Saturday, July 28, 2012

Marriage and Divorce are both Choices

MARRIAGE is an Option not a Requirement in order to Obtain Happiness and Success. MARITAL or NON-MARITAL relationships DOES NOT guarantee you happiness. YOU guarantee YOU happiness based upon the SENSIBLE (not emotional) decisions YOU make about your life. I AM NOT anti-marriage, I AM pro-healthy relationship for both parties which applies to marital and non-marital relationships.

If there is MUTUAL happiness, co-operation and fulfillment in marriage or non-marital relationships then you have found a good situation and I suggest that you remain in it. If it is INTENTIONALLY one-sided and YOU are on the short end of it I say DIVORCE in mandatory.

Do people grow apart AFTER years of marriage? Sure they do for whatever their reasons are. Should they separate? I would say "yes" IF they cannot resolve those issues and it creates discomforts and violent or potentially violent acts. Usually that "growing apart" AFTER years of being together is based SOLELY on IMMATURITY and/or SELFISH desires.

Excluding financial reasons typically that so-called "growing apart" is PRIMARILY based upon ATTENTION (or potential attention) from the OPPOSITE SEX. What that attention is depends on each individual. It could be something as simple as being more active (doing things together) in the relationship, being more attentive to them, lost the physical attraction due to change in apperance or to engaging in an outside sexual relationship (for whatever their reasons are).

The vows are well scripted (i.e., ... to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part..."). It's a nice fairytale beginning (well at least for her) surrounded with gifts, high emotions and lots of celebrating.

Too bad those vows don't reflect realistic behavior by MOST couples in this culture we live in huh?

- Is "to have and to hold" restricted to ONLY the one they are stating those vows to or do it mean "to have and to hold you and whomever else I can as well"?

- We all can agree there would be no problems "for better" but what about "for worse"? How far will one go before they consider "for worse" to be too much to bear? What is "for worse"? Financial pressure & abuse, physical abuse, substance abuse, adultry, etc. that would cause hardships to the marriage?

- We all can agree there would be no problems "for richer" but what about "for poorer" IF you were doing reasonable well prior to that? Do you really believe that she will remain with him if HE loses or quit his job and can't find a reasonable paying job for a couple of years? Especially how this economy is these days? Especially if she has a good or high paying job and expected to place the burden of financial support solely on her paycheck (even if she can afford to do so)?

- We all can agree there would be no problems "for health" but what about "for sickness"? In addition, would he/she remain FAITHFUL during those times of sickness by the other spouse? We all know how many AREN'T faithful in times of health don't we.

WHAT IS MY POINT?

MOST marriage vows WILL NOT get into more detail regarding the conditions of that marriage because one (if not both) parties know ahead of time they are NOT going to treat that marriage in a MONOMAGOUS manner. One party usually "hopes/prays" for monogamy and the other "knows" if opportunity for an affair comes along they will take advantage of it. In many cases, there are multiple relationships going on prior to those vows that one or both knows they will attempt to continue AFTER the vows have been spoken.

SHOULD VOWS AND THE CONSEQUENCES FOR VIOLATING THEM BE STATED IN MORE DETAIL and AGREED UPON IN ADVANCE?

My response to that is yes but that would ruin the FAIRYTALE wedding. I'm sure that it would minimize the number of early marriages as well as minimize the number of divorces. One other thing, I am sure that it would minimize the number of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE cases that annually exist IF the male wasn't pressured (yea I said pressured) into getting married so early in life AND especially when both are typically TOO IMMATURE and INEXPERIENCED in life to say NO to the many temptations that exist (i.e., sexual and financial).

You have to live, enjoy, learn from and have had enough of those sexual and financial experiences such that you can NOW decide that you can say NO to the sexual and financial temptations from others that will exist. Only then will he or she be MONOGAMOUS in a marriage IF that is the intent to begin with. Otherwise, you might as well agree to an OPEN marriage.

SHOULD THE END OF THE VOW STATE, "FROM THIS DAY FORWARD UNTIL DEATH OR DIVORCE DO US PART"?
Sure but again that takes away from the "happily ever after" FAIRYTALE. Very few people want to address the "what if it don't last" because that's not how you write a fairytale script.

DO ALL MARRIAGES END IN DIVORCE?

Of course not but the majority (>55 percent) of them do. I believe that they do because people marry MOST of the time for the wrong reasons (i.e., 1) got pregnant, 2) married to give child same last name, 3) pressure to marry or break up, 4) marry to keep someone else from marrying him/her, 5) marry because of parent's pressure, 6) marry because other friends got married, 7) married to get away from home, 8) married due to society's pressure, 9) marry to upgrade their lifestyle, etc.)).