Is marriage worth it nowadays?

[JE Gonzalez]

I'd like to begin by saying that I am not against monogamy nor do I think that marriage is some sort of archaic chauvinistic institution. I see a few happy married couple around me, namely my mom and dad, my grandparents, and many of my favorite bloggers. That being said, it is hard to ignore just how shaky marriage really is. In my graduating class, most of the kids had divorced parents. To my astonishment, personal heroes like Larry King, James Cameron and Richard Dawkins all went through failed marriages. While it is true that these guys aren't relationship experts, I was surprised that they could not get such a seemingly simple area of their lives handled. I recall one of my sisters' friends, an evil gluttonous succubus of a woman, getting married to a sweet, gentle man. I feel that the marriage will be a miserable one
The way I see it, people complicate things too much instead of just being best friends to each other like Steve and Erin Pavlina. They set up barriers, limitations, and a whole nonsensical web that it seems almost impossible to meet each other's expectations. I have only had a few brief relationships, but even my grandmother (married happily for 40 years) seems to agree with me.
Marriage seems like such a trap, that you hear men joking of losing their freedom. Why would a marriage eschew personal freedom? That is not what I want with a wife, all I want is a best friend and a sex partner with kids, not a chain and ball!
The other night I was watching an episode of Two and a Half Men. In a dream, Alan, a squeamish, social inept chiropractor with two bitter divorces (and financially crippling alimonies) has a dream of working at a movie theatre at old age, while Charlie, his lazy hedonistic brother, comes in with a beautiful woman by his side. The show is a comedy and this scenario was merely Alan's nightmare, but this struck a chord with me. Who would I rather be: Charlie, who still dated beautiful women at his prime, or Alan a sad, beaten man looking many years older than his older brother.

What do you guys think?

[striving4peace]

Are those your only choices? Alan or Charlie? Or Raymond from everyone loves raymond? Does hollywood ever have something on a happily married couple anyways?
More to the original point, you need to consider how much - if at all - you would like the third option: to end up at old age with a loving soulmate who'se been (and stayed your wife). If all you see as your options are ending up as Alan or Charlie, then it's not rocket science what you should do.

[JE Gonzalez]

striving4peace, there is a third option in my mind: like my parents and grandparents who were like the best of friends, or even like Steve and Erin Pavlina. I'm just pointing out that nowadays it feels like this is what it boils down to, not that it is all there is.

[ns123]

I have good news for you, you have absolute and total control over what a marriage will be for you.

If you want a marriage like your grandparents (loving, best friend, whom to raise children with, who you know like your favorite pair of jeans, who you feel as if she is home to you...) that's what your marriage will be.

If you want a marriage like Alan, you will get that too.

What a marriage will be to you is entirely up to you and what you consciously want to create. Yes, like a garden, a marriage can be beautiful, colorful, full of butterflies and hummingbirds - but only if you cultivate it to be so. If you neglect it, like a garden, it will wither and die, and be a barren dry waste of dirt.

The question is not - does marriage work? Just like a garden, you can't really ask, does gardening work? Well, it depends on the gardener.

I can tell you this, marriage can be a deeply satisfying, fulfilling way to express love and generate love for yourself and for others. But only if you are willing to cultivate it as such. Like joy and happiness, it is not a destination to be reached and you can say, "ok, I'm here," it's a path to be walked.

And it is a glorious path! Sure, you may have to deal with fungus on your lawn, or the occasional spider mite... but like a garden, under the right conditions, it will flourish. And you know, there is nothing wrong with choosing that you don't like gardening after all.

[pyrogen]

The trouble is, that people want to see things as all or nothing. Either "Marriage is wonder and roses and needs to last forever! Sigh..." or "Marriage sucks, people aren't meant to be tied down legally to just one person anyway!".

What if the thing we most need is to increase our comfort with ambiguity and uncertainty? NOTHING is certain. NOTHING is guaranteed. Even if you divorce someone in ten years it doesn't mean the relationship wasn't worth it for those ten years, and that you didn't benefit from being married during that time.

