Lots of people marrying for the wrong reasons/not ready

[CrimsonBlaze]

I think people get married too soon.

I've been with the same girl since we were 15 (now 24), I know everything about her and vice versa.

She's my best friend, my lover, the one person in the world who truly knows me.

Honestly, at this stage, I don't think being married would change anything. It's just a formality, but it's something I want to do.

Mostly because I like an excuse to suit up

Here here, good sir. I wish you the best of luck in your future ventures and excuses to suit up.

Anyway, I think that many people tend to get married too quickly because they feel like they have found the one...for the time being. They don't consider marriage a big deal, due to the apparent convenience it is to get married (Las Vegas, anyone?) and the option of getting divorce should things go sour. I think that it is terrible for these people who marry, have kids, and just break off their already rocky marriage, raisin their kid in a broken household. The children are likely to view marriage as a burden or a miserable ritual, and would see it in the same light when they consider marrying someone.

 

[Dryk]

Essentially as the rest of the thread has pointed it, it's due to dumb cultural pressure we've been building. Just like how people in long-term relationships feel pressured to live together, or sleep in the same bed no matter how bad for their relationship it is in some cases.

lets not forget the no sex before marrage BS

Well yeah, because people are still just people. You convince them they can't have sex until they're married a lot of them will just get married earlier.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Am I the only one around here who doesn't think divorce is a bad thing?
My parent's divorce was the best thing to ever happen to their marriage.

I like marriage, it's a nice thing. I'd like to get married at some point, not yet though. But if I do, and it goes south, I wont jump to divorce straight away- but I'm certainly glad it's an option.

I agree with that.

You aren't the person you'll be in 10, 20, 30 years right now, neither will your partner. Why not decide that it's no longer for you and move on?

Having to stay together because a piece of paper says so...yeah, that's not going to fix things.

 

[WolfThomas]

I agree and disagree with the OP. There are things that influence whether or not a marriage will last. I read somewhere that the woman having completed university greatly reduces the chances of divorce. If you look at that it means that she's likely to at least be 21, has greater potential for education and financial security.

I think there are a few things that should be ticked off before you get married, rather than some sort of timeframe. A couple should have sex, it's going to have an important part of their relationships and they need to know what each other likes. They need to live together for a while, so that they can get used to each other when not putting on a show to impress the other person, this is where you truly find out how lazy, disgusting etc the other person is and if you can put up with that for hopefully the rest of your life.

I think waiting too long to get married is a bad idea, often the couples who do that might be trying to rekindle or a relationship or might be just settling. I think greater than a year of dating, with at least 6months of living together is what you need though as a minimum.

I'm twenty-three and I'm thinking of getting married in my future. Not like this year. But I have a girlfriend I love sincerely, with interests and careers that align perfectly, I will have a stable well paid job next year. I'm think of proposing at the end of next year if I still feel as strongly as I do now, which I am certain I will.

I actually heard a rather interesting explaination once.

They say it's because nowadays, couples are moving in together BEFORE they get married. So when said couples actually DO get married, there isn't really any immediate change. There's no period of discovering anything new about each other, since that's already been covered when they moved in together. It creates an environment of stagnation before the marriage even begins.

Not necessarily the ONLY reason the divorce rate is so high, but something to consider.

To be fair I think that living together might lower your divorce rate. If the love of your life turns out to be a batchelor frog, you might rethink marrying them.

I did read a crazy theory that blamed the oral contraceptive pill for divorces. Apparently so many girls are on it these days and it flips with what you body finds attractive for procreation. Something to do with histocompatibility complexes. Basically when you are fertile you want new genetic material to create a stronger offspring, but when you are pregnant you want to be surrounded by similar genes to protect from exotic diseases that might harm your child.

So women go on the pill meet a guy they find attractive, stay on the pill until they have kids, while pregnant and breast feeding it's still the same biologically, then they might go back on it. But years later when they come off it they suddenly sub-consciously find their husbands smell different and foreign. This creates tension in the relationship, which might lead to divorce.

Crazy but I'd love to see further studies on it.

Here's a link to something on it I quickly googled:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=birth-control-pills-affect-womens-taste

 

[Dryk]

I did read a crazy theory that blamed the oral contraceptive pill for divorces. Apparently so many girls are on it these days and it flips with what you body finds attractive for procreation. Something to do with histocompatibility complexes. Basically when you are fertile you want new genetic material to create a stronger offspring, but when you are pregnant you want to be surrounded by similar genes to protect from exotic diseases that might harm your child.

