Am I alone? (1 Viewer)

[The_Doc_Man]

Marriage, for me, is a bit different. In my humble opinion, just about every normal man and woman was designed for marriage. It's a mixture of all the things you NEED from an intimate, monogamous, lifetime opposite-gender relationship

If you believe in evolution as a reality, this statement is actually not supportable. By evolution, men are not monogamous - they scatter their seed all over the place. By evolution, women are not necessarily monoandrous. They don't care who does the planting. As wandering tribes became more settled, though, long-term domestic relationships developed socially. I therefore don't think "designed for marriage" is accurate. More like "became convinced of benefits" through social situations.

The benefit of a long-term marriage is domestic stability, and I won't challenge any statement that emphasizes that concept. I MIGHT challenge the "opposite gender" part of the statement because the same stability that affects hetero couples can also benefit homosexual couples. I've seen it myself in at least four sets of married gay friends I've known for years.

But modern marriage differs from marriages even a couple of hundred years ago in that a woman then didn't have the opportunities that she has now. Which means if her hubby is a jerk but was good at initially disguising it before the marriage, she has the potential to live without him and still have a more comfortable lifestyle. That lifetime relationship viewpoint caused my father to be doomed to never know his own father due to my grandmother's childish viewpoint that bound my grandfather to her legally even though they lived as far apart as Los Angeles and New Orleans. It's a long story but the point in this discussion is that my father would have benefited from his parents getting divorced so that he could have had a two-person family instead of growing up with a mother legally married but situationally single.

The problem with the religious viewpoint of marriage is that the strict orthodoxy of never divorcing simply places an undue burden on married couples who have grown out of touch with each other. My grandparents were victims of that viewpoint. My own life would ALSO be totally different - or even non-existent - without divorce. I am the son of my mother and her second husband. I am my first (and only) wife's second husband. I cannot find fault with divorce because both of the two most important women in my life came into that position after a divorce.

Fortunately, churches are being forced to recognize that people CAN make mistakes. Even the Catholics provide a loophole via church annulment, because my dear wife had to use it in order to get divorced so she could marry me in a church setting. That's another long story that would wander far afield and I'll skip it for now.

Understand, Isaac, that I am actually in favor of marriage. I just don't have church-imposed illusions about its meaning or origins. And in case anyone asks, my dear wife and I have been married over 28 years now. (28th anniversary was last November.) So we are pretty stable.

 

[Cotswold]

It's a long story but the point in this discussion is that my father would have benefited from his parents getting divorced so that he could have had a two-person family instead of growing up with a mother legally married but situationally single.

Whilst it is of course possible, but would it have guaranteed it to have been better? In a situation like this, we are maybe assuming all other things remained as they were and those people we never met would have helped. Changing one aspect in a complex matrix of relationships and events that overtake us all in life will not necessarily result in a positive result. My brother is prone to saying "if dad had done that, or grandfather had not done the other, then this would be the situation now. Or, things would have been totally different" but I cannot subscribe to the theory.

If you had a choice of buying a winning lottery ticket or not. All you could say with certainty is that if you did buy it then you would be richer than if you didn't and that is the only certainty from that choice. If you drive along a road and decide on the right fork and everything ends up a mess you are unable to say later with any certainty that the left fork would have been the the better choice. It may well have been even worse. In life it does so often appear that most other people drift along without any effort, whilst we're all battling with great persistence to get to where we want to be. But I suspect that we all have those same thoughts, even those apparently having it easy! I will say though that you do need to be lucky in the people that you meet in life. In fact you need to be lucky, full stop.

Being born in say the USA or other western countries gives anyone a huge effortless advantage in life over anyone born in Syria, Africa, Ukraine etc. But I digress.

Basically, and in summary, it is my belief that "What if..." is the road to madness.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Your point is well-taken. The "what-if" that might have been better for my father would be if my grandfather took a trip from Los Angeles back to New Orleans and slapped the crap out of my crazy grandmother, then dragged her back with him to Los Angeles. I heard that, literally as stated, from my father's next-older brother. The oldest brother wasn't too keen on what she had done either. I probably would not have existed, of course, but at least my father might have had a chance to be happier.

 

[ahmedjamalaboelez]

Is anyone Here? Been married more than 5 years still without a Kid...

P.S:
I know it's very very personal but no one with I can share these kind of things in the physical world...

i'm married 7 years ago, but no childrens

 

[Isaac]

Whilst it is of course possible, but would it have guaranteed it to have been better? In a situation like this, we are maybe assuming all other things remained as they were and those people we never met would have helped. Changing one aspect in a complex matrix of relationships and events that overtake us all in life will not necessarily result in a positive result. My brother is prone to saying "if dad had done that, or grandfather had not done the other, then this would be the situation now. Or, things would have been totally different" but I cannot subscribe to the theory.

If you had a choice of buying a winning lottery ticket or not. All you could say with certainty is that if you did buy it then you would be richer than if you didn't and that is the only certainty from that choice. If you drive along a road and decide on the right fork and everything ends up a mess you are unable to say later with any certainty that the left fork would have been the the better choice. It may well have been even worse. In life it does so often appear that most other people drift along without any effort, whilst we're all battling with great persistence to get to where we want to be. But I suspect that we all have those same thoughts, even those apparently having it easy! I will say though that you do need to be lucky in the people that you meet in life. In fact you need to be lucky, full stop.

Being born in say the USA or other western countries gives anyone a huge effortless advantage in life over anyone born in Syria, Africa, Ukraine etc. But I digress.

Basically, and in summary, it is my belief that "What if..." is the road to madness.

Thanks, I think your post contained a lot of hard and very important/helpful principles for life.

We are programmed to compare ourselves/lives/spouses with others WAY more than is healthy.

A little inspiration from someone you look up to is great. A little humility from awareness of your weaknesses is good.
A little thankfulness from someone else's pain is OK, if that's what you need to be thankful.

ALL the rest--99%--of our comparing to others that we do is totally harmful. Social media has made it 10x worse

Human nature assumes everyone else has it easier or has the "privilege"/advantage. Don't fall for the bait! That thinking is 90% false, and is a device used by our lower nature as an excuse for not taking responsibility. On the other hand, assume you have it BETTER than others, that line of thinking--even when false--will make us better people!