The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: curious_george on September 21, 2023, 04:53:07 PM
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So - I have read several FIRE bloggers where a married couple retired early and then got a divorce, including Pete's blog here.
I have also noticed it seems like there are several forum members here who have been divorced and remarried, or are divorced and looking for a new partner, or are divorced and single, or headed toward a divorce, etc.
Do you think people who follow the FIRE lifestyle are more likely to get a divorce than the average person?
Thoughts on why or why not?
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FIRE people don't have the same financial constraints that keep a lot of couples together. A lot of people can't afford a divorce or the cost of maintaining separate households and stay unhappily married as a result. A long and miserable marriage as a result of being broke is not something to aspire to.
FIRE also brings values to the forefront of any relationship, and a lot of people find their values are not actually aligned once push comes to shove. Turns out their partner actually cares a lot about what other people think, is materialistic, or has other non-FIRE-compatible traits or values that would not have come up if both people had continued following the standard life script.
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I don’t think so. People get divorced for many reasons and it’s often due to growing apart or incompatibility. People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years. However, one of the fire bloggers said that his wife didn’t want to live on such a limited budget and it did lead to his divorce. It might have been Root of Good but I’m not sure.
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I don't think FIRE folks are any more likely to divorce, I think divorce is just super common these days. In the US now, something like 50% of first marriages and 65% of second marriages end in divorce, so it's not that odd to see a fair number of high profile FI folks who are divorced. There are plenty of other forum folks who are happily married, but they don't tend to stand out as much, so there may be some confirmation bias at play as well?
I wouldn't be surprised if FIREing makes it harder to ignore issues that are going on in a marriage, or even made it more financially viable for people to split up when they're unhappy, but I'd be wildly surprised to see it creating problems that didn't already exist. Even if there's conflict about lifestyle or spending preferences, those disagreements were already present, just masked by the busyness and stress of work.
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Money is a top cause of arguments and having a FIRE goal does shift the goalposts compared to what most people do. Most people are fine if they're breaking even every month on a cash flow basis. A subset of these are also fine with accumulating debt and going into negative wealth if it means they get to play with more toys or live in a certain high status way. For these people, money discussions are easy: Do we have the cash or can we finance it? If so, then get it!
I'm a currently married person whose spouse is not on board, and this has led to discussions about whether certain discretionary purchases, subscriptions, and service experiences are worth paying for. From the perspective of me, who wants to FIRE ASAP, the answer is usually no. From the perspective of dear spouse, who has a more mainstream mentality, the answer is "we have the money". No amount of discussion will cause us to see eye to eye because we're not solving the same equation. The frustration can lead to hostile argumentation that makes cooperation seem even farther away.
This could lead to a 2nd pitfall, which is when the frugal one says "OK, work and consume all your life. We'll separate our finances and I'm going to FIRE by myself when I have 25X my half of the expenses."
This solution seems reasonable to INTJ's like me, but certain sensitive spouses react strongly to the thoughts that (1) you're proposing a step that makes divorce much simpler, (2) this means I can't spend your income, and (3) it's not fair that we don't retire together - presumably at 65! The frugal one upon hearing this reaction is furious because not only has a reasonable compromise been rejected, but also the spouse is dragging them into a longer career than they'd like and having the gall to make a claim on their income while being wasteful.
Now throw the inevitable life curveball into this already-combustible situation! For example, I got us right up to the cusp of being able to retire - like 20X spending - and then dear spouse burned out on their job and quit, got sick, and didn't work for 3.5 years. All this occurred while the stock market took a dump and our savings rate went deeply negative. Over those years we lost six figures to the market and spent another six figures from our depleted savings because we were running a deficit. Imagine the frustration of the frugal one... er... me! Some of these frustrations have become nasty comments.
Luckily I'm not such a cheap bastard I turn my nose up at counseling. Dealing with different life goals in a way that doesn't blow up the relationship is really a process, and a good counselor can teach you that process. They'll also let you know when you need to refocus from the other person to your own circle of control or introspection.
So the marriage survived but it wasn't easy. Dear spouse is going back to work soon and hope lies ahead.
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Money is a top cause of arguments and having a FIRE goal does shift the goalposts compared to what most people do. Most people are fine if they're breaking even every month on a cash flow basis. A subset of these are also fine with accumulating debt and going into negative wealth if it means they get to play with more toys or live in a certain high status way. For these people, money discussions are easy: Do we have the cash or can we finance it? If so, then get it!
True, but most couples with even a halfhearted interest in FIRE are probably avoiding money fights that originate from being broke. I feel like FIRE-interested couples are also more likely to be able to disagree clearly about money - "we want to spend different amounts" instead of "you don't love me [or other emotional inference based on your spending]" - but maybe I'm wrong about that.
I've been married for 3 months, so I hope FIRE doesn't hurt our odds. ;)
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I divorced before I found the MMM blog. Money was one issue out of many. If a couple has trouble agreeing on money management they most likely don't agree on other things either, and are not able to work them out. If they could they wouldn't get divorced.
Having your finances in order does make the financial side of divorce a bit easier, but that depends a lot on the other spouse. Nothing makes the emotional side easier.
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It doesn't seem any more prevalent here than it does in my non-FIRE circles, though I recognize that's not a representative sample. I think one person wanting to FIRE or be much more aggressive about it than the other person could lead to divorce-level conflict. But in non-FIRE circles, stress over money leads to divorce-level conflict. If the money fight is "let's save 50% and then retire in 8 years and live on $45k", or "let's buy a 3rd jetski now that the kids are old enough to ride alone, instead of the $10,000 handbag", the end results is about the same--stress over spending choices and priorities, which can lead to marital problems and divorce.
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People talk about divorce; it's an event -- more a process, really -- full of sturm and drang.
People rarely talk about staying married.
I don't think it's the divorce rate that's skewed, it's the amount of discussion.
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How many non-FIRE circles do you run in? How many blogs and forums do you read on a non-FIRE topic, where they discuss their personal lives, the status of their marriage, etc.?
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I think a marriage has a greater chance of lasting longer if two FIRE-oriented people met and got married, as opposed to the situation where an already married couple discovers the concept of FIRE and only one of them becomes a "true believer."
My source is my husband, whose first marriage ended partially (but not primarily) because of disagreements about the FIRE lifestyle, and whose second marriage (to me) was based on our fundamentally similar FIRE goals and values.
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How many non-FIRE circles do you run in? How many blogs and forums do you read on a non-FIRE topic, where they discuss their personal lives, the status of their marriage, etc.?
This.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
It takes a big emotional toll on kids. I am a fan of staying together until the kids are grown unless physical violence is involved or there’s so much contempt for one another that the spouses can’t be civil. If both parents are mature they should be able to make it work long enough for the kids to grow up in a stable 2 parent home.
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It's VERY obvious that married FIRE aspirants are more likely to get divorced than unmarried FIRE aspirants.
Follow me on tictac for more statistical shenanigans.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
It takes a big emotional toll on kids. I am a fan of staying together until the kids are grown unless physical violence is involved or there’s so much contempt for one another that the spouses can’t be civil. If both parents are mature they should be able to make it work long enough for the kids to grow up in a stable 2 parent home.
Absolutely. Selfish parents destroy kids' lives.
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The divorce rate in the general population is very high.
Of people still married, many really should get divorced and stay together because they can't afford to get divorced.
So if the divorce rate is actually higher among FIRE folks (debatable), then it's only because the ones who should get divorced can afford to not stay in bad marriages.
I would posit that the average FIRE couple actually has a higher chance of making it work because achieving FIRE requires being good with money, having good communication, and being aligned in terms of values and goals.
Money conflicts, poor communication, and misalignment of values are all predictive of divorce.
I know that for me, personally, the process of transitioning to a frugal lifestyle and constantly talking about our goals, hopes, fears, and plans has been instrumental in making our marriage stronger and more resilient.
Also, let's remember that divorce is a very, very good thing. It's not some sort of tragedy. A lot of marriages run their course and *should* end so that both people can move on to the next phase of their lives.
Not all relationships should last forever.
Speaking as a second wife, I'm a BIG fan of divorce when it's the right choice, and FIRE is all about making the right choices for living your best life.
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The divorce rate in the general population is very high.
If people still married, many really should get divorced and stay together because they can't afford to get divorced.
So if the divorce rate is actually higher among FIRE folks (debatable), then it's only because the ones who should get divorced can afford to not stay in bad marriages.
I would posit that the average FIRE couple actually has a higher chance of making it work because achieving FIRE requires being good with money, having good communication, and being aligned in terms of values and goals.
Money conflicts, poor communication, and misalignment of values are all predictive of divorce.
I know that for me, personally, the process of transitioning to a frugal lifestyle and constantly talking about our goals, hopes, fears, and plans has been instrumental in making our marriage stronger and more resilient.
Also, let's remember that divorce is a very, very good thing. It's not some sort of tragedy. A lot of marriages run their course and *should* end so that both people can move on to the next phase of their lives.
Not all relationships should last forever.
Speaking as a second wife, I'm a BIG fan of divorce when it's the right choice, and FIRE is all about making the right choices for living your best life.
Chapter two: Relationships - Divorce.
:P
Excellent answer as always. I will ponder this some.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
My parents split only had positive impact on me.
I don't for a second believe that splitting up harms children, I think acrimony between parents harms children, and acrimonious parents staying together is HORRIBLE for children and models a very dangerous version of what love should look like.
It's not healthy for a child to see contempt as a norm in marriage.
My friend was "staying together for the kids" and by the time his older daughter was 13, she asked her dad to go to lunch and literally begged him to get a divorce because their home life was so toxic.
I actually did the same with my mom at the same age when she was staying with my little brother's father despite being miserable. But she wasn't staying for her kid, she was staying because she was too poor to leave. In that case FIRE would have sped up her split and it would have been a GREAT thing. My brother and I got no benefit from watching my mother get beaten by her partner.
ETA: my mom moved on and married an AMAZING man who has been an incredible father to both of us, but especially to my little brother who was only 5 at the time. He and my dad get along amazingly well and walked me down the aisle together.
Divorce is what allowed me to gain two incredible step parents who both brough stability and kindness to my life, and both of my parents have been happily married for decades. Thanks to NOT staying together for their kids.
Marriage isn't good for kids and divorce isn't bad for kids. Happy, collaborate parents who model respect and put their kids first are good for kids. Miserable parents who model contempt and put their conflicts before their kids are bad for kids.
The above remain true regardless of marital status.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
My parents split only had positive impact on me.
