Getting married and blowing off your friends without warning, C/D S/D

tbh, I think society does have something at stake in encouraging people to get married, which is why there's systemic favoritism towards married ppl over singles.

Somehow the institution of marriage has survived tens of thousands of years without being artificially propped up by the government. Really, I think even without subsidies, many ppl will want to get married anyway. And I think society is best off letting people decide whom to marry on their own. If we have lots of people getting married just so they can get on their spouse's health insurance plan or get a tax break, we'll have loads of weak marriages between ppl who didn't really have a good relationship to build upon, and frequent marital breakdown and divorce. I don't think that's in society's interest.

I wasn't claiming that the institution of marriage needs government incentives to stay propped up.

So what sort of "systemic favoritism" are you referring to?

I think society does have something at stake in encouraging people to get married

Call me dense or contrarian but I've never understood why.

I mean, its not like it makes/helps people *stay together*. Not anymore anyway.

people (mostly women) in jail right now who would not be in any legal trouble at all if they weren't married to their tax-evading husbands.

They or their lawyers must not have heard of the IRS's Innocent Spouse Relief

if society has "something at stake" in promoting marriage, why not just automatically grant marriage benefits & obligations to all couples who produce offspring? like, having kids = being married. benefits/obligations could be cut off or redirected when/if the couple decided to separate or reproduce with other partners.

Somehow the institution of marriage has survived tens of thousands of years without being artificially propped up by the government.

I'm sure we both agree about numerous codified (healthcare, visiting rights, tax rights) and non-codified (cultural legitimization) examples of favoritism from which the institution of marriage benefits. I don't think they exist, though, because they're being used to artificially prop up that institution. I think they exist because marriage is central to our experience of society (no doubt because of its own entrenched privilege in the last few thousand or more years of human history), and remakes society to self-perpetuate. I think society, as it exists, has an interest in that perpetuation, and that is why these incentives exist*.

Really, I think even without subsidies, many ppl will want to get married anyway.

I agree.

And I think society is best off letting people decide whom to marry on their own.

I agree. I don't think society should tell people who they should marry, or who they can't marry.

If we have lots of people getting married just so they can get on their spouse's health insurance plan or get a tax break, we'll have loads of weak marriages between ppl who didn't really have a good relationship to build upon, and frequent marital breakdown and divorce. I don't think that's in society's interest.

I think that's an interesting argument, though I don't really know how to judge the value of it. It doesn't feel historically true to me, but for all I know it very well may be.

*I also think marriage is malleable and has looked many different ways historically - and it will continue to shift and change. I think we're in the middle of a huge shift right now in how we envision marriage re: same sex marriages. In a lot of different cultures there has been sui juris marriage, and I think that's a really great way of thinking about human relationships. It's not really so common in the US today, though, since so many laws require formal legal documentation of marriage, afaik.

if society has "something at stake" in promoting marriage, why not just automatically grant marriage benefits & obligations to all couples who produce offspring? like, having kids = being married. benefits/obligations could be cut off or redirected when/if the couple decided to separate or reproduce with other partners.

That's a kinda awesome idea, I think? Modified sui juris?

i'm writing a letter to arby's about it as we speak

contenderizer connects

Somehow the institution of marriage has survived tens of thousands of years without being artificially propped up by the government.

tens of thousands of years? really?

http://media1.break.com/dnet/media/2011/4/21/31f2233d-923e-4197-b439-b1783c69be02_thumb.jpeg

also, ppl have got married for societal&economic reasons since like always! ppl getting married for tax breaks or immigration or w/e is nothing new, it's only the social acceptability of divorce (and ALSO of a single person constituting a household) that's currently at quite a high.

Yah dont christians like blathering on about how they invented weddings, wedding @ caana and all that crap.

maybe i am making this up in my head.

> why not just automatically grant marriage benefits & obligations to all couples who produce offspring?

There's a http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=106182,00.html,000 per child tax credit, and other perks.

Mordy, I suppose my vantage point is from someone who grew up surrounded by shaky relationships - just about every married couple amongst my family and friends either ended in divorce, or (far worse IMO), settled into a rut but stayed together anyway, probably out of inertia as much as anything.

In my experience, marriage leads to complacency. You know that getting divorced is difficult and expensive, so you stay married, but you don't have to keep your relationship vibrant because the marriage contract holds you together, and before you know it, it's "I love you but I'm not in love with you", which evolves into 'I don't even really love you all that much anymore, but at least we get along ok, so we'll stay put'. I see it and hear it all the time. I've heard so many women complain of how their husbands don't woo them anymore, how they don't do those instinctively romantic gestures like they did back when they were just dating. I'm like, "of course he doesn't - he doesn't need to. You're married!". I hear it from the guys too. "My wife used to be such a hottie, but now she never works out and eats all the time and is overweight". Hey dude, you're married, it's not like your wife needs to look pretty to attract men anymore. (I'm sure there's lots of examples that aren't appearance-related, but that's the last one I actually heard so I'm using it).

