Do you ever wonder whether the whole “one partner for everything for life” thing is to blame?
For just about every couple that you or I may know who are getting married, we likely know another couple who are throwing in the towel.
It doesn’t seem to matter much anymore, kids/no kids/whatever, like it or not the fact of the matter is that an awful lot of people getting married today will be getting divorced in the next 8 to 12 years.
Sometimes I wonder if the whole “One partner for everything for life” thing is to blame. It seems as if we’re rarely ever looking outside the tiny, ironclad monogamy box that comes along with that stack of wedding presents.
In the wake of my own divorce after 10 years of monogamy, I got to wondering: is monogamy wrecking marriage? And is that why so many official unions these days seem to be all about getting married for a decade or so of real monogamy just to end in divorce?
Are we becoming more prone to fits of monogamy rather than the notion of “me and you forever,” moving to a point where all we need out of our marriages now is a good hearty decade or so of being “true” (or trying to be) to one single partner merely so that we can:
- Do the domestic thing
- Have some beautiful kids
- Maybe work our way up the career ladder with the mental and physical boost of a damn good partner for a while
- Leave the marriage when it all just becomes a suffocating hand over our ability to even breathe anymore
Like I said before, I loved being married in so many ways. And for a while there, I really thought that was it for me: “This is my life, me and her sitting here after we get the kids to bed, having some dinner and a cold beer, binge-watching some Breaking Bad or whatever.”
Looking back now though, that isn’t enough, is it? I mean, what about the soulful connection? What about the deep discussions about our individual and collective dreams? What about the tenderness that we all need more than we ever care to admit in these times when being “strong” is basically an excuse to hide your feelings and, quite possibly, end up being a giant a-hole.
What about the sex, man?
Why do these things tend to go away from so many marriages after a while?
And why do we just sit there on our proverbial couches and let them go away without fighting for them? Without reinventing them or reigniting them. Without any real attempt at understanding what might be poisoning the universal well.
Is it at all possible that all this marital sadness that leads to all this divorce is actually because we are, in fact, cheating ourselves? When we look each other in the eyes and that look says, “Yo, we are monogamous for the next 50/60 years, right?” is it at all possible that RIGHT THEN AND THERE we are signing off on the human experience we are meant to be having, one in which we love more than one partner at a time, not just sexually — look, maybe not even sexually at all.
But what about possibly connecting intellectually/psychologically/comically/spiritually/artistically and thus intimately with more than one person at a time over the long stretch of a marriage to one partner for the greater good of the family unit? What if this new idea was just as acceptable as the old idea that it’s totally unacceptable?
Or are we just too set in our ways, too jealous and envious to ever evolve to that stage?
I don’t know.
I repeat.
I.
Don’t.
Know.
Big parts of me probably wouldn’t know how to do it that way. I’ve been trained differently, the heavy railroad ties of monogamy slammed into my brain with the sledgehammers of tradition.
However, I do know this much. I’m divorced now; so is she. And there’s a good shot that so are you. And if not you, then someone just like you.
The way I see it, no one is talking much about the bigger picture when it comes to monogamy and divorce. We chalk most divorces, most broken homes, up to “irreconcilable differences.” Throngs of us move into the divorce phase like sheep, blindly assured by the fact that there is strength in numbers, and so how can EVERYBODY AND THEIR BROTHER divorcing possibly be wrong?
It seems to me that we perhaps don’t bother to look beyond the boring old church vows written centuries ago. We abide by a set of social standards that were conjured up in a long-ago castle in some foreign land, a castle now just a crumbling ruins where school kids go to eat their lunch and play grab ass in the long shadows of history.
We get married, same as we ever have, except nowadays we wake up one morning ravaged by the loneliness and unhappiness that has been building up within us over time.
So we file for divorce — again and again and again.
I’m curious, so maybe you tell me. Any chance it’s monogamy killing off the love?
I just wanted to point out that “not divorced” is not the same as “happily married.” It would be great if we stopped using the divorce rate as the measurement of how many happy marriages there are. I would hardly call a marriage “successful” just because the people are still married to each other. That’s a miserably low bar to set. Some people in my family are very unhappy in their marriages but stay married because they look down on divorced people. Others hate their partners but stay out of spite or inertia. Yay, success. Marriage isn’t less happy than… Read more »
I think you’re onto something. Unrealistic expectations are a really big problem at the start of many marriages, and the expectation of monogamy may be one of the hardest to fulfill. But, that’s clearly not the only thing leading to divorce. If couples stopped fighting about sex, they would still fight about money and children. Furthermore, even though infidelity is often a cause of marriages falling apart, sometimes infidelity is a symptom of a marriage that was already falling apart. Opening a marriage may deal with a symptom without dealing with the underlying problem. In some cases it’s just adding… Read more »
Perhaps it’s less about monogamy specifically, and more about control vs freedom.
Great piece.
Serge
I do not think the solution is a marriage contract for open marriage.
And just imagine what divorce would cost then if not only one part wants rights property and money but maybe five lovers also wants something for themselves and their children.
But if anyone wants to draw up contracts like that then go ahead.
I would like to see a serious alternative model to marriage.
Open marriage is not something I would try.
Hi Silke!
“I would like to see a serious alternative model to marriage.”
Any ideas you wish to share with us? I know you have some..
Monogamy isn’t the issue, at least for me. Why the hell would you get married if you didn’t plan on monogamy. If you want to continue to date, don’t get married. If your eye continues to wander YOURE NOT IN LOVE.
The rest is alot more complicated. When two people are not committed for whatever their “shit” is….the marriage will end. Period.
Marriage is the only adult relationship the young are ever exposed to. All else is deemed to be fantasy fiction, and is discouraged. So many of both genders get married only to discover that they know nothing about how to make it work. All of the focus was on the wedding and the dress and the other trappings. It may be that marriage was once the only way that society could rein in the young so that there would be replacements for the elderly. Based on reports from several nations, this isn’t working anymore. The global economy is leaving the… Read more »
Why do you assume that people only get married in the first place to ‘abide by a set of social standards that were conjured up in a long-ago castle..”? If people only got married because of social standards, then they certainly wouldn’t ever get divorced because getting divorced back in the day was seen as some kind of plague. People get married because they want to. They want that fulfilling relationship with that person they love. Monogamy isn’t perfect. You have to fight for it. It’s not always easy. But clearly in a day and age where you neither have… Read more »
AMEN!!!!
I’d say most people are somewhat monogamous and it’s beneficial to the family unit. There are also laws against polygamy and it has been heavily discouraged, further reinforcing monogamy through culture. Western culture isn’t really set up for more than 2 people in a union like marriage.
Thanks Sasha! I think monogamy is beneficial to people who believe in it, want to work at it, and consider it an important aspect of their relationship. Not just because of creating a ‘family unit” for the benefit of kids. If you don’t want to be monogamous, don’t. No one is forcing you to be monogamous. But don’t blame monogamy for divorce or suggest that if people would only stop pretending they are monogamous, divorce wouldn’t happen. If you couldn’t be monogamous and you got divorced because you couldn’t be monogamous, the problem was you , not the previous commitment… Read more »
Great comment Erin…I feel the same.