Among my peers, the ones that suffered the most trauma and have ongoing relationship issues are often the ones whose parents stayed together "for the kids" long after the relationship had run its course. Yes, divorce can have a big impact on the children, especially when it's acrimonious and the adults don't try to handle it with maturity. But witnessing your parents in an unhappy marriage for your entire childhood can be another whole level of psychological stress.
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Yeah, role models of healthy relationships are good for kids. Role models of bad relationships are bad for kids. Lacking a role model relationship to learn from (i.e. single parenthood) is probably worse than observing a healthy relationship, but far better than observing a bad one.
My parents were able to stay married until both my sister and I had moved out for college, because the problems in their relationship were serious but not acrimonious, and they still respected each other even though the love and intimacy were gone. Both of them are happier now, though, and I am a happier adult for having happier parents - and I have no doubt they will be better grandparents to my child separately than they would have been together.
DH's parents divorced when he was younger, and that was a good thing. Apart, they were able to co-parent and put the kids first, which they could not do when they were still living unhappily in the same house. And although it's a more recent development (like, 10 years vs 20), FIL's partner is a lovely woman who I am glad to have in our and our child's life.
And if someday DH and I stop being able to be 100% together, I would rather my child see an example of a relationship ending calmly for the good of everyone involved, rather than show an example of people feeling trapped in an unhappy, unhealthy situation. Better that they know it's ok to leave a bad situation, instead of teaching them that it's a moral good to stay together "for the children."
Of course, I don't expect that to happen, as DH and I have good communication and I'm confident we will continue to work out a future that is best for both of us together. But I never want to be modeling behavior to my child that I wouldn't want to see them put to use in their own lives, and that includes staying married unhappily.
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People who are divorcing or newly divorced in this forum are more likely to talk about it because this is a financial forum and divorce is one of the biggest financial events that one can go through. So it really means nothing, statistically, that you'd see it being talked about here.
My spouse and I never argue about money, because we've been saving at least 60% of our income for the better part of a decade. There's nothing to argue about. We don't have any specific goals about retiring early but we firmly aligned on the goal of not being tethered to a bad job situation. But I have several close friends (who earn more than us) that argue with their spouses regularly about money, are stressed about money, and can barely afford their lives, much less a divorce.
So I'm willing to bet that the numbers, if we could get them, should show that FIRE minded folks are equally or less likely to divorce than the general population.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
My parents split only had positive impact on me.
Among my peers, the ones that suffered the most trauma and have ongoing relationship issues are often the ones whose parents stayed together "for the kids" long after the relationship had run its course. Yes, divorce can have a big impact on the children, especially when it's acrimonious and the adults don't try to handle it with maturity. But witnessing your parents in an unhappy marriage for your entire childhood can be another whole level of psychological stress.
Exactly.
I prefer to frame it that it's the breakdown of a marriage that can harm kids, whether that leads to divorce or not.
How maturely the parents handle that breakdown determines whether children are net harmed or helped.
We have this bias that divorce is the problem, but it isn't, it's just that statistically, couples who can't handle their shit maturely are more likely to divorce, badly, and fuck up their kids along the way.
That damage is more acute and obvious, but as you said, go get intimate with someone whose parents modeled toxic love and tell me that person is okay.
My ex was from one of those families. The damage was deep.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
My parents split only had positive impact on me.
I don't for a second believe that splitting up harms children, I think acrimony between parents harms children, and acrimonious parents staying together is HORRIBLE for children and models a very dangerous version of what love should look like.
It's not healthy for a child to see contempt as a norm in marriage.
My friend was "staying together for the kids" and by the time his older daughter was 13, she asked her dad to go to lunch and literally begged him to get a divorce because their home life was so toxic.
I actually did the same with my mom at the same age when she was staying with my little brother's father despite being miserable. But she wasn't staying for her kid, she was staying because she was too poor to leave. In that case FIRE would have sped up her split and it would have been a GREAT thing. My brother and I got no benefit from watching my mother get beaten by her partner.
ETA: my mom moved on and married an AMAZING man who has been an incredible father to both of us, but especially to my little brother who was only 5 at the time. He and my dad get along amazingly well and walked me down the aisle together.
Divorce is what allowed me to gain two incredible step parents who both brough stability and kindness to my life, and both of my parents have been happily married for decades. Thanks to NOT staying together for their kids.
Marriage isn't good for kids and divorce isn't bad for kids. Happy, collaborate parents who model respect and put their kids first are good for kids. Miserable parents who model contempt and put their conflicts before their kids are bad for kids.
The above remain true regardless of marital status.
I'd add that I don't think it's healthy for a child to see indifference in a reltionship either. Even if it doesn't rise to the level of contempt, I'm not sure modeling "stay with someone you don't really enjoy and who doesn't add tremendous emotional value to your life" is something from which kids benefit.
Yes, divorce is hard on kids, but divorce only happens in unhealthy (in some way) relationships. If it was a choice between a happy intact family or divorce, of course the former is better for the kids. But choosing between a damaged, dissatisfied (or worse) relationship between the parents or divorce? I think people get that wrong when they jump to "divorce is bad for kids" because they forget that once that conversation is happening, we've already reached a place where the relationship is bad enough that the kids are aware, and that it isn't setting a great example for them of what they should expect and give in their relationships.
There are exceptions in every direction, but that's kinda the point as well. A generalization that divorce is bad for kids misses those exceptions, of which there are many. Perhaps more exceptions than not.
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I'd add that I don't think it's healthy for a child to see indifference in a reltionship either. Even if it doesn't rise to the level of contempt, I'm not sure modeling "stay with someone you don't really enjoy and who doesn't add tremendous emotional value to your life" is something from which kids benefit.
Yes, divorce is hard on kids, but divorce only happens in unhealthy (in some way) relationships. If it was a choice between a happy intact family or divorce, of course the former is better for the kids. But choosing between a damaged, dissatisfied (or worse) relationship between the parents or divorce? I think people get that wrong when they jump to "divorce is bad for kids" because they forget that once that conversation is happening, we've already reached a place where the relationship is bad enough that the kids are aware, and that it isn't setting a great example for them of what they should expect and give in their relationships.
There are exceptions in every direction, but that's kinda the point as well. A generalization that divorce is bad for kids misses those exceptions, of which there are many. Perhaps more exceptions than not.
Ugh, that is so true.
My experience is with pretty extreme bad marriages, but yeah, indifference is a horrible thing to model as "normal" in a marriage.
I also think there's a lot of value in modeling a healthy and respectful breakup. No one should see leaving a relationship that isn't working as "failure," but unfortunately, the way our society talks about marriage and divorce frames it exactly like that.
Other cultures don't put as much focus on marriage as the cornerstone of healthy families. In Finland, for example, there is little equating marriage with family. So the focus is more on families being healthy and happy, whatever the makeup of that family is, or however it changes over time, not on how long marriages last. They have very strong *family* values, with a very heavy focus on what's best for children, but don't equate that with strong marriage values.
Cuba, likewise, has incredibly strong family values and marriage there is more of a tool of trade. It's not unusual for folks there to get married to "sell" something that otherwise can't be legally sold, like a car.
The demonization of divorce has particularly religious roots. So if you look at cultures that have less religious foundations to their family values, like Scandinavian countries or Cuba, you find less "tragedy" discourse around divorce, but no loss of focus on families and child well being.
I suspect my family being Scandinavian plays a lot into my parents' attitude about their split and their family responsibility to make the process as healthy for me as possible. Our family never fell apart, my parents are very much connected, they just don't have a romantic relationship between them anymore.
They've always seen themselves as inextricably connected in partnership because of me.
DH often gives a pep talk to divorcing friends who have kids explaining that it's not that the marriage is ending, it's that their partnership is transforming from a marriage into a business partnership called "Kid Inc," and for the rest of their lives, Kid Inc has to be more important than any personal beef with their business partner.
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I don’t think so. People get divorced for many reasons and it’s often due to growing apart or incompatibility. People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years. However, one of the fire bloggers said that his wife didn’t want to live on such a limited budget and it did lead to his divorce. It might have been Root of Good but I’m not sure.
Not Root of Good. They are still married.
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I don’t think so. People get divorced for many reasons and it’s often due to growing apart or incompatibility. People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years. However, one of the fire bloggers said that his wife didn’t want to live on such a limited budget and it did lead to his divorce. It might have been Root of Good but I’m not sure.
Not Root of Good. They are still married.
That was Dr. Doom / Living A Fi
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Do you think people who follow the FIRE lifestyle are more likely to get a divorce than the average person? Thoughts on why or why not?
If the average person following the FIRE lifestyle is reasonably well represented by the population of this forum, I can almost guarantee they have a lower chance of divorce than the average person.
Over 85% of people on this forum have at least a college degree [1 (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/how-much-education-do-you-have/msg1999659/#msg1999659)] and the divorce rate of those with a college degree is roughly half of those without a high school diploma.[2 (https://divorce-education.com/divorce-rate-by-education-level/)] Based on education alone, the divorce rate among FIRE people represented by this forum should be much lower than average.
Whether FIRE aspirants are more likely to get divorced than a similar cohort not pursing FIRE would be a more interesting question.
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I don’t think so. People get divorced for many reasons and it’s often due to growing apart or incompatibility. People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years. However, one of the fire bloggers said that his wife didn’t want to live on such a limited budget and it did lead to his divorce. It might have been Root of Good but I’m not sure.
Not Root of Good. They are still married.
That was Dr. Doom / Living A Fi
Yep, Doom who moved on with a much more compatible woman, which I consider a great success especially since he was diagnosed with a serious genetic condition and his ex wasn't equipped to handle that.
Divorce freed him up to live a happier life. At least according to his last update.
A LOT of people get married in their 20s. The kind of person you choose in your 20s isn't always going to be the most compatible person for your 40s, 50s, 80s, etc. The things that matter to you in your 20s aren't necessarily things that matter later in life.
Barf. I would hate to be married to someone based on my priorities when I was 25! Lol. I was a superficial disaster who cared more about my friends being impressed by my partner than how they actually treated me.
Recipe for fucking disaster.
Dated some really hot guys though...some of whom still have all their own teeth!
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People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years.
People are living much longer than 150 years ago, but the major gains came in the first few years of life.
In 1850, life expectancy for a white male at age 20 was another 40 years while now it is up to about 57 years.[1 (https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011)] Average age of first marriage for men has gone from 26 in 1890 to about 30 today.[2 (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf)]. Running the numbers, the average man who got married at the average age in 1850 could expect to live another 36 from his wedding day while today the average man can live another 47 years from his wedding day.
