OMG, OMG, OMG, you guys. Did you hear about Leonardo DiCaprio? That he bangs a lot of chicks?
Howard Stern heard about it and he thought that was a really big deal and tried to get Tina Fey to call DiCaprio a misogynistic womanizer in an on-air interview, because these things matter, and Stern’s respectful treatment and portrayal of women through the years should, frankly, be the standard by which we hold all men, I think.
Or how about Chris Rock getting rich celebs to buy his daughters’ Girl Scout cookies at the Oscars! That was a pretty big deal and stuff.
I mean, I’m still getting over this crisis with Starbucks serving coffee in minimalist-designed red cups over the holidays. The nerve! That was clearly the biggest middle finger toward Christmas since the Sarah Childs neighborhood lights display. Can you imagine if they’d distributed coffee cups in colors with no symbolic connection to the holiday season whatsoever!? Like—I don’t know—their regular ones!?
Seriously, guys. I bet Jesus was soooo angry with Starbucks. Remember when he said this in the bible?:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And the third is: But NOT if they won’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ and celebrate my birthday, because then they’re a bunch of loser sinners who deserve condemnation, loud and public displays of outrage, and financial ruin.’”
Someone please distract me from all of these things worth my time, attention and anger! Remind me again how important Caitlyn Jenner’s personal choices are, and how much they impact my personal life at home and the community I live in. Remind me again how much I should pay attention to The Artist Formerly Known As Bruce’s stepdaughter’s Twitter account with more than 40 million other people:
Ugh his wifi isn’t working!!!!!! Who doesn’t have wifi?!?!?! lol
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) March 1, 2016
Can you imagine if Kim had to pay for data usage to tweet that? OMG, data charges.
Like, like, like! Retweet, retweet, retweet! Because it matters!
‘Hey Matt! We Get It! You’re Being Snarky About Unimportant Topics People Like to Discuss!’
I know you get it, smarties. That’s why I broke every writing rule on the planet, probably offended some people in the process, and waited more than 400 words to get to the point—a topic which has already been blog-flogged to death here.
But I don’t care. This has been bothering me. A lot.
The Biggest Statistical Threat to You and Your Children is Divorce
I’ll give you health care, if you want. I’ll let you tell me that’s a bigger societal problem than divorce. If you’re a member of a faith community with deep religious convictions, I’ll concede that philosophical and theological conversations about a possible afterlife should probably rank a little higher.
Maybe someone wants to suggest education or environmental concerns as global problems impacting virtually everyone, but they’re not jumping divorce on my list. Sometimes, blissful ignorance serves people well. Just ask the PhD suffering from depression after she discovered her husband’s affair, or the civil engineer crying himself to sleep at night because his three children are spending the weekend camping with mom and her new boyfriend.
These Numbers Should Scare the Shit Out of You
The more I learn, the more confused I become about why this isn’t a mainstream societal conversation. Statistically speaking, 95 out of 100 people will get married, or are planning to. Of the remaining five percent, I think it’s safe to assume many of them will, at various times in adulthood, be in a long-term relationship with a romantic partner, the dynamics of which will mirror marriage in many ways.
Let’s recap what usually happens:
Boy meets girl.
Sometimes they’re teens. Usually they’re in their 20s. Sometimes they’re in their 30s, even 40s, before entering marriage for the first time. Most of the time, they’re not maladjusted, criminally inclined psychopaths, pathological liars, violent, sick, stupid or evil. Most of the time, they’re two generally kind, decent and educated people who fall in love and volunteer to marry one another, understanding that it’s a life-long commitment, and that if they mess it up it will be pretty terrible.
In the United States, 99 out of 100 accepted marriage proposals come from the future groom. Just a young man with a dream. He’s statistically likely to be 29. He spends more than $6,000 on the engagement ring. He and his future bride start planning the wedding together. They invite most of the people they know, and they spend, on average, $30,000 on a one-day party to demonstrate how seriously they’re taking this life-changing moment. They promise to love and honor their partner every day, forever, no matter what. They say it front of an audience, and typically enter a legal contract filed at a nearby courthouse.
These two people are serious about this. They don’t think they’re going to get a divorce someday. That marriages fail slightly more than half the time is a well-known fact.