It's surprising how many people don't believe this when you tell them, and yeah it's an effect that certainly harms relationships to some degree... I guess it all depends on how solid they are at the time.

 

[FamoFunk]

Because it's easy to get a divorce.

I don't care about people getting divorced, you could be with someone with 20 years, get married, and divorce a year later.

I'd rather people get divorced than two people being forced to be miserable for the rest of their lives.

 

[The_Waspman]

Whats more infuriating is people who say they're engaged... and thats it. it drove me fucking banana's when I was in college and one girl or other said 'oh, me and my boyfriend (of three months) have just gotten engaged.' oh, so when are you getting married then? You don't know? Then you're hardly fucking engaged are you?

Personally, I don't get it. I don't get marriage, I mean. I don't think it has any real place in our current society. Its an archaic notion and we've moved on, or at least we should have.

I actually heard a rather interesting explaination once.

They say it's because nowadays, couples are moving in together BEFORE they get married. So when said couples actually DO get married, there isn't really any immediate change. There's no period of discovering anything new about each other, since that's already been covered when they moved in together. It creates an environment of stagnation before the marriage even begins.

Not necessarily the ONLY reason the divorce rate is so high, but something to consider.

Also this. Sort of. Like you say, more people do the whole moving in together thing prior to marriage, so really the marriage is nothing more than a formality. A very emotionally, financially and time draining formality, which more often than not will put such a strain on the relationship that it is more likely to end up in divorce.

Now I must return to my bitter misanthrope cave.

Captcha: heart's content. No, no, not at all.

 

[Shadowhawk77]

Another thing is that some people save their virginity til their honeymoon...once they have the big shabang and they do for a while afterward...because they have no experience they have no ideas and soon lose interest (not saying this is a major factor for them but it can probably push them away from eachother if sex gets bland im sure)

 

[razer17]

One reason is that there are many tax breaks and other benefits for married couples that other couples don't get. Not saying it's a good reason to marry, but it is a reason.

 

[Eri]

I did read a crazy theory that blamed the oral contraceptive pill for divorces. Apparently so many girls are on it these days and it flips with what you body finds attractive for procreation. Something to do with histocompatibility complexes. Basically when you are fertile you want new genetic material to create a stronger offspring, but when you are pregnant you want to be surrounded by similar genes to protect from exotic diseases that might harm your child.

It's surprising how many people don't believe this when you tell them, and yeah it's an effect that certainly harms relationships to some degree... I guess it all depends on how solid they are at the time.

I know this isn't exactly solid evidence. But I do believe this happened to me. I had a gf of a little over 2 years. Things were pretty great. She decided to go on the pill. Within 2 months she was cheating on me with a 43 year old (I'm 22). And then we obviously broke up. And haven't talked since. Still dunno what the hell happened.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I think people get married too soon.

I've been with the same girl since we were 15 (now 24), I know everything about her and vice versa.

She's my best friend, my lover, the one person in the world who truly knows me.

Honestly, at this stage, I don't think being married would change anything. It's just a formality, but it's something I want to do.

Mostly because I like an excuse to suit up

Dude just stop it with your perfect life with a woman you love, you're bumming everybody out.

And you're forcing me to do this as well.

Spoiler

As for the actual topic in question...

I know someone who got married at 19 and was divorced by 20. That was obviously not a good idea. On the other hand I know someone who got married at 18 to their childhood sweetheart of 14 and is still together with them as we approach 23. They've already been together nearly a decade, and married for 5 years of it, so they're a bit better on that scale.

Not having experienced the sort of love that leads to marriage (or really love of any sort) I wouldn't know, but I suspect it's a case of knowing when you know. My parents have said that even though they had been together for five years and had discussed children and everything they still hadn't talked about marriage. The one day (according to them) they both just realised 'yeah actually, this marriage thing sounds like a good idea.'

Really those examples are my only points of reference. Any other of my friends who get married are so clearly doing it for the wrong reasons. There is a bit of a culture of treating marriage like another step of dating I think, when it's actually pretty different. So I often see friends going 'well I've had three dates and slept with him and we've been living together for three months, I guess marriage is the next step to confirm just how much we really love each other.' And all I can think is 'if you really loved each other, you wouldn't need to confirm it, you'd just know it.'

 

[BeerTent]

[...]
(1) People receive better education and are better informed about safe sex [I know how ridiculous it sounds to most of the people here, who are fairly intelligent, that anyone hadn't figured out safe sex yet... but trust me, they're there]

I want to say this, because it's not as ridiculous as you think it is. I'll admit, when I went through schooling, I picked up only the important stuff, and thought it was a total waste of time. I watched for the important stuff, and I made sure to learn it though, so I'm not one of those uneducated people when it comes to sex, but at the same time when it came to High-school I thought "Oh, Condom balloon day. >.> Who the fuck doesn't actually know this shit?"

