I am going to get a lot of flak for this. But the more I read things like these, the more I feel marriage is not for everyone and society has a whole should stop gushing down this concept to next generation.
Personally I feel, If you have to write a note to your spouse everyday to "save your marriage", then you probably didnt have one to begin with.
Marriage takes work, lots of work. The reward in my experience is totally worth it. You have to lay down part of your life for the new life that you experience with your spouse and children. The individual you once were is now part of a family and no longer exists as an individual. You serve your family and they serve you back. For me the amount I give of myself is much less than I receive back from the marriage / family. I would argue the amount everyone involved receives is more than the sum total they put in.
If writing a note each day is too much work for you, then the daily sacrifices of being in a loving marriage may be too much for you. If that is the case you might want to think about what you're giving up and why. If you are happy with the exchange then great but I think many don't know how great it can be.
A note is a tool. It works great if like op there's little overlap between spouses routines, so they can still feel each other presence.
It's not what's going to save marriages on it's own, because it is useful in a specific environment.
When I'm away for work, I always make time to call family morning and evening, so we can keep up with our wake up togheter and spend evening togheter kinda routine. It is both specific to the situation, the family and the context. It'd be silly to call home when I'm home, as it'd be silly to say that this will save someone else marriage.
Heck, marriage doesn't even mean the same thing to different people or has the same meaning across cultures or even within the same culture across time!
Normative approaches to marriage are almost always doomed to fail precisely because of this, and that's also why counseling is largely a personalized process/experience.
Someone will consistently be there to care very much about you. Friends are more fickle (people change and move away), and your parents won't be there forever. Siblings can also move away, too. It's nice to have at least one person you can trust in the world.
Eh, it doesn’t feel like work for me. I really enjoy my partner, she enjoys me, and I don’t think we have to do very much “work” to maintain that.
If I started writing literal daily notes to my wife, she’d be very concerned something was wrong. Then she’d ask why I’m wasting my time writing a note when I could have done… literally annoying else more productive lol
To me this sounds similar to the old saying "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life"
I've found this to simply mean that you enjoy the work you put in. Gamers can spend hours getting good at a game. Few would call it practice, they'd call it play. However, whatever you call it you need it to get good.
Whatever that thing is that you put into a relationship, it's needed.
> Eh, it doesn’t feel like work for me. I really enjoy my partner, she enjoys me, and I don’t think we have to do very much “work” to maintain that.
For some people it isn't until it is. There are many things that can break a great relationship. Routine, lack of common projects, financial difficulties, personal struggle of one or both.
+1 here because my marriage is amazing but we do get stuck in routines, we have no common interests really except very small things, both have struggled with personal loss/grief and are currently experiencing financial difficulty.
It has been 16 years and somehow head to pillow every night still brings a smile to my face for this amazing woman being the love of my life.
Not everyone gets so lucky. Some people have to settle for a partner they can love but is not really their ideal match.
This is where it takes work. You have to accept the fact every day this is your partner, you have to wrestle with thoughts of perhaps coming across an actual ideal partner some day. You have to learn to love your partner, and do things to make them happy, not necessarily things you want to do.
Because the alternative is to just be single and die alone surrounded by no one, childless in some nursing home where nurses increasingly don’t give a fuck about you the closer you are to death.
Some people will argue being single isn’t so bad. But for a person whose goal it is to be married and share life with someone it can be a fate worse than death. And the longer it takes to get married the more of your life you are living without sharing experiences with anyone that matters to you.
> Not everyone gets so lucky. Some people have to settle for a partner they can love but is not really their ideal match.
> This is where it takes work. You have to accept the fact every day this is your partner, you have to wrestle with thoughts of perhaps coming across an actual ideal partner some day. You have to learn to love your partner, and do things to make them happy, not necessarily things you want to do
If this is actually your personal experience, could you share more of it?
I've always ended up dating women who absolutely love me but who I am somewhat ambivalent to after a few weeks. Most of life already feels like work to me, was hoping a romantic relationship wouldn't. But I've thought often of throwing in the towel and settling for the next sane one even if I'm bored. Because wife + kids sounds long term better than fun uncle who ultimately dies alone.