[magi13]

Originally Posted by JE Gonzalez

I'd like to begin by saying that I am not against monogamy nor do I think that marriage is some sort of archaic chauvinistic institution. I see a few happy married couple around me, namely my mom and dad, my grandparents, and many of my favorite bloggers. That being said, it is hard to ignore just how shaky marriage really is. In my graduating class, most of the kids had divorced parents. To my astonishment, personal heroes like Larry King, James Cameron and Richard Dawkins all went through failed marriages. While it is true that these guys aren't relationship experts, I was surprised that they could not get such a seemingly simple area of their lives handled. I recall one of my sisters' friends, an evil gluttonous succubus of a woman, getting married to a sweet, gentle man. I feel that the marriage will be a miserable one
The way I see it, people complicate things too much instead of just being best friends to each other like Steve and Erin Pavlina. They set up barriers, limitations, and a whole nonsensical web that it seems almost impossible to meet each other's expectations. I have only had a few brief relationships, but even my grandmother (married happily for 40 years) seems to agree with me.
Marriage seems like such a trap, that you hear men joking of losing their freedom. Why would a marriage eschew personal freedom? That is not what I want with a wife, all I want is a best friend and a sex partner with kids, not a chain and ball!
The other night I was watching an episode of Two and a Half Men. In a dream, Alan, a squeamish, social inept chiropractor with two bitter divorces (and financially crippling alimonies) has a dream of working at a movie theatre at old age, while Charlie, his lazy hedonistic brother, comes in with a beautiful woman by his side. The show is a comedy and this scenario was merely Alan's nightmare, but this struck a chord with me. Who would I rather be: Charlie, who still dated beautiful women at his prime, or Alan a sad, beaten man looking many years older than his older brother.

What do you guys think?

Yes it is still worth it to have someone you love and grow old with. It's a personal choice you will have to make by listening to yourself and not from others.

People will experience difference things and everything will be different from everyone no matter the similarities.

Think and imagine what you really want in your heart. If you want to stay single? Polygamous? or Married.

P.s. Marriage is a journey you make till you die, it is serious and should not be entered by those who are not ready. It will not be easy to some, but to others it will be a piece of cake. You just have to really work on it, balance and harmony.

[callum828]

You're a guy (I assume) therefore marriage IS gonna be a trap for you, pure and simple.

Sure, not all women will want to destroy you financially and cut you off from your kids, but the fact that she has the right to, well that should concern you.

My parents are happily divorced, I spend equal time with both of them, it's worked out fine. But the fact of the matter is I could be seeing my dad once a month if my mum had so wished it.

[snodger]

Originally Posted by striving4peace

Are those your only choices? Alan or Charlie? Or Raymond from everyone loves raymond? Does hollywood ever have something on a happily married couple anyways?
More to the original point, you need to consider how much - if at all - you would like the third option: to end up at old age with a loving soulmate who'se been (and stayed your wife). If all you see as your options are ending up as Alan or Charlie, then it's not rocket science what you should do.

Um, i happen to be a 14 year old child, and i stumbled across this site when doing homework. I would like, striving4peace, to point out that this site says that it is "Personal development for smart people". And yet you seem to have written "who'se". Nice.

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by snodger

Um, i happen to be a 14 year old child, and i stumbled across this site when doing homework. I would like, striving4peace, to point out that this site says that it is "Personal development for smart people". And yet you seem to have written "who'se". Nice.

Wow. Your first post. And you used it to correct the grammar of a stranger on the internet who gave good advice to someone who asked for it.

That, my 14-year-old friend (whose own grammar leaves quite a bit to be desired), is what's known as not seeing the wood for the trees.

Why don't you stick around for a while and see if you can learn to appreciate content over form?

[dendennz]

Hi. Really interesting topic, something I've been thinking about for a long time now.

I've been married twice. The first time, I had an affair very shortly after we were married. We'd been together for about 4 years, got married, and within 4 months I'd fallen head long into an affair with a work colleague. I could have saved the first marriage, but I chose not to. I didn't trust myself: I felt once I'd been unfaithful (and I mean not just physically: I had fallen in love with someone else) to my first husband, I couldn't guarantee I'd not do it again. I was 23 and young and really felt it was necessary for me to let him go and be free.

I'm currently very happily married to my husband of 9 years. It's been a tough 9 years. The toughest parts, however, are just normal "living" type things e.g. money, health issues, work issues and so on. Are they unique to a marriage? In my humble opinion, NO. Did being married make me any more determined to work through those tough times? No. What did? I simply really like the guy I care for him a lot. I love him as a person, as a human being, as my best friend. Romanticism aside, we're great mates and I'd do anything for my great mate.

I'll be frank and say I have no idea why people get married I could easily just live with my husband as a good friend and I'd be just as happy, I think! If people think that "getting married" suddenly changes them, their status, becomes a life-long romance then this is a romantic ideal and not realistic.

Why did I get married again? Because I felt I wanted to! I really wanted to. On reflection, I'd not marry again. I see it as an unnecessary societal convention nowadays, and a blimmin expensive one to boot!

