Newsweek - Why get married?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-16-2004
Newsweek - Why get married?
132
Wed, 07-14-2004 - 1:24pm
There are some interesting responses to the Newsweek article on cheating wives which brings up a question? Why do people still want to get married, on the affair support board many are wanting to marry their affair partner and start the perfect life. If you are a male the court system is going to destroy you in a divorce so why keep getting married. Just a note to start, I think there have allways been just about the same amount on cheating women as men (who would the men have sex with, so it has to be about the same). A recent college study with a lie detector showed that women lie about sex questions and that throws off surveys that don't use them. Over all the percent of cheating women and men has increased over the past thirty years as well as the divorce rate. Currently, according to paternity lab results, about 30% of children in divorce cases were not fathered by the husband.

Getting married is a huge gamble with your life and the current success rate is less than 50%. I am currently married and have been for a long time but if I were ever divorced or a young person starting out I don't think I would ever marry. The odds of being betrayed are just too great.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Sun, 07-25-2004 - 10:19am

Yes, I would say the one doing the cheating is the one missing something.


bounxh0a-1.gif picture by dillbyrd

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2004
Sun, 07-25-2004 - 11:18am
Thanks both of you for telling me it was a good post. I haven't read all of the replies, so I didn't know that cheating was a big part of the discussion. Of course, in the event of him having an affair, I would leave, and I hope most others would too. On the other hand, I wouldn't have married him if I thought he was the type to do that. I'm not saying that people should be psychic and predict the future, because you can't, but before you marry someone, look at not only their past, but their outlook on relationships. If the person had little or no "inbetween time" between relationships in the past, then imho, he or she is more likely to cheat. If the person views relationships casually, and looks more at sex than at love, then they are more likely to cheat as well.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2004
Sun, 07-25-2004 - 4:21pm
I agree wholeheartedly with you, txguy. Marriage was essential as an economic necessity when our society was agrarian, and people needed a "family unit" to work the farm....(when women needed someone to provide for them financially, and when women had no other options but marriage and motherhood).

Somewhere along the line, marriage got mixed up with "romance" & "romantic love". I am curious to read this book:"A History of the Wife" by Marilyn Yalom. It sheds light on how this happened.

I am a single (out of choice) once married woman. Whenever I talk about my lack of need for marriage and the belief that marriage doesn't work in our present society (50% + divorce rate will attest to that), most of my married friends/relatives get bent out of shape, tell me I am "sour" and that it is the be-all and end-all of life (maybe not in those words)even though they are plainly unhappy in their choices. I think that I may shake their values and choices and that is a scarey thing for alot of folks to think about.

CAUTION: travel, work, get to know yourself on your own.... It may be scarey, but will make you alot wiser about life, and alot wiser about your choices,







iVillage Member
Registered: 04-19-2003
Sun, 07-25-2004 - 8:17pm

While I wouldn't have worded my post the same way as Tiana, I'm a stay at home mom and find that the arrangement works quite well.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Sun, 07-25-2004 - 9:40pm
>>While I wouldn't have worded my post the same way as Tiana, I'm a stay at home mom and find that the arrangement works quite well.<<

You know, DH and I were talking about this a few days ago. After almost 8 years(this Tuesday) together, we are still very much in love. DH attributes that to me being a SAHM. We don't have two competing careers, and therefore can devote more time to each other and to our family. It also allows for each of us to follow our seperate hobbies and interests without it cutting even more time into our families, as it would being a two career family. Once my kids are in school I am going to be going back to school and will get a job, but it won't be anything really demanding as I need the flexibility to be home when my kids are home etc. Nothing against two career families, but I find them(in my experience) to have more difficulty trying to keep up family and marital bonds. They always seemed to be the ones who told us eventually we would stop being so affectionate(ha! didn't happen).

Leticia

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-08-2003
Sun, 07-25-2004 - 9:50pm
Yasmin that is also the current trend in the US. I always hesitate to comment on the SAHM philosophy because my only child is grown and therefore I'm no longer in the game, so to speak. And let me add that my husband was primarily a stay at home dad. He did work but it was seasonal and part-time. I agree with the benefits of having a stay at home parent. My only hesitation is what happens several years down the road and the parent with the paying job decides to leave because he/she is no longer "in love"? Keep in mind I'm 45 years old and so have a few friends who did the stay at home mom thing and now that the children are grown, they find themselves alone having to start a career from the bottom and living at a standard of living much lower than before their husbands left. My own husband would be in dire straits if I were to leave him. He doesn't have a retirement plan, his part-time seasonal job wouldn't pay for his current lifestyle and he is 60 years old which is a little old to get back into the workforce. In the US if we were to divorce I'm sure I would have to pay spousal support for a few years, he would get half of my current retirement which isn't even a fourth of what it will be some day, and he would get half of our current assets which include a house we are still paying on. Meaning that after probably two or three years, he would be on his own to establish his own standard of living. In my friends' cases the new standard of living is never as high as it was before the divorce whereas the spouse that left is maintaining his standard of living. I'm not a materialistic person, but I can't imagine living in this kind of financial insecurity. Even if I fall out of love with my husband, I won't leave him because I could never put him into this situation. We agreed together that he would stay at home and raise our daughter. He kept his side of the agreement and I hope to keep mine. But not all job holding spouses are going to see it that way. Is there something being done in Australia that better protects the spouse who stays at home? I teach 20 somethings and they often claim to want to someday stay at home with their children. I want to be supportive of this idea. I really believe it is the best thing for children. But I can't recommend this to them because I'm so fearful of what it will mean to their personal well-being in the future. I have one friend who is 50. Her husband left after 30 years. He is remarried to a woman in her 30s and planning on starting a new family. She is getting spousal support for 5 years. She got the house but has to pay the remainder of the mortgage. She got part of his retirement plan. She is working part-time at the only job she could find. Her ex-husband got remarried in the carribean and she can't afford to eat dinner in a restaurant. This is a common story for women in my age group. What is new that is going to prevent this from happening to the generation behind me?

Robin

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2004
Sun, 07-25-2004 - 11:48pm
I am not married, but I hope to be someday and I think one major problem is that people don't take the vows seriously these days. Some people have even been changing them to get rid of the "until death do us part" line, which to me is one of the most important vows.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2004
Sun, 07-25-2004 - 11:53pm
I agree with your statement that some young women are too focused on one day. I have a friend who is 26, and marrying a man who will be 20 just before their wedding next June. She has already started a countdown a year beforehand, etc, and started planning her wedding even before they became officially engaged. I honestly think she's not seriously looking beyond the thought of her wedding day and how things will change between them after that.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-19-2003
Mon, 07-26-2004 - 12:10am

Robin, I honestly have no idea - I think that there really is no right answer to this issue.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2004
Mon, 07-26-2004 - 1:06am
My husband and I both work outside the home. I do most of the housework but we evenly split the childcare (a one yr old and a three yr old). Not to mention that I do the errands, bill paying, etc. I'm not much into having sex and he knows this (we're thinking medication is the cause) but he doesn't cheat on me and has told me that he has no desire to b/c he loves me. Just b/c stats say one thing that doesn't make it so in all cases. Some people do still honor their commitments b/c they love and respect their families/wives and wouldn't want to hurt them for anything. If I had to do it all over again with these new stats out, I'd marry him all over again b/c stats don't tell me what the love of my life is going to do to me.

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