When almost everyone gets married, there is going to be a higher percent of folks with miserable marriages. When only the most eager and privileged get married, there won't be as many. The question is, what's going on in the middle? Are there actually a lot of young men and women today who have the potential to have good matches with each other who are rejecting marriage? How much can the rate of marriage be increased before the rate of miserable marriages takes a big jump?
If you marry someone who is kind, good and intelligent whose company you enjoy, you will probably have a great marriage. If you choose someone for dumb, superficial reasons like looks, money or status, you shouldn’t expect much.
IIMO, any marriage in which the spouses don't enjoy just hanging out with one another is doomed, either to divorce or decades of arid coexistence. My pet theory is that a lot of the divorce-memoir writing we've gotten in the last several years, almost always from women who say that there was nothing objectively wrong with her husband (wasn't abusive, was a good father, etc.), reflects relationships between professionals that were formed because (1) one or both partners felt time-pressure to settle down and (2) the man checked enough of whatever boxes the woman had for "husband material." But there wasn't much of the "enjoy each other's company" aspect, so once the kids were all born, there wasn't much to hold the two together.
A whole lot of life happens in the hanging out moments. I love just hanging out. Better than any activity. Drinking coffee while playing jazz vinyl after dinner. Sitting outside by the pond with wine and a smart speaker playing Pandora’s White Stripes channel. Walking the dogs.
Best parts of life. Yeah, sometimes you gotta go out and do things and see people, but none of these things beat cuddles and conversation.
Yes to this! When I was dating my husband, I was amazed at the sheer length of time we could spend with each other and not get on each other‘s nerves and have a good time. We’ve been together going on nine years at this point, and those things are still true.
Only been together for just over a year (but in our 50s so not choosing to waste our time for no reason) … bf was musing about how some of his uncontrollable circumstances were limiting the life we could have … not just his life anymore… I can’t disagree… but I finally said: yeah it’s all true, and I know that. But look, most of life is just talking anyway.
He smiled. End of musing.
I never dreamed I would just want to be with anyone in the world, day in and day out. But I just love being with him.
I think it means, when things aren't working well for you and your partner (and kids if you have them), are you willing to go outside your comfort zone and do things that aren't as fun or creative as you would like in order to make the family work better? It could be going back to work even if you would prefer to have more of a domestic life, or being the partner who stays with the kids because your mate has the health insurance.
We don’t have money and have never had money. We would love to have a little more. We have a lot of unmet needs. But I’m still happy with my husband and absolutely don’t wish I’d married someone with more money.
BronzZooCobra makes a good point about money. Everyone needs some to exist in the world. To a point more is better - more comfortable living, better prospects for the couple and their kids. It's a major cause of divorces and I'm guessing a major reason why some marriages don't happen. However, I take your point. Money can't be the ONLY reason, or possibly even the major reason. At some level a good marriage requires liking the person you're with, appreciating their talents, their attributes. You can be married without that, but it's not going to go well.
I don’t know why, each time I say it’s better not to marry for money, or to require money, that’s apparently understood to mean, “go ahead and marry a lazy partner who doesn’t contribute a dime.”
I’d expect both partners to contribute with some kind of job unless busy raising small children etc. I assumed that was understood!
My husband and I have had exactly one fight about money — it was him wanting to give some away that I thought we should retain. There’s much more to it, of course, but NO, fights about money are not inevitable — perhaps they are LESS likely in a marriage not chosen for financial reasons? Neither my husband nor I ever had much money and still don’t and never will. I know for sure he didn’t marry me for any reason but love because he gave up everything — his country, languages, family, friends, foods, UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE and more to come here!
It's a bit "Hollywood thinking," i.e the romantic comedy where the guy with money is a douchebag, and the marginally employed guy is nice. The real world is composed of men in the middle.
Hmmmm, I was primed for fashion today, but I am not the one running this show! I am glad to see this one again
I've been married for decades, and, for us, "the work" is usually a matter of commitment and forging through the less-than-stellar times with our heads down. Which people do through all kinds of situations anyway. When people say marriage is hard work it's a bit foreign to me. I'm from the Rustbelt, and I spent one summer working at the GM Hydra-Matic plant in Yspi - that was hard work. Although it's not a daily trip to Disneyland, marriage can be a lot of fun.
Yes I agree! All relationships are hard work, but hard in like a workout or gardening. Sometimes you need to do some heavy lifting, other times you hang out in the sun or sauna. Not overwhelmingly hard like doing a marathon without training.
I feel it leads to people enduring situations that are way to bad for everyone involved, because "it's supposed to be hard" or avoiding the difficult conversations with your friends/spouse/family because "emotional work is so hard".
I stayed in a bad long term relationship in part because I had misinterpreted what people meant by relationships being work. Then I learned that what people meant was things like scheduling date nights or giving your partner some grace during occasional rough patches, and not feeling like the relationship was a constant struggle and source of stress. I wish people had been more clear about this.
You raise an interesting point, I have a good friend who suffered through an eight year marriage that was downright horrible and abusive. She’s in a good relationship now, but when I asked her why she didn’t kind of bail on it sooner, she said she always heard that all couples fight. So she took that to mean that the constant tension and arguments they had were mostly normal. It’s normal to have disagreements and sometimes get on each other‘s nerves, but constant fighting should not be a regular part of any relationship.
