a divorce thread

Most "fairy tale weddings" in my experience are indeed a fairy tale, but in the wrong sense

I think a lot of people don't take the vows of marriage seriously enough

For sure. Just about every married couple in my family has separated or divorced in the last couple years (and most of the rest have ended because of death). Between that and having a relationship that seemed headed towards marriage blow up in my own face...well, 'gunshy' is too weak a word. People just don't seem inclined to stick it out anymore. Probably part of the fallout of living in a society that promotes an illusion of infinite options.

There's definitely an obsession with 'happiness' as a state of being that I notice among my friends and coworkers. Which to me is really just logically not attainable, except in moments. and that's whether you are single or in a relationship. you're never going to be permanently in a state of happiness. you're just not.

but it can be really hard for people to know moment to moment if the situation they're in, when it's unsatisfactory, is going to improve, or get worse, or stay the same. Not everyone can or wants to embrace that kind of uncertainty, and in my own personal experience a great deal of a relationship is kind of, well, founded on uncertainty. "Do I know for SURE that this person is the right person for me? No. But they are now. And I feel good about finding out."
"Do I know for SURE that this situation will improve? No. But I want to see where this goes, and I want to do that with my partner."

But I'm well aware that that kind of logic really only applies to me in my own marriage. I can't really speak for anyone else's.

Probably part of the fallout of living in a society that promotes an illusion of infinite options.

― Old Lunch, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 12:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this. Being married to someone means saying "ok, I accept the possibility that I may have missed out on someone even MORE great for me [or on an amazing single life], and I accept that." Because never making any choice means missing out, too, perhaps even moreso.

xpost

That makes sense to me. There's an extent to which you really need to try to see the forest for the trees and take the long view in a partnership so that if you happen to be unhappy at this particular moment, your brain doesn't immediately go to dissolving that partnership as the obvious solution. I tend to think that people with that mindset are gonna just keep going to that same solution rather than dealing with what might actually be the source of their unhappiness (i.e. themselves).

my parents are a weird example; our family went through a pretty rough time through my teens and twenties, during which time my parents pretty much openly disliked each other. but they didn't divorce because that wasn't a thing you do, and mum had this obsession about 'staying together for the kids'...which eventually seemed kind of ridiculous since it was clear to 'the kids' that mum & dad were basically aquaintances who lived under the same roof. they're still together now, perhaps a little friendlier now than they were, but certainly nothing close to an example of two people in love in any real shape or form. Mum's openly admitted that she does not love Dad. So it's like, well, okay you're together but there's no medal for that, you know that right? I dunno. That made it sort of hard to go into a marriage myself, not really having much of a practical example of how to have one except to, you know, 'tolerate' the other person which wasn't really what I wanted. So you just kind of make your own example for yourself, and figure it out as you go.
but in general seeing my parents experience kind of makes me think there's no real right or wrong situation for any couple, it's just whatever works.

my parents are pretty similar, vg - they will never divorce because it would be too hard and complicated, and financially they'd be pretty fucked on their own. i think my stepdad could have a chance at a real relationship with someone else, but he'd never leave my mother. and my mother has no apparent inner life, isn't very loving/caring/affectionate/empathetic; i am 100% sure she would never find anyone else to put up with her.

man

my parents are so genuinely fond of each other, they are like an actual real life Cliff and Claire Huxtable

Does that make you Theo, Dan?

my parents are pretty similar, vg - they will never divorce because it would be too hard and complicated, and financially they'd be pretty fucked on their own

That's how mine are too - and a big part of the reason i never wanted to get married. To this day, the first thing that comes to mind when i hear the word "marriage" is a woman and a man screaming at each other.

Man, just1n3, that's a frighteningly-accurate description of my parents but in reverse. I hate to admit it, but (my parents') home has only been comfortable for the first time in my life since my dad died.

xxp: given birth order, I think that makes me Rudy, although I'm terrified that I'm actually Vanessa

my parents pretty much openly disliked each other.

Well, my mother hated my dad's guts. As a result she sort of brainwashed me into hating him. In hindsight I first felt guilty for hating him, then I was angry at my mom and now I realize she just fucked up. hah. I still remember that she told me:"I am not going through with the divorce because I don't want to lose our business." On the one hand I find that exceptionally coldhearted but otoh it was a good decision: they stuck together and became happy again (and then unhappy again and then... repeat ad nauseam) and it is a fact (especially) women have a crappy financial deal when there's a divorce.