While the average marriage that goes well into old age will be longer today than in the 1800s, it will only be about 30% longer.
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People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years.
People are living much longer than 150 years ago, but the major gains came in the first few years of life.
In 1850, life expectancy for a white male at age 20 was another 40 years while now it is up to about 57 years.[1 (https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011)] Average age of first marriage for men has gone from 26 in 1890 to about 30 today.[2 (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf)]. Running the numbers, the average man who got married at the average age in 1850 could expect to live another 36 from his wedding day while today the average man can live another 47 years from his wedding day.
While the average marriage that goes well into old age will be longer today than in the 1800s, it will only be about 30% longer.
I love this post. It challenges so many myths, plus it highlights the importance of understanding what your relevant timeframe truly is.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
My parents split only had positive impact on me.
Among my peers, the ones that suffered the most trauma and have ongoing relationship issues are often the ones whose parents stayed together "for the kids" long after the relationship had run its course. Yes, divorce can have a big impact on the children, especially when it's acrimonious and the adults don't try to handle it with maturity. But witnessing your parents in an unhappy marriage for your entire childhood can be another whole level of psychological stress.
Just to jump in - I also think that on the whole my parents divorce was much better for my sister and me than if they had continued to try to stay together.
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People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years.
People are living much longer than 150 years ago, but the major gains came in the first few years of life.
In 1850, life expectancy for a white male at age 20 was another 40 years while now it is up to about 57 years.[1 (https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011)] Average age of first marriage for men has gone from 26 in 1890 to about 30 today.[2 (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf)]. Running the numbers, the average man who got married at the average age in 1850 could expect to live another 36 from his wedding day while today the average man can live another 47 years from his wedding day.
While the average marriage that goes well into old age will be longer today than in the 1800s, it will only be about 30% longer.
I love this post. It challenges so many myths, plus it highlights the importance of understanding what your relevant timeframe truly is.
Demography is awesome! It's fascinating that the average first marriage ages were the lowest (out of the 1890-2022 span) after WW2 at just over 22 for men and 20 for women. There are so many trends that you might assume have gradually risen or dropped over time but the reality is that there are many ups and downs, more like an aberrant sine wave.
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Barf. I would hate to be married to someone based on my priorities when I was 25! Lol. I was a superficial disaster who cared more about my friends being impressed by my partner than how they actually treated me.
Recipe for fucking disaster.
Dated some really hot guys though...some of whom still have all their own teeth!
Shhhh, DH was only 25 when we met. I robbed the cradle to get an old fogey and we have both changed over the past decade plus, but so far we have mostly grown together. Rough patches documented in journal...
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My partner and I have been together since we were 18, which is easier to admit now that I can add that we didn't get married until we were 30. It took me a loooong time to trust that 18yo me had gotten it right.
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My partner and I have been together since we were 18, which is easier to admit now that I can add that we didn't get married until we were 30. It took me a loooong time to trust that 18yo me had gotten it right.
DH and I met when I was 19, we were both fucking disasters.
Thankfully, we had the sense to break up for a decade and grow the fuck up before we got back together and considered marriage. Well... a second marriage for him. I had the common sense to get dumped by my fiance the first time around, which saved me a divorce.
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No way to measure this. We can only speculate. Sad to think of what divorce does to kids.
It takes a big emotional toll on kids. I am a fan of staying together until the kids are grown unless physical violence is involved or there’s so much contempt for one another that the spouses can’t be civil. If both parents are mature they should be able to make it work long enough for the kids to grow up in a stable 2 parent home.
Absolutely. Selfish parents destroy kids' lives.
Speaking as a child whose parents should have gotten divorced but did not: in my case, pretty sure my parents choosing to stay together did me far more/worse damage. I used to actually pray that they would split up when I was in middle/high school. Instead, I got to watch them be miserable and paralyzed. And when it came time for me to go to college, the guilt was excruciating when I made the choice to go away. I couldn’t wait to get out of that hell-hole. But I also knew how much worse it would be between them when I left.
Knowing you are the only thing holding a bad marriage together is not a gift.
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People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years.
People are living much longer than 150 years ago, but the major gains came in the first few years of life.
In 1850, life expectancy for a white male at age 20 was another 40 years while now it is up to about 57 years.[1 (https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011)] Average age of first marriage for men has gone from 26 in 1890 to about 30 today.[2 (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf)]. Running the numbers, the average man who got married at the average age in 1850 could expect to live another 36 from his wedding day while today the average man can live another 47 years from his wedding day.
While the average marriage that goes well into old age will be longer today than in the 1800s, it will only be about 30% longer.
I love this post. It challenges so many myths, plus it highlights the importance of understanding what your relevant timeframe truly is.
Demography is awesome! It's fascinating that the average first marriage ages were the lowest (out of the 1890-2022 span) after WW2 at just over 22 for men and 20 for women. There are so many trends that you might assume have gradually risen or dropped over time but the reality is that there are many ups and downs, more like an aberrant sine wave.
And within those demographics are some interesting breakdowns, too. Men and women with more education marry later (and also just are more likely to marry) than those with less. I'd hazard a guess (but could easily be wrong) that this probably means people with more education divorce somewhat less, too. Simply because I think marrying later means you have more of a sense of who you are and what you need in a partner. And also because it is less likely you are marrying for more religious reasons (again, I guess).
I did see a stat, on a quick google search that said those with more education are less likely to divorce, but it didn't say whether they were less likely to divorce when all other factors were removed, so IDK how much of that is education=later marriage; and later marriage=less divorce, versus a direct education=less divorce.
DH and I were 25-26 when we married. (We met at 15/16, dated briefly at those ages, and then stayed friends through high school and college, before giving it a real try.) While we've been married 20+ years and everything is still going great--even better with time--I do think we were too young to marry. The first few years of our marriage were probably harder than they needed to be, in large part because we were young and didn't quite know what we needed from each other. Most of my friends didn't marry until 29+; then again, most of my friends are more highly educated so that matches the data. Perhaps not coincidentally, none of my close circle of friends is divorced, either.
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People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years.
People are living much longer than 150 years ago, but the major gains came in the first few years of life.
In 1850, life expectancy for a white male at age 20 was another 40 years while now it is up to about 57 years.[1 (https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011)] Average age of first marriage for men has gone from 26 in 1890 to about 30 today.[2 (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf)]. Running the numbers, the average man who got married at the average age in 1850 could expect to live another 36 from his wedding day while today the average man can live another 47 years from his wedding day.
While the average marriage that goes well into old age will be longer today than in the 1800s, it will only be about 30% longer.
I love this post. It challenges so many myths, plus it highlights the importance of understanding what your relevant timeframe truly is.
Demography is awesome! It's fascinating that the average first marriage ages were the lowest (out of the 1890-2022 span) after WW2 at just over 22 for men and 20 for women. There are so many trends that you might assume have gradually risen or dropped over time but the reality is that there are many ups and downs, more like an aberrant sine wave.
And within those demographics are some interesting breakdowns, too. Men and women with more education marry later (and also just are more likely to marry) than those with less. I'd hazard a guess (but could easily be wrong) that this probably means people with more education divorce somewhat less, too. Simply because I think marrying later means you have more of a sense of who you are and what you need in a partner. And also because it is less likely you are marrying for more religious reasons (again, I guess).
I did see a stat, on a quick google search that said those with more education are less likely to divorce, but it didn't say whether they were less likely to divorce when all other factors were removed, so IDK how much of that is education=later marriage; and later marriage=less divorce, versus a direct education=less divorce.
DH and I were 25-26 when we married. (We met at 15/16, dated briefly at those ages, and then stayed friends through high school and college, before giving it a real try.) While we've been married 20+ years and everything is still going great--even better with time--I do think we were too young to marry. The first few years of our marriage were probably harder than they needed to be, in large part because we were young and didn't quite know what we needed from each other. Most of my friends didn't marry until 29+; then again, most of my friends are more highly educated so that matches the data. Perhaps not coincidentally, none of my close circle of friends is divorced, either.
I had actually read something recently that said older marriage correlated with higher divorce rates, but the posited explanation was that people who marry younger tend to be more religious and have much more social pressure to stay in marriages even if they are terrible.
So you have to look at the stats of who stays married longer not from a lens of which marriages are better, but which marriages are under more pressure to stay married.
A marriage lasting a long time doesn't equal that marriage being happy.
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Alternative Interpretation:
People who spend their time blogging or posting on the MMM forum are the sort of people whose spouses divorce them.
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People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years.
People are living much longer than 150 years ago, but the major gains came in the first few years of life.
In 1850, life expectancy for a white male at age 20 was another 40 years while now it is up to about 57 years.[1 (https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011)] Average age of first marriage for men has gone from 26 in 1890 to about 30 today.[2 (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf)]. Running the numbers, the average man who got married at the average age in 1850 could expect to live another 36 from his wedding day while today the average man can live another 47 years from his wedding day.
While the average marriage that goes well into old age will be longer today than in the 1800s, it will only be about 30% longer.
I love this post. It challenges so many myths, plus it highlights the importance of understanding what your relevant timeframe truly is.
Back during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s many women died in childbirth and they often had so many children because of lack of decent birth control which takes a huge toll on their bodies. So men often had 2-3 wives in their lifetime. Men needed a woman to raise their kids while they worked so usually hunted for a new wife fairly quickly. When I was researching my family tree on both sides I noticed this trend. We also forget that antibiotics haven’t been around forever. They saved my dad’s life when he was in his 20’s and hadn’t been available for that long.
I had a friend whose husband was undermining her with the kids and also bankrupting them financially. At 10 years of marriage he would have been entitled to half of her pension up to whenever they divorced. When asked my opinion after 9 years of marriage I said that I would divorce him because he was not serving any benefit for the family but was actively harming the family. Each situation is different.
I stayed in my marriage for 22 years until my youngest was grown. The kids had no clue and actually thanked me for it years later because they had a much better childhood than if we had split. My husband didn’t want the divorce when it finally happened. It worked because after lots of marriage counseling very little changed and I decided to forget about leaving and just live my life. I focused on the positive parts of my marriage, the kids and my career.
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Divorce rates are strongly anti-correlated to level of education. Advanced degress see about 30% few per-capita divorces than those who dropped out of college or less education. Mustacians bias strongly towards affluent and educated people. My suspicion, asserted entirely without data, is that the divorce rate is lower amongst FIRE aspirants. Folks on this forum have already broken the seal of talking about money (a social taboo in most of our home countries), and likely also share more about our personal relationships so talk of relationship troubles and divorce is over-represented in the content here.