Surprisingly, out of an entire class of 35 people, me and two others could actually sit there and answer questions from the teacher in front, and I don't know, something must have connected with these people... But I heard questions like "Is it true you can't get pregnant on Tuesdays?" from the rest of the class.

And I remember sitting there thinking... Is this person fucking serious? Are these really the fucking questions coming from 17 and 18 year olds? If it weren't for the internet, they wouldn't even know where to put their dicks!

So, I agree with you. (All three of your points, actually) If we're going to solve a lot of problems, showing kids how to put a condom on a giant wooden penis doesn't cut it. You need to actually sit down, and actually make sure these people listen to the teacher when important topics are discussed. And it 'aint just the bible belt that has this problem.

 

[Baneat]

Why do you think the rates are so high?

There used to be a huge stick behind people keeping them married. Marriage as a whole doesn't seem reliable. The fact that people split up now because there's no stick doesn't mean that the stick was a good idea. Finding "The one"(Or "A one") in the severely limited number of people you know isn't great odds.

 

[Arina Love]

So? why do you care that other people do with their lives? If they want to get married soon, let them be. Who cares about statistics.

 

[Phasmal]

Am I the only one around here who doesn't think divorce is a bad thing?
My parent's divorce was the best thing to ever happen to their marriage.

I like marriage, it's a nice thing. I'd like to get married at some point, not yet though. But if I do, and it goes south, I wont jump to divorce straight away- but I'm certainly glad it's an option.

The way I see it divorce in and of itself isn't such a bad thing, it's that people get hitched too early or for the wrong reasons that lead to broken homes and weak family ties. It's not that divorce shouldn't be an option, it's that marriage should be taken more serious by the average couple.

Hm, just as people get married for different reasons, people get divorced for different reasons.
I think too many people are quick to judge that a couple didn't `work hard enough` on their marriage, when really, you can't know that from outside the marriage. I think if the couple declare it broken, then that's what it is.

As for the broken home thing, I always found that incredibly patronising. Many people don't consider what a relief divorce can be. My home was more broken when my parents were married than it ever was when they divorced.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I think kids factor into it a lot more than their parents would let on. My parents got married when I was 2 and divorced less than 5 years later. Having a kid (especially if your family or your partner's family is 'old school' or 'traditional') you're more likely to feel like you should get married to the person who you knocked up (or were knocked up by). This is going on with my GF's brother actually: he had a kid with his girlfriend and they got married...even though they fight all the time and don't seem to have much in common.

As someone else said earlier on in the thread: the U.S. seems to have a culture centered around young love. If you don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend in high school there's something wrong with you apparently. Speaking of, there seem to be a lot of teenage-brides and grooms...that probably adds to the divorce rates...

The one I've been with, I've known for five years or so. I met her online and we've been dating for almost that entire length of time. She's going to be 20 this winter and while I love her and would love to spend my life with her I'm not in a rush to pop the question. Others in my position could have already gone through with a wedding and divorce or, just a wedding. I'm going to just wait and she agrees on waiting.

 

[Eri]

Am I the only one around here who doesn't think divorce is a bad thing?
My parent's divorce was the best thing to ever happen to their marriage.

I like marriage, it's a nice thing. I'd like to get married at some point, not yet though. But if I do, and it goes south, I wont jump to divorce straight away- but I'm certainly glad it's an option.

The way I see it divorce in and of itself isn't such a bad thing, it's that people get hitched too early or for the wrong reasons that lead to broken homes and weak family ties. It's not that divorce shouldn't be an option, it's that marriage should be taken more serious by the average couple.

Hm, just as people get married for different reasons, people get divorced for different reasons.
I think too many people are quick to judge that a couple didn't `work hard enough` on their marriage, when really, you can't know that from outside the marriage. I think if the couple declare it broken, then that's what it is.

As for the broken home thing, I always found that incredibly patronising. Many people don't consider what a relief divorce can be. My home was more broken when my parents were married than it ever was when they divorced.

I think you presume your case to be the norm though, when it isn't. I'm betting if you polled all the children of divorcees who were at least somewhat young when it happened, most would tell you it wasn't a "relief" that their parents separated.

And, the numbers speak for themselves. I think most don't try hard enough to fix the marriage or the divorce rate wouldn't be so high. Then again, maybe if you shouldn't have married to start with, no amount of work would fix it. But I think people should try harder on all fronts.