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Divorce
Jun 9, 2010 16:45:28 GMT -4
Post by lionking on Jun 9, 2010 16:45:28 GMT -4
Without doubt, divorce has been increasing in our society. I know personally of lot of cases. I wonder if in your society divorce is also increasing. I would like that you comment on that and on the reasons you think are behind increasing divorces if they are happening in your countries.
The cases I know range between having no children [superficial problems arised but this is the main cause as I believe], pride and prejudice of a partner so that the other parter hated her even after she started to change, betrayal, ...
Women in past times, as I was told by my grandma , used to tolerate the intolerable to keep their family together and because it was a shame that a woman gets divorced, so they were forced to put up with all the insults from their spouses and whatever came to them of hardship n order not ot get divorced, but now everything has changed. I think partners should put up a little bit with each other and not divorce at the first obstacle. for example, my relative who discovered that her husband was betraying her, maybe if she put up with him while clearing out to him and his parents that she will not withstand this so he pays attention to his kid and family, maybe she would have got him back by now.. better than staying divorced at her parents' house with a child.
what are your comments about divorce in your countries?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Divorce
Jun 9, 2010 17:08:05 GMT -4
Post by Jason on Jun 9, 2010 17:08:05 GMT -4
It's a complex subject. To begin with, marriages were once viewed as community events. It wasn't considered a private contract between two people. It was understood that society was built of marriages (that is, of the families created by marriages).
Marriages were once viewed as sacred covenants between two people and God. A commitment that could not be broken without God's approval.
At one time you were required to show gross conduct on the part of your spouse in order to end a marriage. Today "I got bored" is seen as adequate legal reason to divorce.
Today's rise in divorce is very much tied, I feel, with the diminishment of personal responsibility and the exaltation of the ego.
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Divorce
Jun 9, 2010 18:14:37 GMT -4
Post by gillianren on Jun 9, 2010 18:14:37 GMT -4
Honestly, in a lot of cases, I think divorce is a good thing. People shouldn't stay in abusive relationships. People shouldn't stay with people who have no respect for them. If you really don't love someone anymore--and it does happen--should you stay together for form's sake and just be unhappy until one of you dies?
What's worse is staying together "for the children." That's the worst possible reason. It doesn't make the children's lives better to see their parents fighting all the time, especially if they know the situation would be improved if they weren't there. (And if you know it's why two people who hate each other are staying together, how is that not a burden of guilt?) And if the relationship is abusive, all the more reason to get the children out of it.
I do think a lot of people get married too quickly. Some people don't take it seriously. I know people who got married because they were in Reno and thought it would be funny to get married. My sister got married so her now-husband could go on her dental insurance. Now, my sister's been with him for thirteen years, and last I knew, the other couple are still together, too. However, I knew people who "had to get married," and when their son died, they discovered they didn't really have anything in common. (Also she's crazy; the whole thing is a long story.) They actively tried to have another child to fix their relationship, and it didn't. He's better off, but their second child isn't.
I think the problem is that some people think that human relationships are one size fits all. When they're in a relationship which seems like ones they've seen in the movies, that means they're going to love each other forever. And when the relationship changes, well, they must not love each other anymore. It also gives some people an awful right to be smug when others' relationships don't fit theirs.
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Divorce
Jun 9, 2010 23:16:41 GMT -4
Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 9, 2010 23:16:41 GMT -4
One of the problems is that too many people believe in relationships being based on warm fuzzy feelings rather than hard work and commitment. Warm fuzzy feeling fade and die when real life starts to invade, whereas if both parties are commited and work hard at making the relationship work, then it will. Of course with today's society where everyone expects everything to be given to them on a plate and they give up whenever they face something tricky, it's not a surprise that the divorce rate is so high.
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 2:11:52 GMT -4
Post by lionking on Jun 10, 2010 2:11:52 GMT -4
Jason
the ego appears in carelessness for the feelings of the spouse and irresponsibility. true.
Gillianren, love is built on respect adn goodness of dealing. some people would hate the spouse if he/she quits the respect adn good treatment, but surprizingly others don't. some people love each otehr and figth over unimportant things and they devastate their homes because of this. I agree that if couples don't love each other anymore, or to put it in another way hate each other [bcz love would fade after couple of years and only respect would remain as I hear], if they hate each otehr ..then yes they should seppraret, but not after trying everything possible to fix the relation without quarreling in front of the kids. if there is anything that could be done to return to respect it should be done. they can consult psychologists and people with experience, but immediately to sek divorce it is a crime.
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 5:34:44 GMT -4
Post by lionking on Jun 10, 2010 5:34:44 GMT -4
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 7:02:00 GMT -4
Post by lionking on Jun 10, 2010 7:02:00 GMT -4
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 9:59:14 GMT -4
Post by echnaton on Jun 10, 2010 9:59:14 GMT -4
I heard a podcast review of a book about this the other day. Divorce rates are falling in the U.S. The primary reason is that many couples are waiting until they are in the mid 20s to be married instead of getting hitched in their late teens. The book contends that this change is the result of more women going to college. Among such women, college educated and 25 or older, divorce in the first ten years is about 16%.
The conclusions it draws are that the flexibility in life gained though education and the waiting until the brain has matured into true adulthood are the keys to stable relationships.