I'm ticking over 4 decades in a couple years, and I completely agree. I will say that partner choice matters A LOT. Recently for some reason I've been thinking about past relationships, from before I met the woman I married, musing about how my life would have been different. Honestly, I can't imagine myself not being divorced from any of those earlier women. And yes, part of that is looking back from the person I grew into in THIS relationship, but still - hard to see myself being as happy and satisfied in any other timeline. But also, looking back to the person I was at the start, in my 20s, I find it hard to see a through line to the place I am now. Like the John Hiatt some says: "I didn't have no plans to live this kind of life. It just worked out that way." In other words, I got really lucky.
As for the hard work, ask me about the year spent in a factory, manufacturing cooling equipment, or about the summers working on my uncle's farm. My wife and I spent a summer completely rebuilding our kitchen. That's testing a commitment...
Home renovations or home building will test your relationship in many ways!
I had two serious relationships before meeting my husband (we actually met in college, then didn't see each other for ten years, so re-meeting is probably more apt).
In retrospect, those relationships should have ended much more quickly than they eventually did. But we were all young and foolish. Both of those men got married, and as far as I know, are both still happily married. Maybe we all learned something from them? Who knows.
I think the toughest time in our relationship was when I was in grad school (at EMU!) and I was just so stressed and my husband was patient with me while also working and supporting me. I know he wouldn't say it but I think I was a bit of a load and if he just didn't like me, it would have been really easy to just move on.
Not that we have a ton of bad times but I feel like we could weather them because we actually do like each other that not being together through it would be unthinkable.
7 years and counting, best thing I ever did. But I don’t talk about how happy I am around other people- it’s not the done thing. I think that’s part of the problem- unhappy people do nothing but talk about it, and happy people wisely keep their mouths shut.
And even when you talk about it, no one believes you. The common idea is that people who talk to positively about their marriages, especially on social media, are just lying or covering something up.
And even if they believe you it isn’t taken positively. So many of our friends have “haha isn’t he/she so annoying/such a buzzkill” relationships that I genuinely feel bad telling them our relationship isn’t like that. And they can SEE it isn’t like that, too, and it sometimes turns the mood sour to be like “oh, we just really like spending time together.”
Right? My parents fought constantly so my unmarried younger siblings legit don't believe me when I tell them that my husband and I have never once yelled at each other or had a fight (we do have the occasional civil disagreement). It's heavenly.
My husband and I have never raised our voices to each other or had any fights either! We have had disagreements and conversations about difficult topics, we have been through some seriously tough times, but in 14 years we've never had anything resembling a fight. I've never said this out loud ever because I know no one would believe me, but maybe you will? Heavenly is the word.
Great stuff. Also, marriage’s financial effects (dual income, sharing housing expenses, tax differences) are pretty evergreen. It’s very practical to share things if you can find someone you love and trust.
That's the opening line of Anna Karenina, usually translated as "All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
I think this exact same article could be written about kids and parenting. If I ever say things like “I enjoy being a parent” or “I love being pregnant” to people without kids they look at me pityingly like I’m either lying because I’m too ashamed to admit my misery or I have been brainwashed by the patriarchy. But most of the parents I know also like being parents, boogers and all.
Yes. To me the main point of this article is that the discussion around marriage has been pulled to the dark edges by the way we get information these days - by the algorithms powering social media and by people writing to please those algorithms. Not that those incidents don't happen, but they're not the whole story of marriage.
yes, and I think happily married people and happy parents are going to need to start advocating for both decisions.
Our current fertility rates are literally not sustainable. There needs to be a STRONG norm. Grow up, get married, have kids (and stay married).
If liberal cultures can't produce stable populations they will be replaced with other cultures that do. And we probably won't like what those other cultures look like.
But the people you advocate to may have completely different outcomes. Different people can tolerate different things. One of my friends says that I can experience hardships that would make other people miserable with equanimity, but that the normal disappointments and boredom of life with other people often cause me great distress. And it’s true. And there are things I find very rewarding that I know I can’t sell most folks on—-like a lot of the heavy and dirty farm work we do. IMO we shouldn’t encourage anyone to have kids unless we are ready to be there for them if things fall apart, including taking in their kids if needed.
Here's the thing though, I don't think people can really appreciate having kids until they have kids.
I know I was REALY on the fence about having kids. It was very easy for me to understand all the drawbacks of having kids. All the money spent, the sleepless nights, the changes in lifestyle, where we went for vacations etc etc.
But my wife wanted kids, so finally after a LOT of discussion, we had them. I'm SO glad she won that argument.
Yeah, kids can be a pain in the ass sometimes. yesterday they were throwing shit in the house and broke some ceramics my wife had been working on for over 40 hours.
But still they are by far the best decision we ever made and we would make it again in a heart beat.
You think you know what love is. You love your parents, you love your spouse. But then you have a kid and realize you didn't really know.
Yeah, but that's you. I completely don't relate. I was so angry because nothing I had been told seemed to match my experience. And back when I had kids, talking about not liking it was taboo. People didn't want to hear it. I feel like I was dangerously close to hurting someone. I'm just glad we all got through it. Having grown up kids is great. If we have grandkids I'll help, but I'd be happy without any.
Well, the "I love being pregnant" part is largely biology. It's not hard to love being pregnant if you don't have morning sickness and you are built big enough so the baby isn't kicking you in the ribs or bladder or whatever and you don't have any scary pregnancy-related medical conditions and your hormones aren't making you crazy. It's usually not someone's fault if they have a rough pregnancy.