My advice is date a lot of women, to get an idea of what you like. Then after that, the next best one you find that comes closest to what you like, marry that one and settle down. Forget about finding anyone better, they may be out there, but you don’t have the time and your lives may not be compatible.
for starters i think it helps to accept that the ideal partner doesn't exist. everyone has flaws on one way or another. the problem is that when you meet that seemingly ideal person some day, that person only looks ideal because you haven't seen their bad sides yet. i think it really helps to keep that in mind. better to deal with the devil you know, than starting over with an unknown.
for your problem, i would want to look closely what it is that makes you feel ambivalent after a few weeks. try giving it more time to see if you still feel like that. get to know each other better, plan your potential future life together to get an understanding what each of you want from a relationship. love alone is not enough.
I think my ambivalence comes from a lack of excitement while just casually socializing. I have plenty of best friends who are hilarious and fascinating, that by comparison I can feel quite empty with a woman who is otherwise quite a catch. I'm trying to give the current one more time because maybe it's a function of how familiar we are with eachother and the experiences we've shared. Romantic relationships as an adult can feel so contrived!
from my experience it definitely makes a difference how well we knew each other, whether it was easy to just hang out. when you don't know each other, there is a lot of insecurity as to how to interact, and what the other will allow or expect or find uncomfortable. i guess most people in that situation will be cautious as to not appear to try to move to quickly, and that may lead to the experience you had.
what i found helpful is to not focus on romantic dates but join group activities where there is no pressure to interact directly. your friends and her friends or even some other group that you both join for some activity. there is still plenty of opportunity to get to know each other that way, because you will see how each of you act around other people.
It is nice, I guess you are fortunate to have a relationship that basically maintains itself. For most people, proper communication and keeping a commitment to open up emotionally when you need to is work.
These are separate things, I suppose. One can live a very challenging life, including the usual (or unusual...) kids trouble, and still find comfort in the relationship with their spouse.
Modern generations have been influenced by the Romantics, who, amongst other things, put forward the idea that self-sacrificing marriage is actually less noble than purely passionate love. This evolved into the notion that a marriage requires consistent passion, and that if you don't have it, something is wrong.
But it turns out that marriage is really just a partnership and relationship, and all different kinds of people have different styles and interpretations of what that is and how it works for them. Some people need a lot of passion, some people need a lot of stability, some may need both, or neither.
But there is definitely something to the notion that good relationships don't come easy. People are all flawed in different ways, and sometimes people need help to work through those flaws in order to have successful relationships. Plus, a marriage may involve some long term expensive investments, like a mortgage, pets, children. So "saving your marriage" might actually be quite a rational and emotionally intelligent act, if all partners are amenable to it. Best-case scenario: you end up with a long-term loving partnership and a wonderful life; worst-case, you don't. Seems like it's worth saving?
i think you're missing the point. it's not that you have to write a note to your spouse to save your marriage. the act of writing forces you to think and evaluate, and those acts of reflection, and 'public' appreciation, help keep the small problems from becoming the big problems.
like in karate kid, "wax on, wax off" is not about the wax.
but, you're right, marriage isn't for everyone. but i also don't think TFA is trying to convince everyone to get married.
I would frame it differently. There seem to be many dysfunctional marriages that are carried by e.g. inertia - and because of this, I do agree that perhaps marriage shouldn't be taken as such an assumption. By the same token, though, those that _do_ choose to engage in marriage should accept the responsibility and the (apparently, I am not married) large amount of effort it takes to make it successful. I'm choosing to look at this tactic as embracing that effort, and striving for an excellent marriage, instead of the "passable" marriage which seems to be the norm today.
Some relationships work by being easy. Some work by being well suited to partner on a big and delicate project, like raising a family.
The person you’d most love to raise a family with (or run a fishing boat with, or whatever), isn’t necessarily the “easy” partner whose super cozy and gets you all the time and never needs you to make a special effort beyond what comes naturally.
But at some point, if it’s what you want to do, you pick a partner for what’s important to you and make good on that choice. Depending on who you are and who you picked, that latter bit of “making good” might benefit from a few contrived gestures and rituals that wouldn’t have been necessary in some other “easy” relationship. But that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong relationship or an unhealthy relationship, it’s just your relationship; and if those things make it better, why wouldn’t you do them?
