If the Atlantic Monthly (and most modern media) is to be believed, love and marriage are just one big crapshoot where the majority of participants are miserable and the entire enterprise is doomed to fail. As an American, nay, as an American woman, it seems you are basically entitled to play your hand, but with all the stats riding against you, you may as well settle for whatever you can manage to get, bearing in mind that one day you too will be a statistic.
The decline of marriage, and even love in general, seems to me, to be evident everywhere. Divorce and tales of love gone awry saturate media outlets. It’s in the well established newspapers, in the stuffy periodicals, and of course it’s in the tabloids. JEN AND BRAD! ANGIE AND BRAD! BRAD AND BRAD! IS IT TOO LATE FOR JON AND KATE? IS IT JON AND KATE AND HATE? SPEIDI SEPARATES! TOMKAT AT AN END! LILO AND SAM FINISHED! I can’t even f*cking check out what Beyonce and the other Hollywood fatties are wearing in US Weekly without being subjected to tearful ruminations on the end of very deep relationships based on a mutual love of cocaine and bulimia.
Ever loving f*ck, it’s even in tearful separation/divorce announcements on blogs (something I have more or less avoided on my own blog by giving myself the “out” of never having been married). Everyone, everywhere seems to be separating, falling aparting and divorcing. And everyone, everywhere seems reasonably certain that one day, at one point, you’ll be doing it too.
Can you imagine what’s going to happen if the Obamas’ marriage falls apart? I’m pretty certain they’re the only thing holding the fabric of our country’s collective love lives together.
Anyway, I am on Relationship Death Overload, which is like Social Networking Overload, except it concerns having to hear about everyone else’s trial separation. And let me tell you, it is scaring my sphincter straight up into my gullet. Is it any wonder I want to crawl under the sheets, put my love life on permanent pause and go to bed till I hit menopause? The very thought of marriage, or hell, a relationship, makes me want to pop a kegger of anti-anxiety medications and book the first non-Air France flight out to a remote nunnery.
Oh, and the theories. Let’s not forget the theories. Just like everyone everywhere seems to be certain that you’ll be riding your connubial handbasket straight to divorce court, everyone everywhere knows exactly what did you/them/everyone in (or will do you in) and they want to tell you about it. For what purpose, I still can’t comprehend. Maybe so you’ll be ever vigilant against The End (my friend), make reasonable accomodations and manage to delay the inevitable by 7.5 years and .5 children. Or maybe to give you a sense of comfort as you ponder the blood on the tracks. Either way, people want you to know and I’ve been anxiously (and neurotically) reading ALL ABOUT IT.
There are two separate camps in the permanent relationship estrangement theory. I describe these separately as a 1) Women Not Knowing Their Place and 2) Instrinsic Institutional Weaknesses. Conservatives and shrill talk radio talk show hosts tend to cling to the first while Feminists, Liberals and Tv talk show hosts tend to cluster around the latter.
They both come to the same conclusion. You’re f*cked.
Coming Up:
Part II: Across the Camps. What everyone has to say about why you should be saving up a nest egg for a good divorce lawyer.
June 23, 2009 at 12:12 am
Damn, dude. This is a downer post.
Well – we’re still happy. It’s been more than 8 years now. Luckily, there are some functional romantic relationships out there. Otherwise, I’d be scared shitless.
June 23, 2009 at 12:21 am
Don’t get too worried. Misery is great blog material. People in great marriages don’t write about them — people in the midst of separations need the support so they do. I’ve been with my husband since we were 19. We’re about to celebrate 12 years of marriage. Neither one of us is going anywhere.
Also, divorce rate statistics are highly disputed. I’ve read the 50% divorce rate isn’t accurate — that only about 20%-25% percent of FIRST TIME marriages end in divorce. If you google “divorce rates” you’ll come up with a wide discrepancy.
June 23, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I really hate it when people blog about their divorces. It’s very difficult to do without becoming a total trainwreck and the entire internet doesn’t need to know every sordid detail of a life, it really doesn’t. To say nothing of reality television or voluntary interviews with US Weekly (Stars! They’re just like us! They get divorced!).
That said, sometimes people get married and then later they get divorced, and that’s really no reason for other people to get all scared shitless or anything – just as that marriage wasn’t yours, the divorce isn’t either. Humans make mistakes. I’m happy when people have the legal and financial recourse to rectify them.
June 23, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Gotta agree that stories about happy people being happy aren’t blog or tabloid fodder. Y’know, it’s kind of annoying to constantly hear that someone has no big problems and their life is fairly consistently non-sucky!
And I must be the old lady here, since I got married at 24 and will have been (very happily) married for 20 years in August. We don’t even know that many people who have been divorced — and we live in a city and have liberal friends. Our best couple friends are a gay couple who are a little younger than we are and they’ve been together for nearly as long as we have.
Maybe we’re all just totally boring.
June 23, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Being happily married is boring so people don’t write about that much. It’s “no news, is good news”. We’re just about to celbrate 4 yrs and I’m still as happy as I was on day one.
June 24, 2009 at 11:32 am
Monkey,
I’ve been married twice. Will be divorced twice and while it is not ideal and my “luck” wasn’t so good with husbands – it’s ok. It’s not the end of the world. Gotta keep truckin’.
I’ve experienced a lot of love in my life. A lot of passion and sure it hurts but that’s ok, it’s life and we are here to experience it good and bad. From everything I’ve learned something and applied that knowledge.
A friend of mine said something that I think rings true, although at the time I told him it was bullshit (haha). “How would we know how great the good times are if we did not have the bad times to compare it to.” I am sure it is a famous saying, one whose originator is unknown to me.
A break-up is not doom. I think it depends on how you look at it. Turn that into an opportunity for new things and good things in life.
P.S
I always feel like I have to add the disclaimer that I am *not* into just getting married all the time. You can never know the outcome of some things. And, I don’t just get tired of my husbands and cast them aside. Divorce has always been for reasons beyond the trivial and mundane.
June 25, 2009 at 12:49 am
I believe Anjali Sr is right regarding stats. Usually, you see it stated as X% of ALL marriages end in divorce. I would love to know the stat for FIRST time marriages. I know SO many people who have been married 3, 4, 5+ times. No kidding.
Getting married takes a HUGE leap of faith. I think you are right in being cautious, but I also believe that you will know what you have met the right person with you can trust with your life.
June 25, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I always trot out the Tolstoy adage:
All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Not all couples are doomed, but it happens.
We have a few divorced friends–and now they are happily ensconced with new spouses.
The risk is daunting–but worth it.
We’ve been married 27 years now, been together since, um, I think it was 1978.
I remember we definitely went through a 7 Year Itch thing, but we persevered.