As someone who was nauseous throughout two pregnancies, I certainly agree with you. However, I do think it would be helpful for people to recognize that “I love it” is also a possibility. I tell my friends who considering kids that you just have no idea what your pregnancy will be like and they think I’m insane bc they don’t even know “fine” is an option.
And you also have no idea what the aftermath will be like, love and cuddles or wanting to murder everyone who crosses you. Speaking as someone who liked being pregnant and found having the actual baby disappointing.
I agree that the experience can vary (in the same way experiences in marriage can vary, not necessarily through the fault of either partner). Certainly in pregnancies with complications it can be very scary and incredibly difficult.
That said, I’ve experienced debilitating morning sickness with my latest pregnancy and can easily still say I love being pregnant - I love the concept that I’m growing my baby, the science behind pregnancy, seeing the ways my body changes. I don’t think just because something is hard or has unpleasant components means it has to be something you don’t like. I also enjoy running marathons despite the fact that the majority of the experience is pretty unpleasant. I think the default assumption that it’s crazy if someone enjoys pregnancy (or they’re lying or just have magically not had any negative symptoms the whole nine months) is driven by this dynamic of promoting only negative experiences and the negative parts of pregnancy. Sure, some or maybe plenty of women don’t enjoy it, but we shouldn’t have people believing no one does or it’s impossible to because that’s just not true.
The only real problem with marriage and motherhood is that it took me three paragraphs to realize I’ve already read this. But perhaps that’s just aging - I can’t rule it out 😘 Anyway, I now know what titles catch me
I’m interested in why rich dudes get married at the high % rate. The argument is the manosphere talking point is wrong because of the data but not a rebuttal of the logic since why wouldn’t a rich dude want a harem? Obviously there is the simple answer that marriage is better for the usual obvious reasons
One part is that just culturally, marriage is a little bit more of a requirement once you’re in the middle class or above, if you want kids. The idea of actively trying to conceive with someone you’re not married to certainly happens among wealthy but is a far more culturally accepted thing among people below the middle class.
Unless you’re Elon Musk, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that Elon Musk is a weirdo with a “breeding” fetish.
There are occasional artsy types who do deliberately have out of wedlock children, but the “bohemian” creatives like artists and actors and musicians have always been outside the mainstream. “Ordinary” middle class and above people tend to think that “baby daddy” and “baby momma” type stuff is tacky.
Completely agree with this assessment. I think Elon and all those ultra rich tech guys have crossed a weirdo rubicon but most folk once you become middle/upper middle class do not like having kids all over town and see it as low class or trashy. My mother once called my husband my "baby daddy" and I told her to *never* refer to him as that, ever. Especially as a black women, I do not want that word anywhere near being associated with me.
I think for middle class or above, it's less about being tacky and more about the economic and social benefits of marriage. Marriage isn't just a union between two people, but is also the creation of a new family unit. Forgoing marriage for bohemian reasons is really just defacto marriage for MC/UC hippies.
My theory is that working class people marry less because:
(1) The lack of economic opportunity for WC males make supporting a family difficult and therefore leads to a life of pursuing personal lesuire (gaming, etc.) instead.
(2) WC females are the default family leaders, due to the economic and social failures of WC males, and this causes an nearly impossible to resolve relationship problem as males bristle at the default female family leadership, but at the same time cannot earn their woman's respect enough to attain & upkeep the leadership role themselves.
(3) The rise of "baby mama/dada" culture among the WC has created an almost matriarchal society within a society. So for a few generations now, children are born into homes where the mother and grandmother lead the family, while father is absent. Historically this trend has been most common in Black American WC culture, due to the economic disenfranchisment of Blacks, but has in recent decades spread to the White WC as this group has seen their fortunes decline due to globalization, etc.
The appeal of having a bunch of beautiful women excited to date you is as much about status and validation as it is about sex. If you already have status, it probably just doesn't hold that much power, after the initial novelty has worn off. The novelty of having sex with lots of different women might last a bit longer, but even that has its limits. Talking to a series of people who are pretty to look at, but whom you aren't particularly compatible with, and who are basically interchangeable to you because you don't love or feel a desire to share your life with any of them...might be fun to live that way for a year, but what about ten years, or forty? Some men would genuinely enjoy doing that forever, sure, but most people would get tired and bored with it, and the negatives would outweigh the positives.
Also, I would question that 'rich' (i.e. at least six figure salary) men can automatically have that type of lifestyle anyway. Most rich men aren't rockstars popping bottles on yachts, they're professionals and business owners with pretty normal, boring lives, albeit at a nicer than average standard. The women they meet will be mainly from the professional class themselves and aren't going to date a man just because he's rich, unless they feel very compatible with him in other ways. Gold-diggers do exist, and there are ways for men to find them if that's what they want, but there isn't really this infinite well of gorgeous young women falling over themselves to date Jerry the senior accountant.
Emily Oster's Parentdata did a 26k person survey that dialed in on the sex life of couples after they have kids. Behind a paywall but I can give some highlights.
And roughly 10% have a decline in the amount of sex by a factor of two when the kids are less than five, and then it bounces back. With the caveat that she also sees a gradual decline with age of parents.
Still 45% of those parents with kids older than 5 are having sex weekly or more and and another 37% are having it 1-2 month.