Completely agree. I’m convinced that the get married have kids, raise them well, they become good workers, if you time it right we are all corporate drones as a happy family - dream is pretty horrible.
I want to work to not have to work anymore. I can’t think about a partner because I’m too dead from work to give someone else the commitment they might deserve. Don’t want kids that sounds like work. Nothing is wrong with me just want to be able to relax without commitment.
having a partner may help you relax, and it may change your attitude to work. i felt pretty dead too from work, then coming home to be alone. when i got married i felt better about working because family life would balance it out and i had something to look forward to while at the office.
Would it be possible to change jobs/companies? Not all work is so draining that you can't have time for yourself, and many respect time boundaries. Hope you can one day make a living in a better environment.
This is very much a fair-weather first-third-of-life perspective.
I see quite a lot of elderly people with health problems. The ones that are completely alone… it’s a pretty wretched existence, frankly. That’s the reality. Not to say all marriages are great obviously, but often even an ex-husband is better than no husband at all.
Agree completely. What I find truly weird is when Gen Z commenters in the west say “society”. Do they really believe marriage is some modern, western, or Christian invention?
When they push forward as social animals with no social support network and things eventually take their toll (age/entropy/etc) they will fall back on someone else’s marriage for help - their parents or siblings.
I say this as a late 30’s person with no marriage. I thought I had one and it didn’t work out unfortunately. Now it’s just me and I am in true shit if really anything remotely severe goes wrong.
For quite a long time this was a very obvious and common sense statement. That is literally the traditional view of the Catholic Church on marriage, for example.
Yes, needless to say an unmarried couple is not what I was referring to. I'm saying that for a long time people have known that not everyone is cut out for marriage, and that it has never really been seen as "the only path". I don't understand your other remarks.
So it's "the only path" if in a relationship, with the alternatives being living in sin or not having a relationship. That is really very traditional Catholicism
Interesting! Sorry if this is getting off topic, but how does the Catholic Church feel about using sex as a method for developing closeness and intimacy with a partner, rather than as purely an avenue for pleasure? I imagine that's still frowned upon?
(Not Catholic, but Orthodox, which is similar enough in this matter.) The idea is more along the lines of saying that just as a human person is both body and soul, and neglect of either leads to death, the Catholic view is that the marriage itself, as well as each "marital act" should be: "Free (voluntary in the fullest sense), Total (complete sharing of self & life with the other), Faithful (to each other, exclusively), and Fruitful (pretty straightforward)". It wouldn't be good enough to say a woman married freely, so consent doesn't matter for each act. Or that a couple is generally monogamous, with some exceptions. So the "procreative" and "unitive" purposes of sex are considered to be inseparable without some debasement of the act. Hope that helps.
I attend my parish often and it is true that a lot of people are leaving but to be honest it doesn't bother me much. As Catholics, if we spend our time worrying about "the numbers" then we've lost the purpose of what it means to be a member of a community. It's not about programs it's about people.
In my (entirely anecdotal) observation, boomers were the last generation to be raised with social pressure to appear to be religious, in communities where Catholic traditions and the Church were a central and reasonably respected part of life. They got married relatively young, baptized their kids and maybe sent them to Catholic schools all to keep their own parents happy, but didn't pressure their kids in the same way.
As the boomers got to middle age and figured out their own way to live, they dropped the pretence. In parallel, the church largely retreated from public life, education, politics, healthcare etc.
It's easy to blame this on the Church or the boomers but it's part of a wider trend of community and common institutions losing their hold. People move further away from family, have less friends, participation in community activities is down across the board, the self-sufficient nuclear family has been pushed as the ideal since the 50s and cultural gatekeeping or telling someone what to do in their own home is the biggest sin.
It's all a trade-off for getting rid of some of the genuinely more awful parts of the pre-war era.
Eh we are around for few thousand of years and we have been through worse.
“And if your right hand should be your downfall, cut it off and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part of yourself than to have your whole body go to hell.”
I've heard there was a time, ~2000 years ago, when people thought the second coming of christ was so close they were only being asked to be celibate for a year or two, and marriage was only there for people who couldn't manage that.