Nevermind all that! We’re in love! #mylovey #besthubbyever #bestfriendsforever
In the United States alone, a new marriage happens 6,200 times every day. Or, put another way, after 5-10 years of marriage and sharing resources, 3,100 people file for divorce daily.
About 67 percent of the time—two out of three—the divorce is instigated by the wife, frequently because she married a good guy who totally sucked at marriage.
Think about that.
More than 6,000 people (marriage = two), plus their children, extended families, friends and co-workers are dealing with a new divorce EVERY DAY. Just in the U.S.
And divorce is soul-crushing. It truly is for all the couples who entered marriage with a legit forever-commitment in their hearts. The ONLY people divorce isn’t horrible for are wives or husbands who somehow found themselves married to some tyrant or con artist or abuser who behaved with such epic assholery that divorce actually provided sweet relief. And even THAT has to suck a little since you can no longer trust yourself to make good life choices.
But the human spirit is a tough thing to squash. We’re resilient and demonstrate a biological or cultural predisposition toward advancement and improvement.
Some people dig deep into their bellies down where the guts and courage reside.
I’m in love again! Oh, happy day! And I’ve learned so much from all my stupid mistakes in the past! I’m going to get married again, and it’s going to be everything I always knew marriage could be! I’ve finally found my soul mate!
Maybe there’s less pomp and circumstance the second time around. Maybe people don’t spend $30,000 and invite a ton of people to second weddings. I have no idea.
But I do know one thing: After all of the life experience and wisdom gained from a previous marriage, and after all of the pain, sadness and anger felt throughout divorce, and how obvious it must seem to adults willing to give marriage another shot, they ruin their marriages EVEN MORE often than all the young first-timers who didn’t know better.
Second marriages in the U.S. fail 67 percent of the time.
…
I mean, I understand why we have national conversations about gun violence and childhood obesity and how many threes Stephen Curry drained last night. I really do. I even understand why some people want to talk about Hollywood celebrities, or discuss something a coffee shop did that might have made them angry, sad, happy, or amused.
But, I CANNOT figure out why these alarming statistics aren’t sparking some kind of grand-scale concern or high-level conversations from a critical mass of people.
We have a problem. A national and global problem. And not enough people are talking about it because they’re too busy following Kanye’s wife on Twitter.
I think it’s stupid, and it kind of pisses me off.
But probably not as much as those outraged Starbucks customers were three months ago.
Again.
Your reading my mind Matt! As a society we are completely unaware of the communal narcissism that’s got us by the b@!!s. Too wrapped up in our likes, uploads and tweets to see what’s missing in our lives…intimacy, true and humbling intimacy.
I can understand how we, as people, can adopt a “It will never happen to us mentality,” and accidentally ruin our marriage imperceptibly slowly.
Because that’s what happened in my marriage and the more long-time therapists/counselors I talked to about what they see in their practices, the more it became clear that my divorce was about as textbook and run-of-the-mill as they come.
And despite being fairly intelligent, and despite genuinely loving my family, and despite wanting to stay married for life, I still fell into the lull many, if not most, married people do.
Through the prism of hindsight, and a greater understanding of human behavior and common relationship dynamics, I can process it all and deal with it.
What I can’t deal with is how we live in a world of information overload and where we are freakishly sensitive about societal negatives and their impact on humanity.
Bullying. Smoking in public. Big Pharma. Processed foods. Air emissions standards. Recycling. Whatever.
All these things. We identified a problem, areas for improvement, and banded together societally to address them.
And here we have this thing that wreaks total havoc on people’s lives on several fronts. This thing everyone WANTS to do. But then it all turns to shit with everyone asleep at the wheel.
And no one, in any large-scale, meaningful way, is doing anything about it.
In the context of all these other causes people get so fired up about, I see a major disconnect and a misappropriation of societal priorities RE: marriage and divorce.
I’m so glad you care, too.
I think that the biggest change, for my heart anyway, was seeing the pain in the eyes of my children when we were going through the motions of divorce, and then remembering what I felt when my dad drove away for the last time. Never have I felt more selfish or more aware of what I was squandering. It’s not a smooth road by any means, but I am thankful to God every day that I’m not divorced. And more than that, I’m cherishing my life all the more.