Most people in the sex weekly category are satisfied with the amount of sex they are having and the kind of sex they are having, whereas the monthly or less generally wish it was more.
When we had our kid we knew the statistics and were intent on "hitting our numbers". Turned out not to be an obstacle (after the first six months) since our kid loves to sleep in the evening.
Having lived in Australia where cohabiting couples have pretty much similar legal rights as married spouses, this concern over people not marrying or not wanting to marry is just very odd. More kids are being born out of wedlock but the difference is that the parents are still together (and not having their kids taken away for just that). More people seem happier to live together and enjoy that relationship to the fullest extent, including buying a house together and wait until it's a good time to marry. There was also a period of time when marriage was kind of seen as silly if it was only for a certain subset of people (that is, straight couples or more specifically upper middle class who never had to deal with the government in any way). The real question should be are we becoming more anti commitment or anti relationship now? Because the "loneliness epidemic" would be more telling of that than the lack of married couples.
I'm curious what would be 'a good time to marry' if you've purchased property together, had children together, etc. Sounds like the marriage has essentially happened already...
To me, buying a house with someone and *especially* having a child with them is a huge commitment that is NOT easy to get out of, so what additional burdens would marriage place on the relationship?
Depends on how time poor you are but in the 2 cases of people I know, they just had very high stress jobs and had a few kids that were very young. Planning a wedding for them was a huge event for them and required a bit of coordination due to family living across the country and overseas.
There is a ton of research in the US that shows that kids do WAY better in married household than in other settings. Lower rates of drug use, lower teen pregnancy, lower jail etc.
The idea of buying a freaken house with someone that you aren't married to, that's just insane to me.
Very true, but it’s not like parents are randomly assigned to “married” vs. “unmarried” groups. The likelihood of waiting to have children until you’re married correlates strongly with other factors that affect children’s wellbeing, like income and education levels.
I mean, I think it depends on the parents and what's going on in their world more than anything else. I don't think marriage makes a difference in the grand scheme of things. Correlation does not always equal causation.
But yes, it's true, people don't have to be married to buy a house together - especially if you treat housing like an investment. My best friend has been with her partner for 15 years. Never married, had 2 kids and both have decent jobs (she and him were children of very messy divorces so that's kind of influenced their reasons). My parents bought a house when they were engaged but not married so don't know if that counts but that was the 80s and to them, it was better than renting. I have a colleague (who was in a relationship at the time) bought a house with her brother because it was easier for them to have some equity. I'm sure I have more examples.
They're doing completely fine and are perfectly happy so I don't think they'd GAF about your opinion. If the relationship fails, it's a good thing this country's family laws recognise domestic partnerships and de facto marriage so they'll still need to go through the same divorce processes as everyone else.
Yeah, that's part of what's jarring to me about articles like this, marriage and genuine long-term commitment being discussed as if they're one and the same thing, when in fact many people are fine with the latter without the former (though the US aren't quite there yet).
Oh yeah, of course, it's totally cultural, but still weird! It's like having a survey question where the only options are a. grow your hair down to your ass, or b. shave your head, and then looking at the results thinking "jeez, why do so many people have a beef against hair?".
I think the fundamental problem is that people in more-or-less functional, mostly happy marriages aren't that interested in talking about it, and people aren't that interested in hearing about it.
Bad marriages and relationships, tales of breakups leading to adventure and self discovery, these drive engagement (even pre Internet).
One theory on why girls today may be less interested in marriage than they were in the past is simply rising acceptance around being a single mom across all segments of society. I mean girls in 1993 were living in a completely different reality in terms of what a family should "look like." There were still "Leave it to Beaver" reruns on cable TV back then! Marriage has been much more decoupled from having children over the last 30 years and I have to think has played a part in this adjustment.
And, kids or not, rising acceptance of leaving home and not living with your parents! You can bake cookies and invite your besties over for crochet night at your own place. Domesticity without the guy in front of the TV.
When almost everyone gets married, there is going to be a higher percent of folks with miserable marriages. When only the most eager and privileged get married, there won't be as many. The question is, what's going on in the middle? Are there actually a lot of young men and women today who have the potential to have good matches with each other who are rejecting marriage? How much can the rate of marriage be increased before the rate of miserable marriages takes a big jump?
Yes, I wonder about this often! It's a great deal of what I write about.
If you marry someone who is kind, good and intelligent whose company you enjoy, you will probably have a great marriage. If you choose someone for dumb, superficial reasons like looks, money or status, you shouldn’t expect much.
IIMO, any marriage in which the spouses don't enjoy just hanging out with one another is doomed, either to divorce or decades of arid coexistence. My pet theory is that a lot of the divorce-memoir writing we've gotten in the last several years, almost always from women who say that there was nothing objectively wrong with her husband (wasn't abusive, was a good father, etc.), reflects relationships between professionals that were formed because (1) one or both partners felt time-pressure to settle down and (2) the man checked enough of whatever boxes the woman had for "husband material." But there wasn't much of the "enjoy each other's company" aspect, so once the kids were all born, there wasn't much to hold the two together.
A whole lot of life happens in the hanging out moments. I love just hanging out. Better than any activity. Drinking coffee while playing jazz vinyl after dinner. Sitting outside by the pond with wine and a smart speaker playing Pandora’s White Stripes channel. Walking the dogs.
Best parts of life. Yeah, sometimes you gotta go out and do things and see people, but none of these things beat cuddles and conversation.
