This comment was by mgm531 on the post “Is ‘Tradition’ What’s Wrong With Marriage?”
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“The statistics on marriage aren’t pretty. 50-60% of marriages end in divorce these days.”
I think using the oft sited 50% of marriages end in divorce statistic is a bit misleading and really doesn’t tell the whole story. Just because a marriage ends in divorce it doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a successful one.
It would be naive to believe the any marriage that doesn’t end with the death of a spouse constitutes as a ‘failed’ marriage. Sometimes relationships just run their course and come to a natural end. The Happily Ever After notion of a life long marriage may have worked decades ago when life expectancy was relatively short as compared to today.
Till Death Do You Part was far more of a reality in the past than it is today. But that notion is a bit quaint and archaic now, don’t you think? Does anybody really think that it is feasible to live ‘Happily Ever After’ with the same person for 20, 30 or even 50 years? Maybe for a scant few, but for the majority of people I think not.
Further it has only been very recently that the notion of marriage for love has been in fashion. For many, many years marriage was viewed as a practical and economical way raise a family. If they were lucky a man and woman loved each other, but it wasn’t necessarily a requirement. That notion maybe be foreign to use in this modern day world, but for men and women of decades ago it wasn’t unusual at all.
So the notion of what is considered a successful marriage really needs to be re-examined. Does a 20 year marriage that ends in divorce really count as a failure if there were many good years shared by both spouses? Does a 20 year marriage with one or both spouses living miserable lives but doesn’t end in divorce count as a success because they didn’t divorce, even though by all rights they should have? I’m not one to judge in either case, but it certainly begs the question of whether we should reconsider the definition of a successful vs unsuccessful marriage.
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Photo: nuno luz / flickr “Someone is happy. #divorce”
I must first qualify this by saying that I am not in any way a trained marriage or family therapist. My qualifications are born from my life experiences, such as they are. I have no doubt that most, if not all, people that enter into marriage truly believe that it is a commitment ‘for life’. But vows made at a specific time at a specific age often do not stand the test of time when circumstances change. Who we are when we are young is not the same as whom we might be when are older, wiser and more experienced.… Read more »
I can definitely understand the intention of this article. I’ve only been married for four years myself so I’m definitely no expert on the topic but I do have two questions that come to mind:
– If the intention isn’t “for life”, why should anyone get married in the first place?
– Are there any reasons for divorce that can’t be boiled down to some form of selfishness in either party?