I think one of the mistakes people make is not only forgetting wedding is about going through bad and good times; but that you will not be as happy trippy in love after a while. I don't miss it at all. Now I have this wonderful feeling of having a better half. Someone who knows me better than I do myself.

Also, I am exceptionally patient and tolerant. lololol (I am not being arrogant, I really am.)

I am not disagreeing with anything in specific but just positing that before divorce rates go down, we will probably maybe see some changes to what "marriage" means, practically speaking? Because the ideal of marriage as being forever and your spouse being your best friend and confidante and also helpmeet and co-parent and co-wage-earner and stuff...that happens for some people but it's too big a burden for all personality types and all the different needs ppl have? Also I'm not the historical expert but that hasn't been anything like what "marriage" meant for most of the history of marriage iirc? The world has changed a lot but the marriage ideal hasn't much.

I have been thinking about that (marriage being sth different now) and it scares me. I grew up with very few people divorcing (around me). So I still consider a marriage to be long lasting (or rather ever lasting). First time I heard about it I was in my teens and I really had no clue what it meant. I just can't change with the current times. Or at least I hope I won't. I want it to last.

actually, the "marriage ideal" has changed radically over the last few hundred years. There largely wasn't an expectation of a romantic relationship in the medieval era or earlier

xp - to Laurel
I dunno, I think it has changed and been adjusted to fit the individual needs of people all the time, it's just that people don't really dissect their relationships publicly all that much, at least not in the society I grew up in. I certainly never would.

The only marriage people seem to feel comfortable talking about is the one you described, but there are lots of irl marriages that differ from that in any number of ways.

I think about my parents too. My dad has been borderline controlling/abusive for parts of their lives, and if my mom were a healthy person with functional boundaries she'd have left him a long time ago but that wasn't an option to her so she didn't. But her life has been kinda sacrificed to him and the ideal of the nuclear family. And like in reality he is just not that pleasant a person, and even if he were less dysfunctional, he would not be an easy person to live with.

I think that about myself a lot, too, and how living w someone full-time and spending the majority of our free time together and cooperating on everything would just be an endless battle against following my inclinations or meeting my own needs? I am not that pleasant, and I am not that accommodating or selfless, and I don't say that proudly, I'm just saying that a person who would be able to stay with me under those conditions would probably not be totally healthy themselves. So...it's probably better this way? For me? I don't know how I'll end up obvs but there should be other options for romantic partnerships that aren't the kind of official marriages we've turned into the ONLY kind for the last...70 years? Or so?

There are all kinds of options. Don't spend years wondering why you don't fit into a box, yknow?

Nah LL you are probably otm and I appreciate that counter-weight (+ your earlier post above). I guess I don't have that much experience with non-traditional marriages, not having seen v many of them in action.

free floating observation:
Even people who love one another dearly and who are a good match in most ways are going to have some times in their marriage where matters get pretty grim for a time and it takes massive committment to work their way through it. imo, that's a given. Not everyone entering marriage seems to realize this.

the ideal of marriage as being forever and your spouse being your best friend and confidante and also helpmeet and co-parent and co-wage-earner and stuff

I think this description allows for a wide spectrum of implementation tbh; for some ppl, it's going to be all about 50/50 responsibility splits and spending as much time together as possible, while for others it means finding someone willing to give them space at the drop of a hat but will be a support system when asked, to something else completely different

Because ppl are so idiosyncratic, you can't really define "compatibility" in any type of universal way. Also, it's impossible for anyone to be happy 100% of the time and any relationship using that as a foundation or a measurement of success is doomed; in many ways I think it's more important to know how the relationship works when people are angry, sad or upset, because that's the hard part of making things work.

stevienixed your mum sounds kinda similar to mine -- I grew up resenting my dad for reasons that were poured into my ear by Mum, only to learn later in life that Dad's evils were blown way out of proportion by Mum just as a means of control, so she wouldn't have to face up to being kind of a crazyperson during that time.

it used to bum me out that I never grew up seeing my parents enjoying being around each other; smiling or hugging or kissing or anything like that. but I will gladly take what they have now, over what they were like when I was younger. I mean, the fact that they go places together on their own is kind of awesome to us now, lol.