Maybe don’t consider an ended relationship a ‘failure’. Change is a constant. Societal norms included here. By the way, I love reading your stuff. One helluva talented writer.
An ended relationship is not a failure. An ended marriage which two competent and non-evil people voluntarily entered IS a failure. By definition.
I’m FINE with people breaking up with one another because they lack compatibility and simply decide they want to be with someone else. The time for self-centeredness is PRE-marriage.
But everyone needs to get their collective shit together and stop writing Forever-promise checks they can’t cash.
I want people to collectively decide to enter marriage legitimately prepared for it.
The real problem is that almost no one knows what that looks like in their mid-20s when they’ve spent their entire lives in school and having fun with friends, never understanding what life will look and feel like once a lot of that fun goes away in favor of career and bill paying and leaving heavily on another young and confused person for all their social and emotional support.
I’m going to keep hoping the right people start having the right conversations. Maybe someday.
You gave me two really nice compliments, and I appreciate them very much.
Thank you for reading, thinking about this stuff, and taking time to comment. 🙂
I’ve seen that second marriage failure rate before, and people do tend to think it means second marriages are even more likely to fail. But I don’t think that’s a scientifically accurate way to look at it. There are significant differences between the population starting a first marriage and those starting a second. People who are starting a second marriage are people who by definition have proven that they are willing to leave a bad relationship (or at least some of them are, some certainly had a first marriage end against their wishes). Fifty percent of first marriages “make it,” but does that mean that they are good, healthy marriages? Certainly not. There are lots of unhappy first marriages where people don’t leave because they think divorce is morally wrong, they just don’t want to go through divorce, whatever. I don’t have any idea what the exact number is, but I think it’s very possible that on top of the 50% of first marriages that do end in divorce, another 25% “should” also, as one or both partners are very unhappy. And if I happen to be right in that number, then a 67% failure rate of second marriages might actually be an improvement. Regardless of what the numbers really are, my point is that first and second marriages cannot be compared as apples to apples. There are population differences that certainly affect the outcomes.
I think you’re absolutely right. Statistics are just statistics. Context and information we’re not privy to matters.
But I’m not trying to get too hung up on the details.
Let me word it another way: Anything as important, impactful, and central to our lives as marriage should succeed WAY more than just half the time when you factor that this is a voluntary thing people do, almost never ignorant of how bad divorce can be.
What if only half of all high school kids earned a diploma?
We would lose our collective minds, and all we would discuss is the state of public education until meaningful action was taken.
I don’t understand why this isn’t registering with more people.
Maybe some people think it’s not very important.
Maybe if you’ve never cried uncontrollably like a child as a broken adult, and never gotten multiple emails and blog comments every day from some person on the brink of a mental or emotional breakdown due to the state of their marriage, it’s easy to think of divorce as a minor nuisance like mosquitos in the summertime, or $25 baggage fees during air travel.
I think it’s really important.
I appreciate you thinking about it and being part of the conversation.
Yes, regardless of the exact details or numbers, the failure rate is way too high.
As far as why people don’t talk about it more – I don’t want to start a whole gender thing here, but I think our society’s continued view that masculine qualities are good and feminine qualities are bad probably has a fair bit to do with it. We’re supposed to be strong, to man-up, shake it off, etc. Talking about relationships, talking about feelings, crying uncontrollably, admitting to pain, admitting weakness – these are all considered to be very feminine and, essentially, bad. Your average man is, I think, hesitant to exude these “feminine” traits, and even a lot of women know that it’s seen as bad to do so and so are hesitant to speak openly about such matters.
I think as a society we have to change our relationship with our emotions in order to improve in the discussion of marriage and divorce.
I’ve really been enjoying the comments and conversation on this thread. I dont hear enough of this sort of talk in my day to day life. This is in response to your second comment, about men being vulnerable. I don’t have anything profound to say, except that, if you are not already familiar with Brene Brown’s work, I would really highly recommend it. She is a shame researcher- sounds fun, doesn’t it? :)…
She also has done work in vulnerability and how that leads to innovation (she has a few books out there that are really good).