Yes to this! When I was dating my husband, I was amazed at the sheer length of time we could spend with each other and not get on each other‘s nerves and have a good time. We’ve been together going on nine years at this point, and those things are still true.
Only been together for just over a year (but in our 50s so not choosing to waste our time for no reason) … bf was musing about how some of his uncontrollable circumstances were limiting the life we could have … not just his life anymore… I can’t disagree… but I finally said: yeah it’s all true, and I know that. But look, most of life is just talking anyway.
He smiled. End of musing.
I never dreamed I would just want to be with anyone in the world, day in and day out. But I just love being with him.
Many marriages founder on the rocks of low ambition and low earnings. It's great to marry the kind smart musician but that don't pay the bills.
Finding a partner to pay your bills is more of a sugar baby or prostitution situation. I wanted a soulmate.
Sounds like you define “ambition” only financially.
Money is not the most important thing. You can be happy without much of it. You can’t be happy without meaningful human relationships.
It's about someone not being willing to pull their weight.
You mean … marriage is pay to play? Only money is an appropriate contribution?
I think it means, when things aren't working well for you and your partner (and kids if you have them), are you willing to go outside your comfort zone and do things that aren't as fun or creative as you would like in order to make the family work better? It could be going back to work even if you would prefer to have more of a domestic life, or being the partner who stays with the kids because your mate has the health insurance.
Lacking money causes a whole host of problems that can be ameliorated by earning more of it. Somehow I think you know this.
We don’t have money and have never had money. We would love to have a little more. We have a lot of unmet needs. But I’m still happy with my husband and absolutely don’t wish I’d married someone with more money.
Having family wealth can do the same. That kind smart musician might not be a liability if it turns out that he has a trust fund. Life is not fair.
I married a smart, kind musician. He’s the best guy I’ve ever known. We don’t have a ton of money, but we have the best life.
You get it!
BronzZooCobra makes a good point about money. Everyone needs some to exist in the world. To a point more is better - more comfortable living, better prospects for the couple and their kids. It's a major cause of divorces and I'm guessing a major reason why some marriages don't happen. However, I take your point. Money can't be the ONLY reason, or possibly even the major reason. At some level a good marriage requires liking the person you're with, appreciating their talents, their attributes. You can be married without that, but it's not going to go well.
I don’t know why, each time I say it’s better not to marry for money, or to require money, that’s apparently understood to mean, “go ahead and marry a lazy partner who doesn’t contribute a dime.”
I’d expect both partners to contribute with some kind of job unless busy raising small children etc. I assumed that was understood!
My husband and I have had exactly one fight about money — it was him wanting to give some away that I thought we should retain. There’s much more to it, of course, but NO, fights about money are not inevitable — perhaps they are LESS likely in a marriage not chosen for financial reasons? Neither my husband nor I ever had much money and still don’t and never will. I know for sure he didn’t marry me for any reason but love because he gave up everything — his country, languages, family, friends, foods, UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE and more to come here!
It's a bit "Hollywood thinking," i.e the romantic comedy where the guy with money is a douchebag, and the marginally employed guy is nice. The real world is composed of men in the middle.
There are poor douches and sweet rich guys, too.
I thought our bedroom was in hospice,
then CHH gave me permission the be horny! Can I resubmit my answers to the married sex survey!🔥
Wow this is so inspiring!! That survey is closed but I might want to interview you?
Well, that would certainly be fun!
Aw, this is so nice!
Hmmmm, I was primed for fashion today, but I am not the one running this show! I am glad to see this one again
I've been married for decades, and, for us, "the work" is usually a matter of commitment and forging through the less-than-stellar times with our heads down. Which people do through all kinds of situations anyway. When people say marriage is hard work it's a bit foreign to me. I'm from the Rustbelt, and I spent one summer working at the GM Hydra-Matic plant in Yspi - that was hard work. Although it's not a daily trip to Disneyland, marriage can be a lot of fun.
I’m experimenting with some stuff since I have such a huge backlog and no MST- but there will be fashion next week!
Yes I agree! All relationships are hard work, but hard in like a workout or gardening. Sometimes you need to do some heavy lifting, other times you hang out in the sun or sauna. Not overwhelmingly hard like doing a marathon without training.
I feel it leads to people enduring situations that are way to bad for everyone involved, because "it's supposed to be hard" or avoiding the difficult conversations with your friends/spouse/family because "emotional work is so hard".
I stayed in a bad long term relationship in part because I had misinterpreted what people meant by relationships being work. Then I learned that what people meant was things like scheduling date nights or giving your partner some grace during occasional rough patches, and not feeling like the relationship was a constant struggle and source of stress. I wish people had been more clear about this.
Yes. It's work that you do gladly because you like the other person. Most of the time it feels easy, too.
Relationships take EFFORT. If it feels like work, it’s probably not healthy.
You raise an interesting point, I have a good friend who suffered through an eight year marriage that was downright horrible and abusive. She’s in a good relationship now, but when I asked her why she didn’t kind of bail on it sooner, she said she always heard that all couples fight. So she took that to mean that the constant tension and arguments they had were mostly normal. It’s normal to have disagreements and sometimes get on each other‘s nerves, but constant fighting should not be a regular part of any relationship.
Yeah, there's 'work', and there's 'survival situation'. Can require the same effort but very different things.
Marriage is work... but if you love what you do you never work a day in your life?