Paul F Tompkins described the way his parents marriage was, that they were fun people in their 20s who liked going to parties and being together, and got married and had kids, but once they were in the marriage and had the kids, it was like they opened a present and found a sucky gift inside. And so they just kind of lived out their marriage resenting that the present sucked. (major paraphrasing)
That's kind of how mine were.

I am not disagreeing with anything in specific but just positing that before divorce rates go down, we will probably maybe see some changes to what "marriage" means, practically speaking? Because the ideal of marriage as being forever and your spouse being your best friend and confidante and also helpmeet and co-parent and co-wage-earner and stuff...that happens for some people but it's too big a burden for all personality types and all the different needs ppl have? Also I'm not the historical expert but that hasn't been anything like what "marriage" meant for most of the history of marriage iirc? The world has changed a lot but the marriage ideal hasn't much.

― check the name, no caps, boom, i'm (Laurel), Tuesday, August 21, 2012 1:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually, divorce rates have been going down, significantly so. But I'm not really sure I know what you mean -- aren't people relatively free to create whatever kind of marriage they want at this point (or not to get married at all)? I think married couples vary pretty widely in how they negotiate these things.

my parents are so genuinely fond of each other

especially on mothers day iirc

oh not just on Mother's Day, believe me

Okay! I don't know anything about the statistics and did not look them up before making that post, I just ran with the anecdotal impression from the other posts that people feel like they are seeing a lot of divorces among their peers. And like I said before, I also don't see a lot of non-trad marriages/relationships first-hand and the ones I do see I prob don't give enough thought to the variety of ways in which they are non-traditional, since they still live together, vacation together, have kids together (not all, obvs) that kind of thing, so from the outside it seems p normal. But that could be because they just don't talk about it & dissect it outside of the relationship. They could all be secret weirdos for all I know! In a good way. I guess people who partner each oth long-term but choose not to marry are making a non-traditional choice, especially if they choose not to marry and still to have kids. That kind of thing is interesting to me.

I know a couple that has bought a (very expensive) house and now the woman is actively trying to get pregnant but they are not married and probably never will be and yeah it is interesting

xp yeah I think at some point if you don't want to live together, vacation together etc. the better option is probably just not getting married. Although there are a fair number of academic married couples, for example, who live apart large parts of the year -- more often childless than not, I think.

I'm also at least acquainted with people who chose to have kids without formal marriage, although I think a lot of things about their arrangements probably are similar to mariage.

As for choosing to have children together and living and/or vacationing separately, I think there are just practical reasons why that doesn't happen that often. For one thing, not having a second person around to help with kids is just going to make it much harder, and I'm not really sure what would be desirable about that.

I mean my wife just took K for a few days out of the city without me and then I joined them later on, and she's occasionally done things on her own like an art residency, but we're a pretty traditional married couple overall.

fwiw having a stable parents and family b/g doesnt make a guarantee of being ok with relationships. My parents are still together, seem perfectly happy, never had any major fallings out (tho that, at times, was due to mum being a bit of a martyr and just coping with issues that came up and supressing rage marge simpson style, i suspect). Despite being surrounded by perfectly regular fam, with 2 broters married with kids, I appear to be a complete relationship fuckup and am 41 and single again.

I mean my wife just took K for a few days out of the city without me

quoted out of context...

As a kid I remember feeling very out-of-place in that my parents were still together. And they still are - and they still totally seem to dig each other. They aren't super emotional and affectionate, which kinda skewed my perception of relationships for a while (I didn't realize until very, very recently that I need a lot of affection).

I fully plan on getting divorced one day. ;)

Nathalie, aren't you also the one who thinks that masturbation is wrong? Or am I thinking of someone else?

Either way, 'sticking it out for the kids' is NOT the best solution imo. Especially if the two parents openly despise one another.

never said it was. it's just the example I grew up with

I guess I just think sometimes maybe parents could try to find a way not to openly despise each other if they weren't so attached to their personal resentments? But then I guess it's hard for me to imagine getting to that point with someone where you're totally beyond hope, because I'm lucky enough to have a connection with my wife that so far seems to survive difficulties.

homo otm the idea of married people staying together for the kids makes my skin itch.

seriously, people, don't do that to your kids! i remember feeling like the whole world opened up when my parents got divorced, like the air had a different (better) quality. admittedly i am just generalizing from my experience, but everyone else itt is too as far as i can tell, so there.