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Divorce rates are strongly anti-correlated to level of education. Advanced degress see about 30% few per-capita divorces than those who dropped out of college or less education. Mustacians bias strongly towards affluent and educated people. My suspicion, asserted entirely without data, is that the divorce rate is lower amongst FIRE aspirants. Folks on this forum have already broken the seal of talking about money (a social taboo in most of our home countries), and likely also share more about our personal relationships so talk of relationship troubles and divorce is over-represented in the content here.
Plus you just don't notice middle aged folks benignly mentioning their spouses, so longer marriages don't really stand out in memory for most folks here.
If I think about the people I know best here, I believe most of them are married.
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People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years.
People are living much longer than 150 years ago, but the major gains came in the first few years of life.
In 1850, life expectancy for a white male at age 20 was another 40 years while now it is up to about 57 years.[1 (https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011)] Average age of first marriage for men has gone from 26 in 1890 to about 30 today.[2 (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf)]. Running the numbers, the average man who got married at the average age in 1850 could expect to live another 36 from his wedding day while today the average man can live another 47 years from his wedding day.
While the average marriage that goes well into old age will be longer today than in the 1800s, it will only be about 30% longer.
I love this post. It challenges so many myths, plus it highlights the importance of understanding what your relevant timeframe truly is.
Back during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s many women died in childbirth and they often had so many children because of lack of decent birth control which takes a huge toll on their bodies. So men often had 2-3 wives in their lifetime. Men needed a woman to raise their kids while they worked so usually hunted for a new wife fairly quickly. When I was researching my family tree on both sides I noticed this trend. We also forget that antibiotics haven’t been around forever. They saved my dad’s life when he was in his 20’s and hadn’t been available for that long.
I had a friend whose husband was undermining her with the kids and also bankrupting them financially. At 10 years of marriage he would have been entitled to half of her pension up to whenever they divorced. When asked my opinion after 9 years of marriage I said that I would divorce him because he was not serving any benefit for the family but was actively harming the family. Each situation is different.
I stayed in my marriage for 22 years until my youngest was grown. The kids had no clue and actually thanked me for it years later because they had a much better childhood than if we had split. My husband didn’t want the divorce when it finally happened. It worked because after lots of marriage counseling very little changed and I decided to forget about leaving and just live my life. I focused on the positive parts of my marriage, the kids and my career.
IMHO, I think it's pretty exceptional for people to be able to stay married in a healthy way when they want out of their marriage.
Whenever you tell your story I'm always amazed that you had the kind of marriage that could just peacefully and lovingly stay together for the sake of children, but from what I've seen of couples, I can't imagine anyone I know managing to do that once they got to the point of wanting out of their marriages.
It's admirable since it obviously worked so well for you, but I don't think it's common.
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I don’t think so. People get divorced for many reasons and it’s often due to growing apart or incompatibility. People live so much longer than in the past that I think it’s hard to be happy for all those years. However, one of the fire bloggers said that his wife didn’t want to live on such a limited budget and it did lead to his divorce. It might have been Root of Good but I’m not sure.
Not Root of Good. They are still married.
That was Dr. Doom / Living A Fi
Maybe also Get Rich Slowly I think, with JD.
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On topic: I think it depends on whether both parties were Mustachian when they married, or whether Mustachianism is a subsequent discovery, along with the degree of change. If you're both Mustachian when you marry, I'd think the chance of divorce is less likely, because not only do you have similar life goals, you've learned to talk about it. OTOH, if you're both happily treadmilling along in commercial hedonism, and one party has a come-to-Pete moment, well, that's like any other major change in a partner and can put a huge stress on the marriage. I'd think that would be similar to, say, both parties belonging to the same go-to-church-on-Christmas-and-Easter church when they marry, but one down the road converts to a super-fundamentalist religion. Some couples will navigate a change of that magnitude, while many others will not.
Divorce: I think most would agree that the best environment for kids is to have two mentally-healthy parents in a loving, supportive relationship. The problem is, if you don't have a good relationship at the heart of it all, you're already outside of that "best environment." At that point, the question becomes which is the best of the poor options -- tough it out, or split? I suspect the answer to that is dependent almost entirely on the two parents involved.
In many cases, divorce is bad for the kids because they usually live with mom, and mom usually makes a lot less than dad. Success in school is highly correlated with socioeconomic status, so if the kids' status drops, and now mom's working all the time to make ends meet and can't be as involved in their lives, the kids likely won't do as well in school. OTOH, what's the value of modeling a healthy relationship? You can measure things like changes in SES and grades, so it's easy to point to that and say, see, divorce is bad! But you can't measure all of the qualities and characteristics that really matter for long-term health and happiness.
FWIW, I'm one of those who thank God that my parents divorced. They married WAY too young and never should have in the first place. No, it wasn't easy in a lot of ways -- we were on Food Stamps for a while, I had Issues with my dad for years, etc. And yet I cannot imagine the stress I'd have faced every single day if they'd stayed married for my sake. Most importantly, my mom met my stepdad and married him when I was 9, and I got an up-close-and-personal view of a very, very healthy relationship that lasted until he died a few years back. When I met now-DH, my first thought was how much he was like my stepdad in the way he treated people (me, his grandma, the waitstaff, etc.).* But my stepdad taught me the kind of characteristics that made a good man and a good husband and provided a daily example of how I should expect to be treated by anyone I was close to. My life would have been infinitely poorer if he had not been a part of it.
*Turns out I got that one wrong in several ways. ;-) But we've navigated that, and it's been 27 years this year.
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On topic: I think it depends on whether both parties were Mustachian when they married, or whether Mustachianism is a subsequent discovery, along with the degree of change. If you're both Mustachian when you marry, I'd think the chance of divorce is less likely, because not only do you have similar life goals, you've learned to talk about it. OTOH, if you're both happily treadmilling along in commercial hedonism, and one party has a come-to-Pete moment, well, that's like any other major change in a partner and can put a huge stress on the marriage. I'd think that would be similar to, say, both parties belonging to the same go-to-church-on-Christmas-and-Easter church when they marry, but one down the road converts to a super-fundamentalist religion. Some couples will navigate a change of that magnitude, while many others will not.
Divorce: I think most would agree that the best environment for kids is to have two mentally-healthy parents in a loving, supportive relationship. The problem is, if you don't have a good relationship at the heart of it all, you're already outside of that "best environment." At that point, the question becomes which is the best of the poor options -- tough it out, or split? I suspect the answer to that is dependent almost entirely on the two parents involved.
In many cases, divorce is bad for the kids because they usually live with mom, and mom usually makes a lot less than dad. Success in school is highly correlated with socioeconomic status, so if the kids' status drops, and now mom's working all the time to make ends meet and can't be as involved in their lives, the kids likely won't do as well in school. OTOH, what's the value of modeling a healthy relationship? You can measure things like changes in SES and grades, so it's easy to point to that and say, see, divorce is bad! But you can't measure all of the qualities and characteristics that really matter for long-term health and happiness.
FWIW, I'm one of those who thank God that my parents divorced. They married WAY too young and never should have in the first place. No, it wasn't easy in a lot of ways -- we were on Food Stamps for a while, I had Issues with my dad for years, etc. And yet I cannot imagine the stress I'd have faced every single day if they'd stayed married for my sake. Most importantly, my mom met my stepdad and married him when I was 9, and I got an up-close-and-personal view of a very, very healthy relationship that lasted until he died a few years back. When I met now-DH, my first thought was how much he was like my stepdad in the way he treated people (me, his grandma, the waitstaff, etc.).* But my stepdad taught me the kind of characteristics that made a good man and a good husband and provided a daily example of how I should expect to be treated by anyone I was close to. My life would have been infinitely poorer if he had not been a part of it.
*Turns out I got that one wrong in several ways. ;-) But we've navigated that, and it's been 27 years this year.
There's also the guilt. I imagine knowing that mom stayed with dad, or dad with mom, despite not being happy in the relationship, because of you [global 'you'] is a pretty heavy weight for a child or young adult. Or even a not-young adult. Like, mom sacrificed a lot of happiness in her 30s and early 40s because of me, and she gave up the opportunity to use those years to find a better partner for herself, or just be happier on her own--because of me.
It's hard to see that as doing a kid a favor. That's not to say staying together for the kids doesn't work well sometimes. It seems like in those cases it's more of a general dissatisfaction than any true ire, contempt, pain, trauma, or other heavy issues and feelings, so the parents are able to co-exist as--like someone about put it--business partners.
Even then, I'm pretty sure I'd resent the lack of sex for a decade or so while I stuck it out for the kids. Unless 'business partners' sometimes bone?
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My parents stayed together longer than they should have, and while there were no really bad effects, it was definitely a strong influence in my swearing off marriage forever.
They didn't stay together for the kids though, their situation was that my dad was quietly biding his time for about ten years until the divorce outlook improved for him - mostly, my mom eventually re-starting her career after being a SAHM so he would not be stuck with spousal support. The child support situation was also quite favorable when he pulled the plug because one kid lived with each parent, so it was mostly a wash. Both of them are now remarried to more compatible people.
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Villanelle, business partners still have sex:)).
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Barf. I would hate to be married to someone based on my priorities when I was 25! Lol. I was a superficial disaster who cared more about my friends being impressed by my partner than how they actually treated me.
Recipe for fucking disaster.
Dated some really hot guys though...some of whom still have all their own teeth!
Shhhh, DH was only 25 when we met. I robbed the cradle to get an old fogey and we have both changed over the past decade plus, but so far we have mostly grown together. Rough patches documented in journal...
Lol. My wife and I got together when we were teenagers.
I documented my life and marriage some in a journal here, then realized I probably should not talk about it, even in the context of an anonymous online journal. So I deleted the journal. Some things are better left unsaid.
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Divorce rates are strongly anti-correlated to level of education. Advanced degress see about 30% few per-capita divorces than those who dropped out of college or less education. Mustacians bias strongly towards affluent and educated people. My suspicion, asserted entirely without data, is that the divorce rate is lower amongst FIRE aspirants. Folks on this forum have already broken the seal of talking about money (a social taboo in most of our home countries), and likely also share more about our personal relationships so talk of relationship troubles and divorce is over-represented in the content here.