I'm ticking over 4 decades in a couple years, and I completely agree. I will say that partner choice matters A LOT. Recently for some reason I've been thinking about past relationships, from before I met the woman I married, musing about how my life would have been different. Honestly, I can't imagine myself not being divorced from any of those earlier women. And yes, part of that is looking back from the person I grew into in THIS relationship, but still - hard to see myself being as happy and satisfied in any other timeline. But also, looking back to the person I was at the start, in my 20s, I find it hard to see a through line to the place I am now. Like the John Hiatt some says: "I didn't have no plans to live this kind of life. It just worked out that way." In other words, I got really lucky.
As for the hard work, ask me about the year spent in a factory, manufacturing cooling equipment, or about the summers working on my uncle's farm. My wife and I spent a summer completely rebuilding our kitchen. That's testing a commitment...
Home renovations or home building will test your relationship in many ways!
I had two serious relationships before meeting my husband (we actually met in college, then didn't see each other for ten years, so re-meeting is probably more apt).
In retrospect, those relationships should have ended much more quickly than they eventually did. But we were all young and foolish. Both of those men got married, and as far as I know, are both still happily married. Maybe we all learned something from them? Who knows.
I think the toughest time in our relationship was when I was in grad school (at EMU!) and I was just so stressed and my husband was patient with me while also working and supporting me. I know he wouldn't say it but I think I was a bit of a load and if he just didn't like me, it would have been really easy to just move on.
Not that we have a ton of bad times but I feel like we could weather them because we actually do like each other that not being together through it would be unthinkable.
7 years and counting, best thing I ever did. But I don’t talk about how happy I am around other people- it’s not the done thing. I think that’s part of the problem- unhappy people do nothing but talk about it, and happy people wisely keep their mouths shut.
Yep, feels impolite to say that I adore being married and I love being a mom.
Like bragging about how much money you make or something.
And even when you talk about it, no one believes you. The common idea is that people who talk to positively about their marriages, especially on social media, are just lying or covering something up.
And even if they believe you it isn’t taken positively. So many of our friends have “haha isn’t he/she so annoying/such a buzzkill” relationships that I genuinely feel bad telling them our relationship isn’t like that. And they can SEE it isn’t like that, too, and it sometimes turns the mood sour to be like “oh, we just really like spending time together.”
Right? My parents fought constantly so my unmarried younger siblings legit don't believe me when I tell them that my husband and I have never once yelled at each other or had a fight (we do have the occasional civil disagreement). It's heavenly.
My husband and I have never raised our voices to each other or had any fights either! We have had disagreements and conversations about difficult topics, we have been through some seriously tough times, but in 14 years we've never had anything resembling a fight. I've never said this out loud ever because I know no one would believe me, but maybe you will? Heavenly is the word.
Great stuff. Also, marriage’s financial effects (dual income, sharing housing expenses, tax differences) are pretty evergreen. It’s very practical to share things if you can find someone you love and trust.
Or, as I found out a little while back, if you fork up your knee so bad that you can't reach down to tie your shoes for a few weeks...
Yeah, or crash a mountain bike and break multiple ribs...
Now I get why my memoir proposal of "Forty Years of Married Bliss" has yet to attract offers!
Who was it that said "Happy marriages are alike, but each unhappy marriage is unhappy in its own way"? I'm paraphrasing thanks to failing memory...
That's the opening line of Anna Karenina, usually translated as "All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Ah, Tolstoy. Last read it in a college lit class, and apparently partly overwritten in my memory..
I think this exact same article could be written about kids and parenting. If I ever say things like “I enjoy being a parent” or “I love being pregnant” to people without kids they look at me pityingly like I’m either lying because I’m too ashamed to admit my misery or I have been brainwashed by the patriarchy. But most of the parents I know also like being parents, boogers and all.
Yes. To me the main point of this article is that the discussion around marriage has been pulled to the dark edges by the way we get information these days - by the algorithms powering social media and by people writing to please those algorithms. Not that those incidents don't happen, but they're not the whole story of marriage.
yes, and I think happily married people and happy parents are going to need to start advocating for both decisions.
Our current fertility rates are literally not sustainable. There needs to be a STRONG norm. Grow up, get married, have kids (and stay married).
If liberal cultures can't produce stable populations they will be replaced with other cultures that do. And we probably won't like what those other cultures look like.
But the people you advocate to may have completely different outcomes. Different people can tolerate different things. One of my friends says that I can experience hardships that would make other people miserable with equanimity, but that the normal disappointments and boredom of life with other people often cause me great distress. And it’s true. And there are things I find very rewarding that I know I can’t sell most folks on—-like a lot of the heavy and dirty farm work we do. IMO we shouldn’t encourage anyone to have kids unless we are ready to be there for them if things fall apart, including taking in their kids if needed.
Here's the thing though, I don't think people can really appreciate having kids until they have kids.
I know I was REALY on the fence about having kids. It was very easy for me to understand all the drawbacks of having kids. All the money spent, the sleepless nights, the changes in lifestyle, where we went for vacations etc etc.
But my wife wanted kids, so finally after a LOT of discussion, we had them. I'm SO glad she won that argument.
Yeah, kids can be a pain in the ass sometimes. yesterday they were throwing shit in the house and broke some ceramics my wife had been working on for over 40 hours.
But still they are by far the best decision we ever made and we would make it again in a heart beat.
You think you know what love is. You love your parents, you love your spouse. But then you have a kid and realize you didn't really know.