She has made comments in her work about how men are not allowed to “come off of their white horse”, and it’s not other men that are preventing them- it’s the women in their lives. So work definitely needs to be done on both sides of the fence..The hopeful thing I take away from her work is what she is practically doing with it. She works with CEO’s and large businesses…this, to me, makes me think that a larger cultural impact can be made. If honesty and appropriate vulnerability become normative in the workplace, then why shouldn’t it seep down into family lives, and in how we talk to and see our neighbor?
Anyway- I appreciated your comments and agree men are often not allowed to be human. They cant- they’re men! But, I think a tremendous amount of healing and wholeness would happen if both men and women opened the door to recognizing how things affect the other, and work towards respecting and honoring that part of each other.
It is incredibly alarming. And soul crushing exactly describes the process. I truly wonder if there is anywhere else in the world that gets it right. Because if there is a country where divorce is low and marital satisfaction is high (and affairs a true disgrace), I’d love to learn what they’re doing. And then start giving classes on it! Lol!
I worry about the second time round stats, too. I don’t want to ever put my kids through this mess again.
Another beauty, though I think you sell the Threat Level Midnight enormity of climate change woefully short, but let’s not let that take away from another round of your razor-sharp commentary. If you’re still all tensed up after all that venting, go smack a Kardashian or two around (or any given follower of theirs). I promise I won’t tell.
“And even that has to suck a little because you can no longer trust yourself to make good life choices”
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I feel that way. I can’t imagine ever being married again once this one ends because of what a colossal fail this one has been. Apparently I’m a shitty judge of character 🙁
I couldn’t agree more with you, I feel the same way. My hubby and I never married, though we have a toddler, and he has put our relationship to an end recently. I kind of expected it. I could feel his anger and hate towards me when he looked at me or talked to me in the last few months. I had been unhappy too for many many months, and I really tried to tell him how I felt, what I needed from him… and he barely moved a finger. At least I feel like I did my best to try to save the relationship.
In our first three years together we didn’t even have a small argument. Ever. I really thought he was “the one”. So now, I really doubt I can make a good judgement if I ever get to have another chance at love, which I don’t expect to happen. And I feel terrible about it. Like you said, a complete shitty judge of character.
I’ve been married to my husband for almost 17 years. We’ve been together almost 20. We have 5 kids. We’ve come so close to divorce 3 times and each time I was too scared to go through with it. I’ve been begging him for the last 5 years to work with me and that we were heading for disaster. Instead he would fold his arms and shrug and say “so I suppose you’re perfect?” It’s so very sad but I just can’t do it any longer. It’s been so hard to drag myself to this decision and I hate it. But I have to show my kids that this is not what normal looks like. I wish it wasn’t this way. It’s heartbreaking for all involved
(Should appear underneath your comment but can’t make that happen)
I’ve also heard a lot the “you are not perfect, you know?” every time I pointed out something he had done that had hurted my feelings or that I thought was not good enough for the kid. Much better and easier for them to fight us and make us feel picky and overreacting that to admit they were/are shitty husbands.
Like you, I would have loved him to understand my point of view, my feelings and my needs. I did try to understand his. I wished badly for him to realize how much he was hurting me, but nothing. He kept avoiding me, not talking to me… and then he left me because HE wasn’t happy. That’s not the person I thought I was in love with.
But it’s so sad for the ones involved Angi, it really is. I understand you, how frightened and sad and frustrated you must be. And it feels so unfair that after trying and trying there is no reward to all your sacrifice, just more suffering…
So, recently a friend of mine posted an article about why women make relationships (read: marriage) a central part of their identity. The article championed women finding themselves in achievements and experiences, such as traveling, instead. My automatic thought was “No, women should not find their identity in marriage… ALONE. BUT-Marriage/family relationships do help to create our(read: human beings) identity and do help the individual grow, so I cant say that women should seek to build/refine (and NOT neccessarily “find”) their identity outside of close relationships/marriage, either. My second thought was “Why aren’t men taught to build their identity in relationships, too?” Men are taught to be tough (or smart, competitive ect), to earn a living and protect (the last one only sometimes…) Why don’t we (as a society) teach our boys about the importance of being in a family unit-cooperation, being loved for who they are, how to love others. Why dont we teach them what they mean to the family, and what family means for him?