Divorce rates are also correlated with an assortment of negative consequences for kids, according to psychiatrists (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6313686/#:~:text=Offspring%20of%20divorced%2Fseparated%20parents,exhibit%20no%20obvious%20psychological%20problems.).
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Divorce rates are strongly anti-correlated to level of education. Advanced degress see about 30% few per-capita divorces than those who dropped out of college or less education. Mustacians bias strongly towards affluent and educated people. My suspicion, asserted entirely without data, is that the divorce rate is lower amongst FIRE aspirants. Folks on this forum have already broken the seal of talking about money (a social taboo in most of our home countries), and likely also share more about our personal relationships so talk of relationship troubles and divorce is over-represented in the content here.
Divorce rates are also correlated with an assortment of negative consequences for kids, according to psychiatrists (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6313686/#:~:text=Offspring%20of%20divorced%2Fseparated%20parents,exhibit%20no%20obvious%20psychological%20problems.).
Sure, but that doesn't show that those same children would be better off with their same parents still being married!
FWIW as a divorced mom I have had people tell me that they wish their divorced parents handled the divorce better or had done it earlier, but no one has ever said to me that they think their parents shouldn't have divorced.
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Divorce rates are strongly anti-correlated to level of education. Advanced degress see about 30% few per-capita divorces than those who dropped out of college or less education. Mustacians bias strongly towards affluent and educated people. My suspicion, asserted entirely without data, is that the divorce rate is lower amongst FIRE aspirants. Folks on this forum have already broken the seal of talking about money (a social taboo in most of our home countries), and likely also share more about our personal relationships so talk of relationship troubles and divorce is over-represented in the content here.
Divorce rates are also correlated with an assortment of negative consequences for kids, according to psychiatrists (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6313686/#:~:text=Offspring%20of%20divorced%2Fseparated%20parents,exhibit%20no%20obvious%20psychological%20problems.).
Sure, but that doesn't show that those same children would be better off with their same parents still being married!
FWIW as a divorced mom I have had people tell me that they wish their divorced parents handled the divorce better or had done it earlier, but no one has ever said to me that they think their parents shouldn't have divorced.
This is exactly the elephant in the room with all those studies. It's the wrong comparison, because they compare children of divorced parents to children of parents who like each other and want to be married. I think the results would be VERY different if you looked at the outcomes of children of divorced parents versus children of parents with toxic marriages who hate each other but stay married anyway.
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Barf. I would hate to be married to someone based on my priorities when I was 25! Lol. I was a superficial disaster who cared more about my friends being impressed by my partner than how they actually treated me.
Recipe for fucking disaster.
Dated some really hot guys though...some of whom still have all their own teeth!
Shhhh, DH was only 25 when we met. I robbed the cradle to get an old fogey and we have both changed over the past decade plus, but so far we have mostly grown together. Rough patches documented in journal...
Lol. My wife and I got together when we were teenagers.
I documented my life and marriage some in a journal here, then realized I probably should not talk about it, even in the context of an anonymous online journal. So I deleted the journal. Some things are better left unsaid.
Heh, I also met my partner when I was 19. I was an extremely mature 19-year-old, though (I was 'born 40' as people say), and he was 28 with a lot of life experience. No one was more surprised than me that it ended up being 'the one'. We're still going strong....:counts on fingers: 33 years together as of next month.
ETA: Jesus, typing that I just had such a surge of love and admiration for him, and happiness/gratefulness that I wasn't dumb enough to sabotage the relationship b/c I was 'too young to settle down'. Gonna go tell him right now. Thanks, forum.
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Barf. I would hate to be married to someone based on my priorities when I was 25! Lol. I was a superficial disaster who cared more about my friends being impressed by my partner than how they actually treated me.
Recipe for fucking disaster.
Dated some really hot guys though...some of whom still have all their own teeth!
Shhhh, DH was only 25 when we met. I robbed the cradle to get an old fogey and we have both changed over the past decade plus, but so far we have mostly grown together. Rough patches documented in journal...
Lol. My wife and I got together when we were teenagers.
I documented my life and marriage some in a journal here, then realized I probably should not talk about it, even in the context of an anonymous online journal. So I deleted the journal. Some things are better left unsaid.
Heh, I also met my partner when I was 19. I was an extremely mature 19-year-old, though (I was 'born 40' as people say), and he was 28 with a lot of life experience. No one was more surprised than me that it ended up being 'the one'. We're still going strong....:counts on fingers: 33 years together as of next month.
ETA: Jesus, typing that I just had such a surge of love and admiration for him, and happiness/gratefulness that I wasn't dumb enough to sabotage the relationship b/c I was 'too young to settle down'. Gonna go tell him right now. Thanks, forum.
This is awesome.
I have been with my partner for 20 years now and am both glad I found her and committed myself to her at such a young age.
We talked extensively everyday for 3 years, then lived with each other for a year before getting married. So we knew and understood each other *extremely* well before getting married, including our life plan together, entire histories, feelings, fears, upsets, how we were both raised, knew everyone in both of our families, etc.
While every relationship has conflict at times, listening to each other and loving each other and respecting and understanding and constantly communicating with each other and being gentle and non-judgmental with each other and open and honest with each other and forgiving each other go a LONG way in a relationship.
It's really not that hard.
People add way too much complexity to relationships and let the thoughts and opinions of other people interfere too much. A relationship is about two people. Not what anyone else thinks.
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This is awesome.
I have been with my partner for 20 years now and am both glad I found her and committed myself to her at such a young age.
We talked extensively everyday for 3 years, then lived with each other for a year before getting married. So we knew and understood each other *extremely* well before getting married, including our life plan together, entire histories, feelings, fears, upsets, how we were both raised, knew everyone in both of our families, etc.
While every relationship has conflict at times, listening to each other and loving each other and respecting and understanding and constantly communicating with each other and being gentle and non-judgmental with each other and open and honest with each other and forgiving each other go a LONG way in a relationship.
It's really not that hard.
People add way too much complexity to relationships and let the thoughts and opinions of other people interfere too much. A relationship is about two people. Not what anyone else thinks.
I’m glad your marriage has worked out so far.
I did much the same: started dating at 20, lived together for a few years, got married at 24. We talked about all the things. Knew each other intimately. Spent extensive time with our families. Talked about about how we would never get divorced. Very on the same page about all the things that were important to us.
And we got divorced at 30. We changed. It wasn’t working. Because of the stigma of divorce, I tried to make things work for a year and a half (ridiculous). Divorce is AWESOME. We were both so much happier.
I wish we could get rid of the stigma. I was honest, I did my due diligence, and it didn’t work out long term. No big deal. I’m not a lesser person because of it.
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This is awesome.
I have been with my partner for 20 years now and am both glad I found her and committed myself to her at such a young age.
We talked extensively everyday for 3 years, then lived with each other for a year before getting married. So we knew and understood each other *extremely* well before getting married, including our life plan together, entire histories, feelings, fears, upsets, how we were both raised, knew everyone in both of our families, etc.
While every relationship has conflict at times, listening to each other and loving each other and respecting and understanding and constantly communicating with each other and being gentle and non-judgmental with each other and open and honest with each other and forgiving each other go a LONG way in a relationship.
It's really not that hard.
People add way too much complexity to relationships and let the thoughts and opinions of other people interfere too much. A relationship is about two people. Not what anyone else thinks.
I’m glad your marriage has worked out so far.
I did much the same: started dating at 20, lived together for a few years, got married at 24. We talked about all the things. Knew each other intimately. Spent extensive time with our families. Talked about about how we would never get divorced. Very on the same page about all the things that were important to us.
And we got divorced at 30. We changed. It wasn’t working. Because of the stigma of divorce, I tried to make things work for a year and a half (ridiculous). Divorce is AWESOME. We were both so much happier.
I wish we could get rid of the stigma. I was honest, I did my due diligence, and it didn’t work out long term. No big deal. I’m not a lesser person because of it.
I am curious if you had kids? It’s a much harder decision if you do.
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And we got divorced at 30. We changed.
This part isn't talked about enough. You can, and most people do, change radically from their early 20s to their late 20s. That's normal. What was a great fit back then might not be a great fit anymore. That's not a crime or a sin. It is just the way life works for lots of people.
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This is awesome.
I have been with my partner for 20 years now and am both glad I found her and committed myself to her at such a young age.
We talked extensively everyday for 3 years, then lived with each other for a year before getting married. So we knew and understood each other *extremely* well before getting married, including our life plan together, entire histories, feelings, fears, upsets, how we were both raised, knew everyone in both of our families, etc.
While every relationship has conflict at times, listening to each other and loving each other and respecting and understanding and constantly communicating with each other and being gentle and non-judgmental with each other and open and honest with each other and forgiving each other go a LONG way in a relationship.
It's really not that hard.
People add way too much complexity to relationships and let the thoughts and opinions of other people interfere too much. A relationship is about two people. Not what anyone else thinks.
I’m glad your marriage has worked out so far.
I did much the same: started dating at 20, lived together for a few years, got married at 24. We talked about all the things. Knew each other intimately. Spent extensive time with our families. Talked about about how we would never get divorced. Very on the same page about all the things that were important to us.
And we got divorced at 30. We changed. It wasn’t working. Because of the stigma of divorce, I tried to make things work for a year and a half (ridiculous). Divorce is AWESOME. We were both so much happier.
I wish we could get rid of the stigma. I was honest, I did my due diligence, and it didn’t work out long term. No big deal. I’m not a lesser person because of it.
I don't blame you at all or look down on you. You're not a lesser person at all. People do change, all the time, and sometimes the best option is to go separate ways in life.
I think part of the problem is the stereotypical divorce we see on movies and TV shows is always bitter, and full of hatred.
But that doesn't have to be how separations occur. Two people can simply realize they want different things in life, or desire different circumstances, and amicably part ways. We don't need to think of it as some hateful event.
Two people can simply realize they aren't good for each other and part ways in a peaceful manner. I wish that amicable separations were portrayed in TV shows and movies more often.
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This is awesome.
I have been with my partner for 20 years now and am both glad I found her and committed myself to her at such a young age.
We talked extensively everyday for 3 years, then lived with each other for a year before getting married. So we knew and understood each other *extremely* well before getting married, including our life plan together, entire histories, feelings, fears, upsets, how we were both raised, knew everyone in both of our families, etc.
While every relationship has conflict at times, listening to each other and loving each other and respecting and understanding and constantly communicating with each other and being gentle and non-judgmental with each other and open and honest with each other and forgiving each other go a LONG way in a relationship.
It's really not that hard.