So in terms of a marriage's worth: depends on how you view marriage, is it something you feel you must do, are their religious norms you observe that require you to be married? I'd think more in terms of quality relationship. If nothing else, I believe I have a very high quality relationship with my husband. We communicate really well, we look after each other really well, we respect each other a lot and want the best for each other. That to me can be done regardless of a marriage.

Hope these thoughts help

Cheers,

Jenny.

[Liz Caitlin]

I think marriage is shaky because quite a few people people get married because they think they have to, not because they want to. There's this societal expectation - especially for women - that you get married and preferably have children by a certain age, and if you don't that's a problem. So people either get married when they don't want to, or marry someone way too quickly because they're getting older & marry the first person they can, etc, etc.

I would say the other issue is changing gender roles. As far as I can tell, both of my grandparents' marriages are much happier than my parents' - because the roles are clearly defined. I'm not saying a relationship has to be traditional to be successful, but there do need to be clearly defined roles. When a couple clearly agrees on who's cooking and helping around the house and who's bringing in income - whether they split both evenly or take on traditional roles, and I've seen it work both ways - that helps a ton.

Also, marrying someone on the basis of romantic love or infatuation is just plain stupid. You have to wait for that to wear off. Some of the most important contributors to a lasting marriage are similar personality traits in areas such as neatness/conscientiousness and the way the couple handles money - far too many people don't discuss that before marriage, and that's why they end up divorced.

I personally think marriage is worth it, to answer your question. Then again, I haven't been married yet, so we'll see.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Wow, thread resurrection by means of one post grammar nazi 14 year old.

WTF?

[Liz Caitlin]

Originally Posted by JE Gonzalez

Marriage seems like such a trap, that you hear men joking of losing their freedom. Why would a marriage eschew personal freedom? That is not what I want with a wife, all I want is a best friend and a sex partner with kids, not a chain and ball!

This part is simple...don't be with someone who's controlling. I must confess I am horrified by the depiction of "wives" in mainstream movies & television shows. Making the man sleep on the couch whenever there's a fight, withholding sex as punishment, not allowing porn in the house, making your husband ask your permission before he goes out...if that's what real marriage is like, I would advise all men to RUN THE HELL AWAY.

Of course, I'm personally of the opinion that if you want your man to have sex with you and only you, you'd better damn well put out. Men have needs. Which is maybe why I can't understand this portrayal of women as beings who like to suck joy out of their men's lives...

[Bazza]

Originally Posted by Liz Caitlin

...Of course, I'm personally of the opinion that if you want your man to have sex with you and only you, you'd better damn well put out. Men have needs.

Awesome.... if i ever get married i think i will have to get that put in my vows

[Ithisia]

With-holding sex punishes me just as much as him...
Funny how the TV never talks about the woman who is punishing herself by preventing everyone from a good lay.
hehehe.

Actually - this marriage question is one I have. And I'm in a great partnership right now that has been going on about 4 years. Sometimes I really want to marry him. Other times, I ask myself - but why? No matter what, we're going to have THIS partnership if things go how we'd prefer them to. We have a house, we contribute evenly in most ways.

Don't I already have it all without the paper?
It's hard. I can't even answer this for myself fully, yet

[Liz Caitlin]

Originally Posted by Ithisia

With-holding sex punishes me just as much as him...
Funny how the TV never talks about the woman who is punishing herself by preventing everyone from a good lay.
hehehe.

Actually - this marriage question is one I have. And I'm in a great partnership right now that has been going on about 4 years. Sometimes I really want to marry him. Other times, I ask myself - but why? No matter what, we're going to have THIS partnership if things go how we'd prefer them to. We have a house, we contribute evenly in most ways.

Don't I already have it all without the paper?
It's hard. I can't even answer this for myself fully, yet

I think you already do have it all. Congratulations!

Seriously though, I would only get married in a situation where either a) I was having children or b) one of us was economically dependent on the other. I want a more traditional relationship, meaning I'll only work part-time or not at all if I can write for a living instead, and since I'd be financially dependent on him, I'd want to protect myself. And of course, some people just REALLY like the idea of marriage and making that commitment to each other. So I would say, unless you have a very solid reason for getting married, don't. Or get hitched in Vegas - save some money on the wedding

[cacheborn]

What does marriage mean? It's a religious/legal contract that says that two people should be together. Depending on the culture, the exact conditions will vary.

IMO, if you trust each other fully, why do you need an external agency to validate your decision? Okay, depending on the country/culture there may be some problems, especially if you have children.

Finally, it's up to the individuals. If you want to get married, do it. You are in majority.