Marriage isn't perfect, especially not with today's divorce law and family court system, but the idea of joining into a union with a new person and creating a new family unit, even if without kids, is probably the best system for most people. Single people have a way of going feral IMO.
Being in a relationship opens yourself up to a huge amount of financial risk which can last a very long time after the breakup/divorce. In most countries you are exposed to this risk even if you don't marry as you automatically enter a de facto which is pretty legally similar to a full marriage.
This all made sense when you had a man working and a woman at home looking after the house and kids, but in a modern society where both work and responsibilities are mostly shared, it doesn't make sense that the person who earned the most is now at huge risk despite the relationship not reducing the others earning potential in any way. This risk is a real discouragement to even enter a relationship. You might be open to the emotional risk of things not working out but not be willing to put your house and future income on the line.
If that's your outlook on marriage you shouldn't marry in the first place, divorce laws or not, as it is a long term commitment with, of course, risks involved.
> In most countries you are exposed to this risk even if you don't marry as you automatically enter a de facto which is pretty legally similar to a full marriage.
From only being in a relationship or from living together, spending together, having kids together? I'm pretty sure there is no such thing in the EU country I reside in.
Relationships aren't for everyone, especially when thinking about relationships like a business
I believe a well-orchestrated prenup, perhaps in combination with some structure of legal trusts, can (mostly) mitigate this. You can firewall assets and nix alimony. And then move to Texas for the cap on child support orders, which really matters [0]. The only exposure you're left with is being liable for attorney fees, but hopefully Texas has some standard to preclude those from becoming unconscionable.
A lot of people complain this is the wrong way to view marriage. That's only true if you're on relatively equal financial footing with your spouse. Any successful person has the right to structure their marriage such that there is no compelling financial incentive for their spouse to divorce them (and that too on top of a base divorce rate of ~50%). Only a fool would do anything short of make their marriage bulletproof in a situation of unusual spousal wealth asymmetry [1].
Actually this a problem that most acutely affects a wealth demo in the vicinity of senior software engineer in tech. It's a far more dire and painful outcome if your $2-4M in assets get chopped in half plus owe alimony and child support than if you're Bezos or Gates and hold onto many billions. In fact, any divorce of the super rich in which the wealthy spouse is left with more than say ~$20M is acceptable in an absolute sense (still comfortably financially free).
The beauty of the divorce racket is that victims usually don't understand the enormity of the financial pain involved until it's too late. Anyone who's observed a friend go through such a divorce would be wise enough to not make that mistake.
As for moving to Texas, you can choose not to and just accept that a judge may order unconscionable amounts of child support to vindictively undermine your prenup (this is routine in states like California). I'm not making the recommendation to go to Texas lightly. The divorce game has gone through many rounds of evolution over many decades and is now almost perfectly calibrated to deprive the successful of their wealth.
Personally, I'd rather just live in Austin. It's a fine city.
I also don't believe in rolling the dice on marriage without protection. It's way too irrational to assume you'll beat the 1 in 2 odds.
Dead wrong. Almost no one thinks they need a prenup at the time of marriage, because they fail to project forward on a long enough timeline. Relationships can morph dramatically within 2 years, let alone 10, 20, etc. Yours is the illogic that has resulted in financial devastation for many a sorry soul.
Not dead wrong, if you're marrying for tax/insurance benefits and think you need a prenup you probably shouldn't be getting married. Marriage is first, and foremost, a religious thing and if you're going into it thinking "this is going to fail and my partner is going to try and screw me over" you simply shouldn't be getting married.
Employed spouses don't get alimony. There can be child support. Even where alimony exists, they tend to be time limited and awarded only when marriage was long.
The alimony issue happens when you look for stay at home wife have stay at home wife for yours and that marriage breaks. Incidentally, those women tend to be more afraid to leave even if marriage is bad while employed women are more likely to initiate divorce - cause they are more confident of their ability to be single.
I agree 100%. Marriage works for some, but we shouldn’t assume it works for all. People should be encouraged to seek the model that works for them best. That said, if you have a relationship that works, it’s definitely worth putting time into it in some way.