You ask a good question- why aren’t we talking about divorce? I picture school campaigns with pencils that read “Just say no to divorce” or public service announcements that say “Only you can prevent the destruction of divorce”…I just think most people arent taught what it means to be a good husband and father. Most don’t even know its something to learn. So, they find themselves in a situation out of their control, not knowing how they got there. We should talk about divorce, and we should talk about marriage, family, being a human being and kindness. ..You’re doing the right thing with this blog. I hope there are adult men who are really willing to read it. I hope they invest their time in their families at home and teach their sons how to create unity and not division. We’re all learning…
Lindsey, Bravo and Amen and all that agreeable sounding stuff!
Distraction is a powerful coping mechanism. We don’t want to allow ourselves to feel our own pain and fear and hopelessness. We don’t want to think about how dysfunctional our own lives and relationships are, so we turn on the Kardashians so that we can make fun of their dysfunctional relationships. We run from the pain that is trying to tell us that something is desperately wrong within our own souls. We were meant for joy, but we settle for numbing the pain or distracting ourselves or denying it completely.
I think one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of finding a cure for the epidemic of divorce in our culture is the unwillingness to submit to anything larger than ourselves, be that God or law or family or whatever. We measure life and morality by our own limited understanding of individual happiness in the moment. This is not a stable foundation upon which to build the most important structures of our lives. We are all prone to blindness and selfishness and pride. Without any kind of external authority or guidance, every person does what is right in his or her own eyes. We are reaping the bitter fruit of that short-sighted vision.
Everyone talks about how high the divorce rates are in this country. Divorce is not easy or cheap. Depending on where you are all of your stuff gets split 50/50. I think many marriages are entered into too lightly, without enough preparation and understanding what it means to be an equal partner. You think we’re in love, we understand each other, this is going to be easy. It’s a lot of hard work, a lot of hauling and carrying, and if one ends up doing more and more of the heavy lifting …
There’s that saying… “It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings”. I believe this can also improve future generation in marriage.
How many times have I just picked up after my kids instead of getting them to understand that they should do this for themselves and it becomes “good habit”. It’s more exhausting for me to repeat myself then to just do it myself, but I’m destroying them in doing so. Just as creating good habits, kindness is also something to repeat until it becomes a natural occurance.
We are so caught up in so much “bad habit” that we forget to instil what really matters. Respect for ourselves, awareness of our actions, and the understanding of “real” issues that should be discussed, starting in the home. I do think however the big issues you bring up: “Bullying. Smoking in public. Big Pharma. Processed foods. Air emissions standards. Recycling. Whatever”, is the pivot to what SOME or even MOST of us care about. All of these issues are the base of what is really going on and the base of our real “issues” at home. Our “greed”… and/or not taking responsibility for ourselves. Not respecting each other and/or our planet as a whole.
If we can somehow miraculously turn it around in a day, we would all realize at the same time that we are all equal and that each choice we make by working together as a team, this would no longer be a problem. I’m afraid I’ll never see this in my life time, nor will our children.
I think the best way to start is to talk about it and fix it starting in our homes, with our children, our spouses, friends and communities.
Smiles are contagious… 😀
Yep. (I think you’ve got it too :)…This kind of change cant be legislated (And we’d hate it if it were)…it has to start at home. Damn those “personal choices!”…I think this loops back to The Kardashians…are we so inept as a society, and so out of touch with ourselves, that we’d rather numb ourselves with glitz and cheap thrills that really turns out to be meaningless than take time to go through the hard stuff that will really help ourselves and the people who follow.
Thankful for those who are trying! It starts small, in everyday life. It wont change things tomorrow, but I like to think that if unrelenting in kindness, in interest in others and our world, then what starts out small will spread.
Peace to you! Keep up the good work! : )
Yes! Thank you for saying it like it is! I’m a young woman, and I don’t give a damn about any of Hollywood. Thank you!
My mother always said, “Live life on your own for a few years. Get to know yourself before entering a relationship.” And older, wiser women have told me, “Realize you are strong/smart/independent enough to go it alone, that you don’t NEED a man. But should you decide to get married, you’ll have the back knowledge of all you are capable of.” I feel this relates to everyone. In our modern culture, it’s perfectly acceptable to focus on career over relationships in our early years. I have gleaned valuable insight from my married friends who are open and honest about their relationships. I hear the pros and cons side by side. I have my own parents’ failed marriage to look back on and evaluate. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll get married. When that day comes, I’ll have you and everyone to thank for just being honest, real people.