This confirms my observations about life, read anecdote, that knowledge about life and a positive outlook for the future gives one tremendous power of choice over one's own destiny. In other words if you feel you have some control over your future you make better decisions.
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 10:22:30 GMT -4
Post by echnaton on Jun 10, 2010 10:22:30 GMT -4
Today's rise in divorce is very much tied, I feel, with the diminishment of personal responsibility and the exaltation of the ego. Except it appears that the divorce rate is in fact falling, despite your contention that morals are declining. The depressing statistic of a 50% divorce rate that is bandied about is statistical misinformation, promoted by disaster loving media. From memory, it is based on a snapshot of divorces and marriage counts during a calendar year. It was not a actual study of the length of time that people stay married. Rather is was highly influenced by the demographic distribution of the population, something that changes over time. The author of the book I mentioned above cited that piece of misinformation in contributing to a since of fatalism that led her to stop contributing to the health of her own ailing marriage, allowing it to deteriorate further. I would go so far as to contend that one's religious convictions or righteous feelings have very little to do with the success of one's marriage. Rather it is shared goals and community that make a great marriage, something that religion can contribute to, but something that only the couple can do for themselves.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 11:43:51 GMT -4
Post by Jason on Jun 10, 2010 11:43:51 GMT -4
Morals in a society almost never follow one trend line down or up - there are fluctuations. At the moment we're on an uptick in marriages staying together compared to recent years, but we're still far, far below where we were in, say 1950.
As for whether it is better to stay together for the children, Gillian, I'm not sure that "I'm the reason they're staying together" is worse than "I'm the reason they didn't stay together," which I'm told is what the children of divorced parents often think.
Having married almost a year ago at the ripe old age of 36, I suspect that my wife and I are having an easier time of things because we're done with school and relatively mature, but is easier better? What have we missed out on by not having met each other until now? And, of course, our age somewhat complicates our desire to raise children, since women near or over 40 have more risks during pregnancy (we had a scare for a bit that our daughter might have Down Syndrome - it's more common in older couples and an initial test brought up a red flag). I'm not sure if meeting in our teens wouldn't have been better for us both.
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 12:50:44 GMT -4
Post by gillianren on Jun 10, 2010 12:50:44 GMT -4
Jlove is built on respect adn goodness of dealing. some people would hate the spouse if he/she quits the respect adn good treatment, but surprizingly others don't. some people love each otehr and figth over unimportant things and they devastate their homes because of this. Everyone fights over unimportant things. I've been arguing with Graham about our shower curtain for longer than I want to admit. (Given his higher income compared to my higher outlay on household expenses, I think he should buy it. He thinks we don't need a new one.) The fact is, if you go in expecting that you will be arguing over unimportant things and realize it doesn't kill the relationship, that makes for a better relationship however it manifests. I may not be married that my breakup wouldn't count in divorce statistics, but Graham and I have been together longer than a at least two couples I know who are married. We all know the secret--you can't agree on everything, and it doesn't mean your relationship is doomed. "Love would fade after a couple of years"? Where on Earth did you hear that? It changes, but the belief that it fades after a couple of years is, bluntly, another reason people have faulty expectations of their relationships. It's like, to cite another important aspect of the relationship, belief that you stop having sex after you get married. Your sex drive as a couple may change, and of course one person may have a higher drive than the other. But lots of people have sex after having been together for decades. It's just not as funny. I do believe that people should seek marriage counseling if they're having difficulty with their relationships, but there are three problems there. Number one is that a lot of people can't afford to. I mean literally. Even today, a lot of insurance companies either don't cover mental health or don't cover it to the same extent they cover physical health, even though studies show that paying mental health coverage can reduce the amount shown paid on physical health. Which leads us to number two--there is a stigma against mental health issues in the United States and presumably elsewhere, though my knowledge is limited there. Seeking counseling is itself a sign of failure, because people can work out their own problems just fine, unless they're weak, right? Which is why, for reason three, there simply aren't enough mental health professionals and access thereto to supply that increased demand. And, again, there are situations where you shouldn't bother with marriage counseling. If you have differing views of your positions in the relationship? Yeah, you might be able to work that out. If your significant other is hitting you or the kids? Leave. Leave now.
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 13:08:46 GMT -4
Post by echnaton on Jun 10, 2010 13:08:46 GMT -4
Morals in a society almost never follow one trend line down or up - there are fluctuations. Morals are impossible to measure, therefor impossible to attribute to any particular trend in society, beyond a personal interpretation. Demographics frequently do offer substantial insights to the behavioral trends. Whether your family or mine could have been better off if we had married our spouses at an earlier age is unknowable. As I infer from you post, I also often feel that much of my life before marriage was somehow not the best it could have been because my wife was not part of it. But demographics suggest (at least to that particular author) that marring as teens would have given us a much higher likelihood of divorcing within ten years. I wish I had a reference to the book, maybe I can find it when at home.
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Divorce
Jun 10, 2010 13:41:10 GMT -4
Post by gillianren on Jun 10, 2010 13:41:10 GMT -4
Certainly older people are more likely to have been exposed to situations outside their family and have therefore learned that not everyone is exactly like them. It's one of my issues with homeschooling, really. Exposure to the outside world is important.
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