Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/14/divorce-lawyers-dole-out-marri.html
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This is all excellent advice, and it’s sort of hard to argue with the basis of expertise.
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“Start with the end in mind.”
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One item I would add as a general rule of thumb is “don’t get married before age 25.” Most people undergo a profound change around that age and if you marry young there’s a good chance you’ll be bound by a serious and difficult-to-escape contract to a completely different person than the one who stood beside you at the wedding.
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That, plus somewhere around there is when the “I’m special, nothing bad will happen to me, negative consequences are imaginary” part of the brain finally starts to STFU.
Same reason why auto insurance rates drop so much around that age: risk-taking of all types drops across the board.
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Marry the man today.
Trouble though he may be
Much as he likes to play
Crazy and wild and free
Marry the man today
Rather than sigh in sorrow
Marry the man today
And change his ways tomorrow.
Disclaimer: Past performance on Broadway is not a guarantee of future results.
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That was…surprisingly heartwarming, and less cynical than I thought it’d be, actually!
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“All marriages end in divorce or death, you too could be one of the lucky ones.”
-ancient proverb
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25+ year veteran here. What I tell my sons is it’s necessary to figure out who you are first before you expect somebody else to put up with your shit. Most people can’t do that until they’ve gone out and lived a little bit in the world.
A healthy sense of humor and a mutual agreement of “Hey, this is supposed to be a lifetime commitment here. Let’s try to make this work even though there will be times that I hate you” are key. Every marriage goes thru rough patches so you should go in expecting to weather an occasional storm.
I don’t think there are any big secrets here.
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One thing that’s really helped me in my own marriage is that neither of us have annoying background keyboard music the whole time. That’s really been a boon in our lives.
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YES! I picked up on that too. Did it add or take away from the video, producers at Glamour? Answer: It took away.
My takeaway is that some people do change after time. After having kids. That’s all I can say in a public forum.
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I suspect also that it is much more difficult for people, who are the children of a divorced couple, to have a lasting marriage; they have no model from which to build.
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That is a misconception. There is no correlation between “kids of divorced parents have bad marriages” or “kids with long last parental marriages have successful marriages”.
The connecting item here is about kids having adults who model good relationships. A sustained marriage does not mean a good relationship those things are not mutually inclusive of one another. And professionals will say that kids who come from homes where a bad marriage that should have ended is sustained (especially for the bogus excuse of “were doing it for the kids”) only harms those children even more. Leaving them unable to see healthy relationship examples.
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Actually I disagree somewhat. My parents divorced when I was young and it actually influenced me to try harder in my own marriage. I did not want to repeat the process and subject my own children to the experience.
I agree that if there’s abuse then it’s best for everyone to end it but I also think the “doing it for the kids” can be a very valid reason to try harder and make the marriage work. Divorce can cause lasting trauma and should not be done hastily.
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thank you Rusty for this very informative and wonderful video.
Marriage has been one of the least satisfying experiences in my life. (twice)
I understand it takes BOTH adults to make it so
moving forward - i will be single - focused on: raising my kid, vintage motorcycles, work, and home
every kid, every marriage, every relationship is different. we should ALL try our best to be kind, help others, and move forward
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My mom and dad both had 3 marriages, I’m the product of each of their second. My mom actively instructed us not to get married, and that relationships are only temporary, with a weird new-agey solipsism of “learn what you can about yourself and move on…” My wife’s mom too discouraged marriage, but for her it was that marriage interrupts career aspirations (she wanted 4 doctors, though refuses to ever see one…). We dated for 8 years, and have been married 8 more. No plans to dissolve anything, and we get better at being together every day…
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My point here is that psychologists and couples therapists will tell you (and there are many studies with data to back this up) that a bad marriage (also bad marriages can exist without abuse…they can be exclusive to one another) is as harmful as a divorce can be to children. Additionally, a divorce can be just as positive for children’s upbringing as can a healthy marriage.
There is no validity to: marriage=good for kids, divorce=bad for kids as some hard and fast rule. In fact it is not even a general rule of thumb!!!
For you witnessing a perhaps dysfunctional marriage and potentially dysfunctional divorce as well made you try harder as you stated. That is not what it does for everyone, and truth is…this is not something that can be generalized between marriage and divorce.
The proper generalization here is this…healthy adult relationships will generally be positive for children and lead to them also having healthy adult relationships. dysfunctional/bad adult relationships will generally be negative for children and lead to them also having dysfunctional adult relationships. NOTE: marriage/divorce are not defined there because sometimes a divorce IS the healthy adult relationship and models good relationships for kids.and vice versa for the bad marriage.
Some marriages just cannot work, prime examples are when one partner chooses a lifestyle/sexuality choice in their adult life that is completely counter to remaining married to the other person. Additionally…the primary issue with “doing it for the kids” is it puts completely improper and incredibly harmful onus on the KIDS. They are not immune to “mom and dad are miserable for us” especially older kids.
This. Absolute truth. What I am saying is divorce and marriage are interchangeable here.
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