You’re awesome, Matt. Loved the post!
This video made a huge impact on me years ago. It speaks volumes for how we behave as societies. Even though it’s not about marriage, it is a HUGE contributor to why marriages fail… It’s our quest for “consumption” that has poisoned families. “Greed”… We spend our lives trying to get more and more, when the things that matter most are right beside us.
We all fall into this trap… It’s not easy to change ourselves or our children views when we see the world that concerns themselves so much about “The Kardashians” or “stuff”.
https://youtu.be/9GorqroigqM
Ok…devil’s advocate here…
Besides the fact that divorce sucks the big one, WHY does marriage matter?
Maybe part of the reason that marriage – institutionally and individually – isn’t working is because we don’t have a compelling enough reason to try harder?
Fair question. I’m not arguing for marriages that haven’t happened yet.
Just the ones that have. If everyone wants to adopt a Don’t Get Married mindset, I’m fine with that (though I think we’ve demonstrated culturally and biologically that we’re prone to pair up, and that we’re prone to engage in sexual activity with that person, and that gone unchecked, we’re prone to reproduce and bring little humans into the world, and all of that is probably best done in marriage, but whatever.)
There are all kinds of people out there who believe marriage flies in the face of biological instincts and that the reason it’s such a broken system is because of our “nature.”
FINE! Don’t get married. People against marriage should never waste any time reading my crap.
I’m for all of the people who want to get married, are married, and want to stay that way, because it’s hard when it doesn’t work out, and the rest of our lives are PROFOUNDLY impacted if there are children involved.
I don’t think the overall negative impact of divorce is reflected in the amount of conversation or meaningful action taken by society at large to try and curb this negative thing that’s happening.
People were worried about second-hand smoke in public places and the general health and welfare of everyone. So there was a bunch of education and awareness campaigns, and now there are fewer smokers than ever, a generation of kids highly unlikely to pick up the habit, and there are almost no public places where people smoke. (I was a cigarette smoker for 15 years and quit when my son came along.)
People were worried about plastic, glass and paper filling up the landfills and going to waste when there are viable second-life uses for them. So there was a bunch of education and awareness campaigns, and now many municipalities (so it seems–maybe there are a bunch of places where this isn’t true…) have organized, well-oiled recycling programs and a very high participation rate from local citizenry.
People SHOULD be worried about how freaking shitty we are at making marriage work because of how much damage it causes on so many levels to so many people, namely children. I wish the same energy, thought and effort put into Stop Smoking campaigns and Please Recycle campaigns over the past 20-whatever years would also be put into developing human relationship skills and teaching people how to be less shitty and dysfunctional.
I have no idea whether it could be as effective in creating wholesale behavior changes as anti-smoking and pro-recycling campaigns have been.
But I’d sure like people to try.
I’m confused about the part where not enough people seem to think it’s important enough, when I think the math is CLEARLY in favor of it being important enough to enough people.
I assume you agree, but I hope you’ll say if you don’t. Regardless, I love the good question.
Thank you for asking it. 🙂
Matt, perhaps you are looking for something like this little internet clip that was made to raise awareness about divorce in China. It makes me cry every time I watch it. http://faithtap.com/2038/rejoice-divorce-story/?v=1. (I hope sending the link this way works.)
Thanks for your thoughtful response and yes, you and I are largely on the page.
The bottom line for me is marriage can and should shape is into better people. People who are good to not just their spouses, but to *everybody*. There are lessons to be learned in marriage that can’t be learned in any other human relationship and since we go on to transmit what we learn in this generation to the next, we had better damn well get it right.
It would be GREAT to campaign such a thing, but how do you campaign such an intricate part of very different lives? Smoking campaigns are to the point! Whereas human “behaviour” is widely different from home to home. Sure there are similarities, but never the less VERY different. I’m sure you’re not the only one that would like to see this happen.
Religion, I suppose tries to instil the base of “loving one another”, but exercising these practices are really how we learn through the eyes of our parents, our peers, our communities and so on. You can say the words (commandment) as much as you want, but truly acting on them are what matters.
There’s no clear answer… whereas, you smoke, you will die or greatly diminish the years of your life.