People add way too much complexity to relationships and let the thoughts and opinions of other people interfere too much. A relationship is about two people. Not what anyone else thinks.
I’m glad your marriage has worked out so far.
I did much the same: started dating at 20, lived together for a few years, got married at 24. We talked about all the things. Knew each other intimately. Spent extensive time with our families. Talked about about how we would never get divorced. Very on the same page about all the things that were important to us.
And we got divorced at 30. We changed. It wasn’t working. Because of the stigma of divorce, I tried to make things work for a year and a half (ridiculous). Divorce is AWESOME. We were both so much happier.
I wish we could get rid of the stigma. I was honest, I did my due diligence, and it didn’t work out long term. No big deal. I’m not a lesser person because of it.
I am curious if you had kids? It’s a much harder decision if you do.
No harm at all to marry and divorce as much as you like if kids aren't involved. The odds of divorce are around double for those who marry before age 25 versus later, but certainly many don't divorce.
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This is awesome.
I have been with my partner for 20 years now and am both glad I found her and committed myself to her at such a young age.
We talked extensively everyday for 3 years, then lived with each other for a year before getting married. So we knew and understood each other *extremely* well before getting married, including our life plan together, entire histories, feelings, fears, upsets, how we were both raised, knew everyone in both of our families, etc.
While every relationship has conflict at times, listening to each other and loving each other and respecting and understanding and constantly communicating with each other and being gentle and non-judgmental with each other and open and honest with each other and forgiving each other go a LONG way in a relationship.
It's really not that hard.
People add way too much complexity to relationships and let the thoughts and opinions of other people interfere too much. A relationship is about two people. Not what anyone else thinks.
I’m glad your marriage has worked out so far.
I did much the same: started dating at 20, lived together for a few years, got married at 24. We talked about all the things. Knew each other intimately. Spent extensive time with our families. Talked about about how we would never get divorced. Very on the same page about all the things that were important to us.
And we got divorced at 30. We changed. It wasn’t working. Because of the stigma of divorce, I tried to make things work for a year and a half (ridiculous). Divorce is AWESOME. We were both so much happier.
I wish we could get rid of the stigma. I was honest, I did my due diligence, and it didn’t work out long term. No big deal. I’m not a lesser person because of it.
I don't blame you at all or look down on you. You're not a lesser person at all. People do change, all the time, and sometimes the best option is to go separate ways in life.
I think part of the problem is the stereotypical divorce we see on movies and TV shows is always bitter, and full of hatred.
But that doesn't have to be how separations occur. Two people can simply realize they want different things in life, or desire different circumstances, and amicably part ways. We don't need to think of it as some hateful event.
Two people can simply realize they aren't good for each other and part ways in a peaceful manner. I wish that amicable separations were portrayed in TV shows and movies more often.
Both of your posts are coming off as judgemental.
You are saying it's both simple to have a great marriage and simple to have a respectful divorce.
I have a great, happy marriage that has thrived through profoundly difficult times, and I don't, for a second, think that because it's been easy for us that it's simple or easy for folks to weather these kinds of storms.
A LOT of people would understandably struggle in a marriage that has gone through what ours has. And it's not that we're "better" at marriage than others, we're both just uniquely suited to manage this kind of shit together.
That said, we dated for a few years and then broke up for a decade. Had we stayed together back then and gotten married, there's no way those two people in that relationship could handle what we've been through for the past 4 years.
Also, I had NO CLUE when I got married that it would turn out this well, and I had known him for 13 years by that point. Lol.
So it's not even that we're the right combo of people. We're the right combo at the right stage of life with the right set of skills and experiences to be able to handle our specific crap much, much easier than most. But I will never say that I magically could have predicted that.
Also, you've shared quite a bit about your marriage, and there are aspects of it that I would find incredibly difficult and not be able to manage, but you seem particularly equipped to handle because of your particular personality and background.
People who succeed at things tend to give themselves more credit than is due. Yes, a good, thriving marriage takes making a good choice, being loving and patient, having good communication, all of those things.
But it doesn't mean that people whose marriages don't work out just sucked at all of those things and could have made "simple" changes to make it successful.
Yes, some marriages have obvious weak points where a bit of effort could have prevented a ton of hardship. But a lot of marriages are very complex. People are complex. Previous traumas are complex.
Human beings are complex and multiple human beings interacting is even more complex. None of this is simple.
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I know someone who at the time of the divorce was all "This is the right thing, this is very amicable, mediation is going well" etc. Now several years later, we hear more about alimony and having to go back to court to negotiate paying for their eldest son's college. Outwardly, the situation has deteriorated since the divorce.
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I am curious if you had kids? It’s a much harder decision if you do.
No kids, but no, I don’t think it made the decision easier. It was very hard because I was very committed to making my marriage work. Honestly, if we’d had kids it probably would have ended earlier, because I would have had someone else to consider. I think his ultimate jerk-ness would have surfaced sooner. (This is a new thought - I only learned recently that he ended up abandoning the 2 kids he had with his 2nd wife for a few years).
Going through my divorce made me wish my parents had divorced sooner, so they could have been happier. They did “staying together for the kids” well, and I had a great childhood. But they could have navigated co-parenting just as well (they are awesome at co-grand parenting).
I also wish my last BF’s parents had divorced at some point. They are such miserable people. I dreaded visiting their house.
I don't blame you at all or look down on you.
Your comment that “It's really not that hard.” says otherwise.
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My best friend's parents when I was in junior high and high school were so nice to me. I think partly because I was from a divorced home. But my friend openly told me that her parents were going to divorce as soon as she went to college (she was the youngest). Her mom and my friend made fun of her dad, so there was clear contempt. It made me uncomfortable even then, but I don't know that I could have articulated it at the time. She and I didn't stay friends, so I don't know what happened after.
My own parents split when I was 7, and it was a bitter divorce and custody battle. I never wished they'd stayed together, but some of my other wishes:
*They'd handled it better, keeping us kids more out of the loop. They tried sending us upstairs while they fought, but obviously we sat at the top of the stairs and listened. My dad would ask us intent questions about what my mom was up to. My mom called his new gf "bimbo".
*I wish my dad hadn't married my first stepmom, because she didn't like us all that much. There was a lot of tension in the house during our visits, and it was clear that my dad was relieved when I couldn't go visit. He walked on eggshells not knowing what would upset her and I had to apologize to her for things that seemed to me ridiculous. That lasted the remainder of my childhood, then they divorced.
*I wish my mom had been better able to enjoy her life. She was always worried about money and exhausted from working full time/being the full time parent. She never dated anyone after the divorce.
I still have a mental association with marriage and a knee-jerk instinct of feeling trapped. Needless to say, my partner of 12 years and I are not married and very happy. I feel grateful all the time that I have him. I do periodically worry about some legal aspects - I'd like my partner to be eligible for my social security for example, in case anything happened to me, as mine would be much higher than his. But neither of us particularly wants to get married, so I'm not going to spend much time worrying on it.
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This is awesome.
I have been with my partner for 20 years now and am both glad I found her and committed myself to her at such a young age.
We talked extensively everyday for 3 years, then lived with each other for a year before getting married. So we knew and understood each other *extremely* well before getting married, including our life plan together, entire histories, feelings, fears, upsets, how we were both raised, knew everyone in both of our families, etc.
While every relationship has conflict at times, listening to each other and loving each other and respecting and understanding and constantly communicating with each other and being gentle and non-judgmental with each other and open and honest with each other and forgiving each other go a LONG way in a relationship.
It's really not that hard.
People add way too much complexity to relationships and let the thoughts and opinions of other people interfere too much. A relationship is about two people. Not what anyone else thinks.
I’m glad your marriage has worked out so far.
I did much the same: started dating at 20, lived together for a few years, got married at 24. We talked about all the things. Knew each other intimately. Spent extensive time with our families. Talked about about how we would never get divorced. Very on the same page about all the things that were important to us.
And we got divorced at 30. We changed. It wasn’t working. Because of the stigma of divorce, I tried to make things work for a year and a half (ridiculous). Divorce is AWESOME. We were both so much happier.
I wish we could get rid of the stigma. I was honest, I did my due diligence, and it didn’t work out long term. No big deal. I’m not a lesser person because of it.
I don't blame you at all or look down on you. You're not a lesser person at all. People do change, all the time, and sometimes the best option is to go separate ways in life.
I think part of the problem is the stereotypical divorce we see on movies and TV shows is always bitter, and full of hatred.
But that doesn't have to be how separations occur. Two people can simply realize they want different things in life, or desire different circumstances, and amicably part ways. We don't need to think of it as some hateful event.
Two people can simply realize they aren't good for each other and part ways in a peaceful manner. I wish that amicable separations were portrayed in TV shows and movies more often.
Both of your posts are coming off as judgemental.
You are saying it's both simple to have a great marriage and simple to have a respectful divorce.
I have a great, happy marriage that has thrived through profoundly difficult times, and I don't, for a second, think that because it's been easy for us that it's simple or easy for folks to weather these kinds of storms.
A LOT of people would understandably struggle in a marriage that has gone through what ours has. And it's not that we're "better" at marriage than others, we're both just uniquely suited to manage this kind of shit together.
That said, we dated for a few years and then broke up for a decade. Had we stayed together back then and gotten married, there's no way those two people in that relationship could handle what we've been through for the past 4 years.
Also, I had NO CLUE when I got married that it would turn out this well, and I had known him for 13 years by that point. Lol.
So it's not even that we're the right combo of people. We're the right combo at the right stage of life with the right set of skills and experiences to be able to handle our specific crap much, much easier than most. But I will never say that I magically could have predicted that.
Also, you've shared quite a bit about your marriage, and there are aspects of it that I would find incredibly difficult and not be able to manage, but you seem particularly equipped to handle because of your particular personality and background.
People who succeed at things tend to give themselves more credit than is due. Yes, a good, thriving marriage takes making a good choice, being loving and patient, having good communication, all of those things.
But it doesn't mean that people whose marriages don't work out just sucked at all of those things and could have made "simple" changes to make it successful.
Yes, some marriages have obvious weak points where a bit of effort could have prevented a ton of hardship. But a lot of marriages are very complex. People are complex. Previous traumas are complex.
Human beings are complex and multiple human beings interacting is even more complex. None of this is simple.
Hmm... this is a fair statement, I suppose.
I tend to view relationships as simple, but people as complicated. This complexity is often brought to relationships, which makes relationships complicated for people. But I don't see this as the natural state of things and think people tend to make a lot of things unnecessarily complicated.