Yeah, but that's you. I completely don't relate. I was so angry because nothing I had been told seemed to match my experience. And back when I had kids, talking about not liking it was taboo. People didn't want to hear it. I feel like I was dangerously close to hurting someone. I'm just glad we all got through it. Having grown up kids is great. If we have grandkids I'll help, but I'd be happy without any.
You are definitely an outlier in that
Well, the "I love being pregnant" part is largely biology. It's not hard to love being pregnant if you don't have morning sickness and you are built big enough so the baby isn't kicking you in the ribs or bladder or whatever and you don't have any scary pregnancy-related medical conditions and your hormones aren't making you crazy. It's usually not someone's fault if they have a rough pregnancy.
As someone who was nauseous throughout two pregnancies, I certainly agree with you. However, I do think it would be helpful for people to recognize that “I love it” is also a possibility. I tell my friends who considering kids that you just have no idea what your pregnancy will be like and they think I’m insane bc they don’t even know “fine” is an option.
And you also have no idea what the aftermath will be like, love and cuddles or wanting to murder everyone who crosses you. Speaking as someone who liked being pregnant and found having the actual baby disappointing.
Completely +1 this! It can go many ways, but I think the consensus these days is it is by definition a horrible experience for all women.
I agree that the experience can vary (in the same way experiences in marriage can vary, not necessarily through the fault of either partner). Certainly in pregnancies with complications it can be very scary and incredibly difficult.
That said, I’ve experienced debilitating morning sickness with my latest pregnancy and can easily still say I love being pregnant - I love the concept that I’m growing my baby, the science behind pregnancy, seeing the ways my body changes. I don’t think just because something is hard or has unpleasant components means it has to be something you don’t like. I also enjoy running marathons despite the fact that the majority of the experience is pretty unpleasant. I think the default assumption that it’s crazy if someone enjoys pregnancy (or they’re lying or just have magically not had any negative symptoms the whole nine months) is driven by this dynamic of promoting only negative experiences and the negative parts of pregnancy. Sure, some or maybe plenty of women don’t enjoy it, but we shouldn’t have people believing no one does or it’s impossible to because that’s just not true.
The only real problem with marriage and motherhood is that it took me three paragraphs to realize I’ve already read this. But perhaps that’s just aging - I can’t rule it out 😘 Anyway, I now know what titles catch me
I kinda want the list of things y'all bicker about... I think it would be amusing
You are perhaps the only one who wants to hear it
Perhaps
I’m interested in why rich dudes get married at the high % rate. The argument is the manosphere talking point is wrong because of the data but not a rebuttal of the logic since why wouldn’t a rich dude want a harem? Obviously there is the simple answer that marriage is better for the usual obvious reasons
One part is that just culturally, marriage is a little bit more of a requirement once you’re in the middle class or above, if you want kids. The idea of actively trying to conceive with someone you’re not married to certainly happens among wealthy but is a far more culturally accepted thing among people below the middle class.
Unless you’re Elon Musk, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that Elon Musk is a weirdo with a “breeding” fetish.
There are occasional artsy types who do deliberately have out of wedlock children, but the “bohemian” creatives like artists and actors and musicians have always been outside the mainstream. “Ordinary” middle class and above people tend to think that “baby daddy” and “baby momma” type stuff is tacky.
Completely agree with this assessment. I think Elon and all those ultra rich tech guys have crossed a weirdo rubicon but most folk once you become middle/upper middle class do not like having kids all over town and see it as low class or trashy. My mother once called my husband my "baby daddy" and I told her to *never* refer to him as that, ever. Especially as a black women, I do not want that word anywhere near being associated with me.
I think for middle class or above, it's less about being tacky and more about the economic and social benefits of marriage. Marriage isn't just a union between two people, but is also the creation of a new family unit. Forgoing marriage for bohemian reasons is really just defacto marriage for MC/UC hippies.
My theory is that working class people marry less because:
(1) The lack of economic opportunity for WC males make supporting a family difficult and therefore leads to a life of pursuing personal lesuire (gaming, etc.) instead.
(2) WC females are the default family leaders, due to the economic and social failures of WC males, and this causes an nearly impossible to resolve relationship problem as males bristle at the default female family leadership, but at the same time cannot earn their woman's respect enough to attain & upkeep the leadership role themselves.
(3) The rise of "baby mama/dada" culture among the WC has created an almost matriarchal society within a society. So for a few generations now, children are born into homes where the mother and grandmother lead the family, while father is absent. Historically this trend has been most common in Black American WC culture, due to the economic disenfranchisment of Blacks, but has in recent decades spread to the White WC as this group has seen their fortunes decline due to globalization, etc.
The appeal of having a bunch of beautiful women excited to date you is as much about status and validation as it is about sex. If you already have status, it probably just doesn't hold that much power, after the initial novelty has worn off. The novelty of having sex with lots of different women might last a bit longer, but even that has its limits. Talking to a series of people who are pretty to look at, but whom you aren't particularly compatible with, and who are basically interchangeable to you because you don't love or feel a desire to share your life with any of them...might be fun to live that way for a year, but what about ten years, or forty? Some men would genuinely enjoy doing that forever, sure, but most people would get tired and bored with it, and the negatives would outweigh the positives.