I do think more emphasis in education should involve relationships… focusing on the “kind” instead of focusing “bully”.
That may be a start!
Personally, I think if marriage & family were not pushed by society as things that people HAVE to do to level up as adults, that less people would marry too young, or impulsively, and that more thought would be given to the decisions of who, when, and whether to marry.
For example, it has never made sense to me (even when I was young, and I am 50 now) to have “marriage” as a life goal before a person has even met someone they might imagine themselves spending their lives & growing old with! That’s not just putting the cart before the horse, it’s putting the cart before the idea of the horse. How about framing marriage as the thing you do when and only when you’ve met that person who you really can envision yourself sharing retirement with- and realistically, as the person they are right now, not as they might be once they are successful or have changed in some nebulous way. And also if we stop pushing “romantic” BS like ‘soulmates’ or ‘the ONE’ because it’s entirely possible to meet, date, and even fall in love with people who are not suitable for marriage or even serious long term relationships, and if people are taught that, they can learn to recognize it and enjoy those relationships for what they are instead of trying to force them into the narrative that all love MUST be “true love” and lead to marriage/family. And stop pushing women to believe that the one thing that defines them above all else is whether or not they have a man. I’ve met way too many people in my life who have consciously & unconsciously devoured these cultural narratives with zero critical thought and more often than not, the results are disastrous, because they are trying to force their lives & relationships to fit stereotypes and fantasies rather than appraising them with a realistic eye.
I don’t have enough applause for the thoughts and ideas in this comment. This is the root of so much of what’s happened.
I generically write it as “people just don’t know,” but it’s this. It’s soooooo ingrained in us from what we see and hear from people in our lives, and watch on TV, and read in books, that we mostly grow up believing this is just “what you do.”
It’s as if no one EVER stops and asks: “Is this really the best way to do this?”
My opinion: It seems in the last 10 yrs or so, people in their mid 20’s and younger have become more self absorbed than ever. Compound that with the age-old concept that marriage is just what you do (love conquers all) and they don’t think that there is a lot of work involved.Then there’s a big reality hit later. I know when I got married I didn’t realize the work it would take. I don’t think you ever stop working at it if I’m being honest.
Plus I don’t think that a lot of people are in the mindset that it’s a forever thing. It’s too easy to get a divorce. They have signs stuck in the ground advertising cheap divorce. Geez.
As for why isn’t there a nation (world) wide outcry over the divorce rate? People would have to look in the mirror. It hits too close to too many people’s own lives. It’s easy to go after a vice that someone else has. Much harder to go after a problem that you might have. Which is why I again applaud your courage Matt. Kudos to you for this blog which I find interesting every time I read it.
Totally agree and if I see another Kardashian on the kover of a magazine in gonna kapuke! Divorce rates are staggering! People hey into marriage ready to get out not make a life. I’m working on a thesis now about disposable vs forever relationships
yuck…I can’t believe you wrote about that stupid red cup thing….I’m pretty sure the media just made that up to make all of Christendom look like idiots….Everything else, I agree with.
Not true! I watched actual human beings be mad about it on TV.
Just because someone shares some, many, or most of my beliefs will not excuse them from my mockery.
No one was mocking Christiandom. I was mocking dumb things. People making a federal case out of Starbucks holiday cup designs, no matter how few protesters were involved, was a totally dumb thing.
I stand by my point. did you actually KNOW anyone who was offended? I didn’t…and christian’s literally orbit me all day long. hundreds of them….. but you “saw it on TV”…MM-Hmmm/…stupid media. 😉
I can’t be sure. I doubt it. If I did know someone personally, I probably wouldn’t have made fun of it and put it on the Internet. I wouldn’t expect anyone from yours or my inner circles to care.
You’re personalizing it a little bit, I think. I wish you wouldn’t!
I was very specifically making fun of the people who did get mad about it. All non-mad people are completely disconnected from it. (Hint: Don’t make it about Christianity! Because it wasn’t about that. It was about attention-whore drama queens who lack perspective and like screaming about things that don’t matter.)
I was joking…. Pretty much. Although you bringing it up again may be part of the problem, dude. I promise it wasn’t received nearly as poorly as you think it was. Can’t a chick joke around in here? 😉
gif on point!
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