I don't mean to downplay the struggles that a lot of people, like yourself, have faced in their previous relationships. I have heard so many stories from so many people it sort of boggles my mind.
My relationship success isn't due to myself. It's because of my wife. You really think with my background I have any sort of emotional capacity to be in a long term relationship with a person? Lol. :P My original plan was just to be single forever.
Like - Jesus - my knee jerk emotional reaction to this post is to get offended because you said I sounded judgemental. I assure you it's my wife's fault I'm married, not because I have any particular relationship skillset or understanding of people.
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Hmm... this is a fair statement, I suppose.
I tend to view relationships as simple, but people as complicated. This complexity is often brought to relationships, which makes relationships complicated for people. But I don't see this as the natural state of things and think people tend to make a lot of things unnecessarily complicated.
I don't mean to downplay the struggles that a lot of people, like yourself, have faced in their previous relationships. I have heard so many stories from so many people it sort of boggles my mind.
My relationship success isn't due to myself. It's because of my wife. You really think with my background I have any sort of emotional capacity to be in a long term relationship with a person? Lol. :P My original plan was just to be single forever.
Like - Jesus - my knee jerk emotional reaction to this post is to get offended because you said I sounded judgemental. I assure you it's my wife's fault I'm married, not because I have any particular relationship skillset or understanding of people.
You've described tolerating behaviours from her that I would personally never be able to tolerate. I've likewise tolerated behaviours from exes that you might never be able to tolerate.
Relationships *are* complicated, they just aren't necessarily difficult between people who have compatible difficulties and tolerances.
Your relationship with your wife is absolutely complex, in fact, the factors that make it feel simple are profoundly complex.
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My best friend's parents when I was in junior high and high school were so nice to me. I think partly because I was from a divorced home. But my friend openly told me that her parents were going to divorce as soon as she went to college (she was the youngest). Her mom and my friend made fun of her dad, so there was clear contempt. It made me uncomfortable even then, but I don't know that I could have articulated it at the time. She and I didn't stay friends, so I don't know what happened after.
My own parents split when I was 7, and it was a bitter divorce and custody battle. I never wished they'd stayed together, but some of my other wishes:
*They'd handled it better, keeping us kids more out of the loop. They tried sending us upstairs while they fought, but obviously we sat at the top of the stairs and listened. My dad would ask us intent questions about what my mom was up to. My mom called his new gf "bimbo".
*I wish my dad hadn't married my first stepmom, because she didn't like us all that much. There was a lot of tension in the house during our visits, and it was clear that my dad was relieved when I couldn't go visit. He walked on eggshells not knowing what would upset her and I had to apologize to her for things that seemed to me ridiculous. That lasted the remainder of my childhood, then they divorced.
*I wish my mom had been better able to enjoy her life. She was always worried about money and exhausted from working full time/being the full time parent. She never dated anyone after the divorce.
I still have a mental association with marriage and a knee-jerk instinct of feeling trapped. Needless to say, my partner of 12 years and I are not married and very happy. I feel grateful all the time that I have him. I do periodically worry about some legal aspects - I'd like my partner to be eligible for my social security for example, in case anything happened to me, as mine would be much higher than his. But neither of us particularly wants to get married, so I'm not going to spend much time worrying on it.
You mentioned your mom being stressed both financially and emotionally and this often happens to single mothers. When I was 21 I divorced my first husband for cheating and had a 2 year old. He dropped out of the picture and didn’t pay child support. Back then it was next to impossible to collect because the laws that help today were just starting to be enacted .
Despite having a full time job I was barely making it and couldn’t save a dime. If my car broke down my parents had to pay to fix it so I could get to daycare and work. They watched my son so I could date. My second husband adopted my oldest son.
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
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My best friend's parents when I was in junior high and high school were so nice to me. I think partly because I was from a divorced home. But my friend openly told me that her parents were going to divorce as soon as she went to college (she was the youngest). Her mom and my friend made fun of her dad, so there was clear contempt. It made me uncomfortable even then, but I don't know that I could have articulated it at the time. She and I didn't stay friends, so I don't know what happened after.
My own parents split when I was 7, and it was a bitter divorce and custody battle. I never wished they'd stayed together, but some of my other wishes:
*They'd handled it better, keeping us kids more out of the loop. They tried sending us upstairs while they fought, but obviously we sat at the top of the stairs and listened. My dad would ask us intent questions about what my mom was up to. My mom called his new gf "bimbo".
*I wish my dad hadn't married my first stepmom, because she didn't like us all that much. There was a lot of tension in the house during our visits, and it was clear that my dad was relieved when I couldn't go visit. He walked on eggshells not knowing what would upset her and I had to apologize to her for things that seemed to me ridiculous. That lasted the remainder of my childhood, then they divorced.
*I wish my mom had been better able to enjoy her life. She was always worried about money and exhausted from working full time/being the full time parent. She never dated anyone after the divorce.
I still have a mental association with marriage and a knee-jerk instinct of feeling trapped. Needless to say, my partner of 12 years and I are not married and very happy. I feel grateful all the time that I have him. I do periodically worry about some legal aspects - I'd like my partner to be eligible for my social security for example, in case anything happened to me, as mine would be much higher than his. But neither of us particularly wants to get married, so I'm not going to spend much time worrying on it.
You mentioned your mom being stressed both financially and emotionally and this often happens to single mothers. When I was 21 I divorced my first husband for cheating and had a 2 year old. He dropped out of the picture and didn’t pay child support. Back then it was next to impossible to collect because the laws that help today were just starting to be enacted .
Despite having a full time job I was barely making it and couldn’t save a dime. If my car broke down my parents had to pay to fix it so I could get to daycare and work. They watched my son so I could date. My second husband adopted my oldest son.
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Yeah, it super sucks to be held financially hostage in a bad marriage.
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Do you think people who follow the FIRE lifestyle are more likely to get a divorce than the average person? Thoughts on why or why not?
If the average person following the FIRE lifestyle is reasonably well represented by the population of this forum, I can almost guarantee they have a lower chance of divorce than the average person.
Over 85% of people on this forum have at least a college degree [1 (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/how-much-education-do-you-have/msg1999659/#msg1999659)] and the divorce rate of those with a college degree is roughly half of those without a high school diploma.[2 (https://divorce-education.com/divorce-rate-by-education-level/)] Based on education alone, the divorce rate among FIRE people represented by this forum should be much lower than average.
Whether FIRE aspirants are more likely to get divorced than a similar cohort not pursing FIRE would be a more interesting question.
This is a good analysis as well.
At the end of the day I am not sure if we can definitively answer the question, since we don't have any real data on what percentage of FIRE aspirants are divorced vs a similar cohort, but I think this is about as close to what we can get to an educated guess.
This does make me wonder if there are any other common traits among FIRE aspirants. Such as, for example, general anxiety levels, IQ scores, similar Myers Briggs personalities, that have any statistical correlation with divorce rates.
In retrospect I kind of doubt there is much correlation with FIRE itself causing higher divorce rates, unless one spouse is definitely not on board with the idea or lifestyle and it becomes a significant point of conflict in a marriage.
Or if someone achieves FIRE then significantly changes after they retire early and adopt whatever their dream lifestyle is.
In general though I think @Metalcat has the right idea here that divorce should not be stigmatized or feared, etc, so this is probably not really worth worrying about anyway.
I guess I kind of thought FIRE was some sort of magic bullet in life, eliminating all sources of financial stress, which would lead to much lower divorce rates, but I don't think this assumption was correct either.
Either way - it's probably not something worth worrying or thinking much about, as marital relations are largely unrelated to FIRE, I think.
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FIRE doesn't solve people's issues, it just helps foster more favourable conditions for happiness and well being.
Human beings are capable of being miserable, messy fucks under any conditions though.
There are TONS of independently wealthy, FUBARed psyches out there. Having wealth removes a lot of stressed, but people are very good at filling that stress bucket right back up if they don't have good mental health.
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That's why I think it's important to marry someone with a similar life perspective. But I think the question presupposes that you made it clear that you were FIRE before you got married? Or one of you just popped the question of FIRE after you were married.
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...
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads.
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...
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads.
The kind of asshole who abandons his kids after divorce probably wasn't a great presence in the home, and let's not paint all stepdads with the same brush. Many of them rearrange their lives and make huge financial sacrifices to raise kids that are not quite theirs.
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...
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads.
The kind of asshole who abandons his kids after divorce probably wasn't a great presence in the home, and let's not paint all stepdads with the same brush. Many of them rearrange their lives and make huge financial sacrifices to raise kids that are not quite theirs.
You are absolutely correct! I already mentioned that my second husband adopted my son from my first marriage. He is my son’s dad in every aspect.
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I'm willing to bet the opposite - that FIRE aspirants have slightly better marriage success rates than the average, which correlates with things like
higher income
marrying
having children in marriage
Although times may have changed and we are not quite comparing apples with apples, in classic Millionaire Next Door the author does makes it very clear that financial success and long term marriage/relationship do correlate.
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...
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads.
I'm sorry, how are step dad's worse than parents in a bad marriage staying together?
My step dad is amazing, much, much better than my little brother's bio-dad and the reason he grew up with a fantastic father and male role model.
My step mom is also awesome too. She's the one I call first when shit hits the fan because she's the most calm and reliable of all 4 of my parents.
Step parents can be awful, but so can bio parents. There are a lot of amazing, loving, value added step parents out there and I find this assertion that having a step dad is fundamentally bad to be very offensive.
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...
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads.
I'm sorry, how are step dad's worse than parents in a bad marriage staying together?
My step dad is amazing, much, much better than my little brother's bio-dad and the reason he grew up with a fantastic father and male role model.
My step mom is also awesome too. She's the one I call first when shit hits the fan because she's the most calm and reliable of all 4 of my parents.
Step parents can be awful, but so can bio parents. There are a lot of amazing, loving, value added step parents out there and I find this assertion that having a step dad is fundamentally bad to be very offensive.
Agreed. And being a stepparent myself, it sure does not help the institution of stepparentitude to advance such negative clichés. Neither for the stepparent nor for the children.
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...
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads.
I'm sorry, how are step dad's worse than parents in a bad marriage staying together?
My step dad is amazing, much, much better than my little brother's bio-dad and the reason he grew up with a fantastic father and male role model.
My step mom is also awesome too. She's the one I call first when shit hits the fan because she's the most calm and reliable of all 4 of my parents.
Step parents can be awful, but so can bio parents. There are a lot of amazing, loving, value added step parents out there and I find this assertion that having a step dad is fundamentally bad to be very offensive.