Also, I would question that 'rich' (i.e. at least six figure salary) men can automatically have that type of lifestyle anyway. Most rich men aren't rockstars popping bottles on yachts, they're professionals and business owners with pretty normal, boring lives, albeit at a nicer than average standard. The women they meet will be mainly from the professional class themselves and aren't going to date a man just because he's rich, unless they feel very compatible with him in other ways. Gold-diggers do exist, and there are ways for men to find them if that's what they want, but there isn't really this infinite well of gorgeous young women falling over themselves to date Jerry the senior accountant.
Media like reality TV and Entourage have broken some people's brains about reality.
Emily Oster's Parentdata did a 26k person survey that dialed in on the sex life of couples after they have kids. Behind a paywall but I can give some highlights.
https://parentdata.org/your-sex-lives-after-kids/
And roughly 10% have a decline in the amount of sex by a factor of two when the kids are less than five, and then it bounces back. With the caveat that she also sees a gradual decline with age of parents.
Still 45% of those parents with kids older than 5 are having sex weekly or more and and another 37% are having it 1-2 month.
Most people in the sex weekly category are satisfied with the amount of sex they are having and the kind of sex they are having, whereas the monthly or less generally wish it was more.
When we had our kid we knew the statistics and were intent on "hitting our numbers". Turned out not to be an obstacle (after the first six months) since our kid loves to sleep in the evening.
A good marriage is REALLY good and a bad marriage is REALLY bad. But anyway, that's why people have the option of divorce.
Having lived in Australia where cohabiting couples have pretty much similar legal rights as married spouses, this concern over people not marrying or not wanting to marry is just very odd. More kids are being born out of wedlock but the difference is that the parents are still together (and not having their kids taken away for just that). More people seem happier to live together and enjoy that relationship to the fullest extent, including buying a house together and wait until it's a good time to marry. There was also a period of time when marriage was kind of seen as silly if it was only for a certain subset of people (that is, straight couples or more specifically upper middle class who never had to deal with the government in any way). The real question should be are we becoming more anti commitment or anti relationship now? Because the "loneliness epidemic" would be more telling of that than the lack of married couples.
I'm curious what would be 'a good time to marry' if you've purchased property together, had children together, etc. Sounds like the marriage has essentially happened already...
To me, buying a house with someone and *especially* having a child with them is a huge commitment that is NOT easy to get out of, so what additional burdens would marriage place on the relationship?
Depends on how time poor you are but in the 2 cases of people I know, they just had very high stress jobs and had a few kids that were very young. Planning a wedding for them was a huge event for them and required a bit of coordination due to family living across the country and overseas.
There is a ton of research in the US that shows that kids do WAY better in married household than in other settings. Lower rates of drug use, lower teen pregnancy, lower jail etc.
The idea of buying a freaken house with someone that you aren't married to, that's just insane to me.
Very true, but it’s not like parents are randomly assigned to “married” vs. “unmarried” groups. The likelihood of waiting to have children until you’re married correlates strongly with other factors that affect children’s wellbeing, like income and education levels.
Here is one recent article on the subject
https://ifstudies.org/blog/new-research-confirms-having-married-parents-helps-kids-get-ahead
Agreed. But even after controlling for all those factors, there's something magical about being "married:
I mean, I think it depends on the parents and what's going on in their world more than anything else. I don't think marriage makes a difference in the grand scheme of things. Correlation does not always equal causation.
But yes, it's true, people don't have to be married to buy a house together - especially if you treat housing like an investment. My best friend has been with her partner for 15 years. Never married, had 2 kids and both have decent jobs (she and him were children of very messy divorces so that's kind of influenced their reasons). My parents bought a house when they were engaged but not married so don't know if that counts but that was the 80s and to them, it was better than renting. I have a colleague (who was in a relationship at the time) bought a house with her brother because it was easier for them to have some equity. I'm sure I have more examples.
Being with someone for fifteen years and not being married is just incredibly stupid.In my opinion, I can't even fathom it.
Like literally WTF
They're doing completely fine and are perfectly happy so I don't think they'd GAF about your opinion. If the relationship fails, it's a good thing this country's family laws recognise domestic partnerships and de facto marriage so they'll still need to go through the same divorce processes as everyone else.
Yeah, that's part of what's jarring to me about articles like this, marriage and genuine long-term commitment being discussed as if they're one and the same thing, when in fact many people are fine with the latter without the former (though the US aren't quite there yet).
It’s not really that jarring when you remember that I’m American and so are most of my readers lol
Oh yeah, of course, it's totally cultural, but still weird! It's like having a survey question where the only options are a. grow your hair down to your ass, or b. shave your head, and then looking at the results thinking "jeez, why do so many people have a beef against hair?".
I think the fundamental problem is that people in more-or-less functional, mostly happy marriages aren't that interested in talking about it, and people aren't that interested in hearing about it.
Bad marriages and relationships, tales of breakups leading to adventure and self discovery, these drive engagement (even pre Internet).
Same effect as online reviews.
One theory on why girls today may be less interested in marriage than they were in the past is simply rising acceptance around being a single mom across all segments of society. I mean girls in 1993 were living in a completely different reality in terms of what a family should "look like." There were still "Leave it to Beaver" reruns on cable TV back then! Marriage has been much more decoupled from having children over the last 30 years and I have to think has played a part in this adjustment.
And, kids or not, rising acceptance of leaving home and not living with your parents! You can bake cookies and invite your besties over for crochet night at your own place. Domesticity without the guy in front of the TV.