I can only speak of what I know from my parents, but I guess the key part that I skipped over was that 'staying together for the kids' is a good cover story. As much as they loved us, I know with almost 100% certainty that we were not why they stayed together. I sat in the car with my mum when I was 15 trying to talk her into just leaving. She knew we knew how bad it was. Part of it was that we grew up in a small town, both my parents pretty much knew everyone in the town and a lot of the reason for not getting divorced/separating was they didn't want the shame of everyone in town knowing that that had happened. Well, my Mum. Pretty much everything we went through stemmed from Mum's fear of being publically humiliated over x y or z. And the other part was just she was a very competitive person and didn't want to lose. Divorce meant that she lost. And she didn't want to lose to my Dad. From what I know of Mum, my guess is that in her mind divorce would mean that she had been wrong about Dad, and god knows she didn't want to be wrong.

Sorry for livejournaling but I just want to make sure you guys get that it's not actually really a literal pact that they made or anything.

And to clarify again, she was pretty OTT during that period. Mum now and Mum then are almost two different people.

VG i wasn't responding to you fwiw, more nathalie and Hurting. every unhappy family is its own special snowflake; i'm not saying people aren't right to pick up on destructive dating patterns in their friends' lives or whatever, just that "it's a shame because he's a really good father" doesn't have much traction from my pov--he's still going to be in his kid's life. it's going to be better for his kid not to have miserable parents being miserable around him when he gets older.

Oh no I get that it wasn't aimed at me. Just weighing in longwindededly as per usual :)

Getting on the separation train

Sorry. It's not easy, even when it is. It's weird to me to see this thread, because a year after I started it I was getting divorced again. In retrospect I was probably channeling the anxiety of one relationship through the prism of the previous one.

So, having done it twice, all I can say is that it is a very hard thing to go through, regardless of circumstances. Some are worse than others, and there are things that can make it better -- helps a lot if no one is crazy or vindictive, and if there's still some level of empathy and not wanting to hurt each other. But for me, both times it took about a year to process and deal with. I learned a lot both times, fwiw. And ended up happier. So there's good things out there! But I know that's not much help when you're in the middle of it.

Best wishes with everything.

Thanks, tipsy. Honestly, I read this whole thread last night and that made me feel a lot better about things - especially your contributions.

Now I'm about a week into living alone. It's gotten easier but the first few days (even as I was telecommuting) were brutal - I was talking to myself a ton, couldn't sleep, etc.

Finally have pictures on the wall and most books up so it feels more like a home, more food in the cupboards.

Ray!! i didn't see your previous revive of this thread, feel kinda bad that we haven't talked on gchat or anything in a minute and i had no idea about all of this. hope you're doing alright with it, all things considered, i know it can't be easy when there's a child.

i grew up with me and my brother being part of a set of six cousins on my mother's side of the family (she and her two sisters had two kids each -- only one of those three marriages is still together today). this year, the 6th of the 6 cousins got married, and the first one to get married a decade ago began divorce proceedings. we visited her in her new house a while back -- she seemed happy, is definitely better off than she was in a marriage that didn't seem very ideal. but it's still a little depressing and scary to feel like we're exiting that 'everyone you know is getting married' phase of life and slowly entering that 'wait to see which of those people gets divorced' phase.

i found talking to myself to be pretty therapeutic, patience and indulging yourself in harmless stuff is the way to go i think

I feel bad for anyone going through divorce, because I know it's hard. But I don't find the existence or occurrence of divorce "depressing," exactly. To me, that buys too much into the idea that marriages or relationships either fail or succeed, when life is a lot more complicated than that. I mean, some marriages are objectively awful -- abuse, addiction, adultery, whatever. But a marriage that ends can still be a good and valuable part of your life. When you're going through a divorce, it's easy and maybe inevitable to feel like you just wasted years of your life. But that's not usually true. You were fortunate enough to find and spend time with another person, and you shared two or 12 or 20 years together, that's not in itself a bad thing. I'm not saying "just remember the good parts," but there's a tendency to talk about divorce as if it negates the entire experience of the relationship, which isn't true. At this point I think of my exes more as traveling companions than anything else -- people who shared x years of my life until we parted ways. And now I'm with the best companion I've ever had, but I don't think I would know and appreciate that as deeply as I do without the other experiences.