When you're not married, and there's nothing keeping you together except that you want to be, that sort of complacency never sets in. And that, paradoxically, is what holds us together.

$1,000 per child tax credit. (boy did I screw up that link....)

Lee, that can happen... but it's by no means true of all marriages. Do you really not know anyone who actively enjoys their marriage and is having a great time even after many years?
That appearance thing is kind of offensive. Most people I know aren't in as wonderful shape at, say, 30 - typical marrying age- as they were at 21, married or otherwise.
I sure as hell didn't get married to be brought flowers all the time and be 'allowed' to get fat.

The appearance thing happens anyway, its called Getting Old.

I'm married and have kids and I have run into this a lot. WTF people. If you want to hang, contact them!! Then if they are too tired/whatever then they will say so!!!! Like, I've actually experienced this ish in reverse for the most part - I am eager for spare shards of non-family hanging out but suddenly (in some people's minds) I've become this different animal, this dad-man, who surely wouldn't be down for [x]. But it's more necessary than ever!

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand)

very true about the reverse part.

> Do you really not know anyone who actively enjoys their marriage and is having a great time even after many years?

I do, but they're in a distinct minority.

>That appearance thing is kind of offensive

I fully agree, which is why I was careful to mention that was what I'd actually heard someone say. I've seen his wife, and I think she looks fine at her current weight.

Not sure why you think LTRs don't also lead to being in "ruts"? With most of my friends who are in couples, I can't even remember if they're married or not. It doesn't seem like the important part of the happiness equation.

http://pampelmoose.com/mimg/randy_quaid.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1291738055059

I hear ppl say all sorts of wrong and offensive shit but I don't cite it as truth.

lol otm

Somehow the institution of marriage has survived tens of thousands of years without being artificially propped up by the government.

First, marriage in any modern sense hasn't existed nearly that long. A few thousand years, perhaps. And for much of the time it has existed, marriage has been propped up by rigid social demands, with disgrace and ostracism as the chosen reward for non-compliance. Government mandated benefits are a much kinder and gentler alternative to the traditional punishments meted out to sexually active unmarried couples.

'sexually active unmarried couples' sometimes meant 'married' during various historical periods

yah tbh Im glad I dont live in a time where I am made to marry some schmuck because he has 4 more cows than some other schmuck, or is strategic to the war in Prussia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSt9l5PQs1U

Wow. I never imagined the turns this thread would take...

'sexually active unmarried couples' sometimes meant 'married' during various historical periods

has also been known as "doin it"

http://i.imgur.com/klVVK.jpg

As a parent, I get the having a kid and withdrawing from friendships thing, even if I didn't do it myself. I can even grasp using marriage/shacking up as a device to escape from friendships tied up in addiction.

What chafes me is when there's no apparent reason to make a disconnection, no explanation, just the non-returning of calls/emails/letters. It's the sort of thing that leads you to question your own judgement in terms of making friends, in caring, in trusting and confiding. I started this thread about two people who at one point were two of my best friends, just incredibly important to me. We shared a lot. Talked a lot. Wrote tons of letters, had formative life experiences together. Both wereat my wedding, one was my best man. I'm not as mad at the situation as I used to be, don't get m wrong. But it's like Gerald Cosley in Our Band Could Be Your life on SY blowing off Homestead to go with SST: he's still kinda peeved, years later.

P.S. My instincts aren't totally worthless, I've been blessed with four fantastic friends from HS/college who are awesome and steadfast. Bros/sisters 4 life

I've seen fire, and I've seen rain, et al

What chafes me is when there's no apparent reason to make a disconnection, no explanation, just the non-returning of calls/emails/letters.

That part could be shame. There have been times when I just couldn't face the thought of explaining my own lameness.

yeah... getting a "hey, we haven't seen each other in a while" mail from someone you were meant to ring back ten years ago is a bit awkward.

> I hear ppl say all sorts of wrong and offensive shit but I don't cite it as truth.

Everyone, I found it just as wrong and offensive as all of you. But as sucky an attitude as it was, it is true, and I can't pretend something I witnessed with my eyes and ears didn't happen, or that it was a rare or isolated instance. But please, do not confuse my citing of something as truth with my approval. I don't approve. I'm merely reporting what I've seen or heard several times in my life.

