economy, and a really self focused generation, did a lot of damage to relationships in general and to the institution of marriage itself” this statement deserves an amen hallelujah! Marriage itself is a beautiful arrangement. A foundation based on love and support where both can be comforted and cared for physically and emotionally. The problem lies in pure selfishness. No one wants to be “freely forgiving” “patient” or consider the needs of their mate or children over their own (Ephesians 4:32; Galatians 5:22,23; Philippians 2:3). God gives us the instruction manual to finding a good mate and to having a good marriage but no one wants to take the time to read it. It’s like trying to put together IKEA furniture without reading the instructions. I’ve been married for 12 years and I can honestly say you will have ups and downs but the downs make you stronger and love each other more. I’m grateful to Jehovah God for his guidance in this area.
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dumbestblogger said:
Playing the skeptic, but one thing that drives down the divorce rate is that people aren’t marrying at the same rate they used to, or at least not until the relationship has already lasted several years.
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