I'd be v interested in how attitudes toward marriage here correlate with whether you witnessed a strong, supportive, loving marriage when you were growing up, particularly amongst your parents. I was well into my teens before I fully believed that married couples were even allowed to choose each other. Everything around me dispelled that notion. If Mom and Dad were allowed to choose who they were married to, why wouldn't they pick someone they like?

Maybe I do wish my happily married and/or with-kids friends would spend more time with me; maybe my attitute towards marriage would improve; whenever I meet an old, long-married couple, I like to observe closely and try to let their wedded bliss settle in. But no matter how hard I try, the first image that pops into my head when I hear "marriage" is that of a grown woman and a grown man screaming at each other. Because that's how I knew it the first two decades of my life.

RC, sorry about drifting your thread. At least it seems you enjoyed the unexpected twists and turns....

Lee, I don't think you're wrong about the correlation between growing up + seeing a happy marriage v an unhappy one. I'm sure you've heard this statistic before:

"If your parents were divorced, you're at least 40 percent more likely to get divorced than if they weren't. If your parents married others after divorcing, you're 91 percent more likely to get divorced."

From here, though I've seen it in more - uh - reputable places. But kinda in too much of a rush this morning to link to, idk, jstor: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/05/19/15-ways-to-predict-divorce.html

6. If you have a daughter, you're nearly 5 percent more likely to divorce than if you have a son.

I disbelieve this.

xp to Lee I think the part that I'm struggling with is your insistence that getting old and undergoing resulting physical change is somehow a bad thing or even a thing that you can do jack shit about. It's not bad; it's being alive. Not marrying your girlfriend doesn't mean either of you are going to magically stay fit forever. Your'e still going to sag and get fat and have weird moles and get wrinkles and develop health problems and have priorities other than going to the gym 5x/week . Hopefully you and your gf love each other as individual humans, with all of the changes that encompasses, and not take advantage of the escape hatch you've left yourself of being able to exit the relationship without involving a third party just because one of you has grown fat. Plus, hey guess what, people get divorced over shallow bullshit, too.

Lee: as a child of divorce, I can def sympathize. And no need to apologize, this has been interesting...

Carl, you're reading me entirely wrong - I'm fine with growing older and all that entails. It was SOMEONE ELSE who freaked out about his wife getting fat.

But as for the "escape hatch", yes, I do like having it, and that's precisely why I'd rather not be married. Because knowing that there's an easy escape hatch, yet neither of us wanting to ever use it, is what makes a relationship feel strong to me. Far more so than being locked in place by matrimony and third parties, IMO.

You know that you're allowed to end legal marriages these days, right?

Wait, nevermind. I wish I could delete that.

Lee, I don't care whether you want to get married or ever get married. I totally respect anybody's decision not to get married (it is the fundamental unit of the patriarchy and all). I mostly object to what I see as you universalizing your personal opinions on the subject, plus your weird hangups about married people getting old and fat due to marriage, but I really don't feel like arguing about it anymore. I sincerely wish you well.

xp It's just that you said 'In my experience, marriage leads to complacency.' and then cited examples of women saying they weren't being romanced (male complacency I guess) and men saying their wives don't make an effort with their appearance (female complacency) and commented yourself "Hey dude, you're married, it's not like your wife needs to look pretty to attract men anymore" (even though you later say you found this wrong and offensive). If you weren't using this as an example of "complacency" that you see then I don't get why you mentioned it and noted that women need to look pretty to attract men until they've 'got' them.

Anyway. I really don't think marriage is for everyone, and if you approach it as 'being locked down' or something then... it's probably not going to end well, and you're probably wise to come up with your own arrangement.

clusterfuck summary?

One admittedly small problem with building a strong, long-lasting relationship with no legal marriage is that after a certain number of years -- ten? fifteen? twenty? -- anyway at some point your insistance on not being married is going to start feeling very stubborn, pointless and irrational to everyone else around you. But if it gives you a starting place that is easier to build from, then it is obviously functional and not a problem at all.

Our downstairs neighbors had been together for about 17 years before they got married; they apparently had a back and forth about whether to get married or not and settled on "I don't believe in marriage", but many years later they were talking with a friend who was hemming and hawing about proposing and the dude was all "hey, if you love her go for it" and his partner was all "now wait just a second, what happened to 'we don't believe in marriage' you big jerk?" They were engaged the next week.

^^^ My two best friends were together at least 15 years and the same thing happened to them.

and if that means blowing other friends off, eh, i'm okay with that.

!!! very good friend to have