I think a lot of people - including my wife - have had some *incredibly* shitty step dad's and can understand how someone may come to this sort of conclusion. DW is also *very* against step dad's because she had several absurdly abusive and shitty step fathers.
I don't really find this offensive at all. Most likely they had some bad experiences and are speaking from their own experiences in life, which happened to be very different from your own experiences.
There are shitty people everywhere. In fact - one shitty person might be another person's angel. If someone is a step parent or biological parent probably doesn't change a person's core character much at all.
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...
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads.
I'm sorry, how are step dad's worse than parents in a bad marriage staying together?
My step dad is amazing, much, much better than my little brother's bio-dad and the reason he grew up with a fantastic father and male role model.
My step mom is also awesome too. She's the one I call first when shit hits the fan because she's the most calm and reliable of all 4 of my parents.
Step parents can be awful, but so can bio parents. There are a lot of amazing, loving, value added step parents out there and I find this assertion that having a step dad is fundamentally bad to be very offensive.
I think a lot of people - including my wife - have had some *incredibly* shitty step dad's and can understand how someone may come to this sort of conclusion. DW is also *very* against step dad's because she had several absurdly abusive and shitty step fathers.
I don't really find this offensive at all. Most likely they had some bad experiences and are speaking from their own experiences in life, which happened to be very different from your own experiences.
There are shitty people everywhere. In fact - one shitty person might be another person's angel. If someone is a step parent or biological parent probably doesn't change a person's core character much at all.
It IS offensive to generalize ones personal experience to all others.
Say someone grew up with a horrible father who had grown up in foster care and now believes that all men who grew up in foster care must be horrible fathers, including you. Is that not offensive?
Also, don't give me that "their experience might be different than yours" bullshit. My little brother's bio-dad *was* my step dad, did you miss the part where I talked about how horrible he was?? I've had a terrible step dad and I would consider it offensive to generalize my experience to all other step dads.
I'm also not generalizing my experience with my good step dad. Of course some step dads are terrible, some dads are terrible. Some moms are terrible. No one said becoming a parent of any sort magically makes them good, how did you even get that?
It IS offensive though to generalize that step-dads are bad when there are TONS of loving men stepping up and doing an amazing job raising kids that they've chosen as family.
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...
I remember reading a study saying many single mothers regretted their decision to divorce before the kids were grown solely because of the finances and the dad’s dropping out of the picture so they never got a respite. These are real issues for many people. Obviously for people with plenty of money they don’t have to worry about this.
Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads.
I'm sorry, how are step dad's worse than parents in a bad marriage staying together?
My step dad is amazing, much, much better than my little brother's bio-dad and the reason he grew up with a fantastic father and male role model.
My step mom is also awesome too. She's the one I call first when shit hits the fan because she's the most calm and reliable of all 4 of my parents.
Step parents can be awful, but so can bio parents. There are a lot of amazing, loving, value added step parents out there and I find this assertion that having a step dad is fundamentally bad to be very offensive.
I think a lot of people - including my wife - have had some *incredibly* shitty step dad's and can understand how someone may come to this sort of conclusion. DW is also *very* against step dad's because she had several absurdly abusive and shitty step fathers.
I don't really find this offensive at all. Most likely they had some bad experiences and are speaking from their own experiences in life, which happened to be very different from your own experiences.
There are shitty people everywhere. In fact - one shitty person might be another person's angel. If someone is a step parent or biological parent probably doesn't change a person's core character much at all.
It IS offensive to generalize ones personal experience to all others.
Say someone grew up with a horrible father who had grown up in foster care and now believes that all men who grew up in foster care must be horrible fathers, including you. Is that not offensive?
Also, don't give me that "their experience might be different than yours" bullshit. My little brother's bio-dad *was* my step dad, did you miss the part where I talked about how horrible he was?? I've had a terrible step dad and I would consider it offensive to generalize my experience to all other step dads.
I'm also not generalizing my experience with my good step dad. Of course some step dads are terrible, some dads are terrible. Some moms are terrible. No one said becoming a parent of any sort magically makes them good, how did you even get that?
It IS offensive though to generalize that step-dads are bad when there are TONS of loving men stepping up and doing an amazing job raising kids that they've chosen as family.
Yeah - I understand this is offensive if viewed as a general statement. I am dense but not THAT dense. Lol.
I *highly* doubt that @GilesMM means this as a general statement though, or actually believes that all step parents are bad. This is a forum full of mostly college educated people. I doubt anyone here actually believes all step parents are bad.
So I am interpreting this as them talking about their personal experience in life and staring their opinion based on personal experience.
I also don't get offended easily, and people generalizing their personal experiences in life certainly is not offensive to me because people do this *all* the time.
You may find this offensive, but this doesn't mean *I* find this offense or this is some sort of universal rule where everyone finds this offensive.
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Yeah - I understand this is offensive if viewed as a general statement. I am dense but not THAT dense. Lol.
I *highly* doubt that @GilesMM means this as a general statement though, or actually believes that all step parents are bad. This is a forum full of mostly college educated people. I doubt anyone here actually believes all step parents are bad.
So I am interpreting this as them talking about their personal experience in life and staring their opinion based on personal experience.
I also don't get offended easily, and people generalizing their personal experiences in life certainly is not offensive to me because people do this *all* the time.
You may find this offensive, but this doesn't mean *I* find this offense or this is some sort of universal rule where everyone finds this offensive.
Giles can clarify for himself if he wants to.
As I read it, he made an incredibly offensive generalization about step fathers, after making MANY generalizations about divorce being terrible for children. Context cues tell me that my interpretation is reasonable.
I'm open to being corrected, but I think it's unreasonable given the pattern of posts in this thread to assume that it's NOT a generalization about step fathers.
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Yeah - I understand this is offensive if viewed as a general statement. I am dense but not THAT dense. Lol.
I *highly* doubt that @GilesMM means this as a general statement though, or actually believes that all step parents are bad. This is a forum full of mostly college educated people. I doubt anyone here actually believes all step parents are bad.
So I am interpreting this as them talking about their personal experience in life and staring their opinion based on personal experience.
I also don't get offended easily, and people generalizing their personal experiences in life certainly is not offensive to me because people do this *all* the time.
You may find this offensive, but this doesn't mean *I* find this offense or this is some sort of universal rule where everyone finds this offensive.
Giles can clarify for himself if he wants to.
As I read it, he made an incredibly offensive generalization about step fathers, after making MANY generalizations about divorce being terrible for children. Context cues tell me that my interpretation is reasonable.
I'm open to being corrected, but I think it's unreasonable given the pattern of posts in this thread to assume that it's NOT a generalization about step fathers.
I'm sorry - but - I don't think there is anyone on this forum who is that dense, to actually believe that all step fathers are bad.
It's just seems like an odd interpretation of his post, imo, but I can understand how you would interpret it in this manner.
I'm open to being wrong though since I don't know for sure what he meant.
At the same time though, if he actually believes all step fathers are bad, I'm not going to bother pointing out how offensive that is.
I will just smile, nod, and walk away from that conversation, lol.
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Yeah - I understand this is offensive if viewed as a general statement. I am dense but not THAT dense. Lol.
I *highly* doubt that @GilesMM means this as a general statement though, or actually believes that all step parents are bad. This is a forum full of mostly college educated people. I doubt anyone here actually believes all step parents are bad.
So I am interpreting this as them talking about their personal experience in life and staring their opinion based on personal experience.
I also don't get offended easily, and people generalizing their personal experiences in life certainly is not offensive to me because people do this *all* the time.
You may find this offensive, but this doesn't mean *I* find this offense or this is some sort of universal rule where everyone finds this offensive.
Giles can clarify for himself if he wants to.
As I read it, he made an incredibly offensive generalization about step fathers, after making MANY generalizations about divorce being terrible for children. Context cues tell me that my interpretation is reasonable.
I'm open to being corrected, but I think it's unreasonable given the pattern of posts in this thread to assume that it's NOT a generalization about step fathers.
I'm sorry - but - I don't think there is anyone on this forum who is that dense, to actually believe that all step fathers are bad.
It's just seems like an odd interpretation of his post, imo, but I can understand how you would interpret it in this manner.
I'm open to being wrong though since I don't know for sure what he meant.
At the same time though, if he actually believes all step fathers are bad, I'm not going to bother pointing out how offensive that is.
I will just smile, nod, and walk away from that conversation, lol.
There are MANY people who believe that divorce is fundamentally bad and that step parents cannot be as good as bio parents together. This is actually an extremely common perspective.
If someone fundamentally believes that divorce is never the best option for children, then by extension, it's reasonable to conclude that they might believe that a step father is never as good as a married bio father.
None of this interpretation is remotely far fetched and fits perfectly with what Giles has actually said repeatedly in this thread.
Again, he's welcome to clarify, but that messaging seems abundantly clear to me, and not at all implausible.
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Yeah - I understand this is offensive if viewed as a general statement. I am dense but not THAT dense. Lol.
I *highly* doubt that @GilesMM means this as a general statement though, or actually believes that all step parents are bad. This is a forum full of mostly college educated people. I doubt anyone here actually believes all step parents are bad.
So I am interpreting this as them talking about their personal experience in life and staring their opinion based on personal experience.
I also don't get offended easily, and people generalizing their personal experiences in life certainly is not offensive to me because people do this *all* the time.
You may find this offensive, but this doesn't mean *I* find this offense or this is some sort of universal rule where everyone finds this offensive.
Giles can clarify for himself if he wants to.
As I read it, he made an incredibly offensive generalization about step fathers, after making MANY generalizations about divorce being terrible for children. Context cues tell me that my interpretation is reasonable.
I'm open to being corrected, but I think it's unreasonable given the pattern of posts in this thread to assume that it's NOT a generalization about step fathers.
I'm sorry - but - I don't think there is anyone on this forum who is that dense, to actually believe that all step fathers are bad.
It's just seems like an odd interpretation of his post, imo, but I can understand how you would interpret it in this manner.
I'm open to being wrong though since I don't know for sure what he meant.
At the same time though, if he actually believes all step fathers are bad, I'm not going to bother pointing out how offensive that is.
I will just smile, nod, and walk away from that conversation, lol.
There are MANY people who believe that divorce is fundamentally bad and that step parents cannot be as good as bio parents together. This is actually an extremely common perspective.
If someone fundamentally believes that divorce is never the best option for children, then by extension, it's reasonable to conclude that they might believe that a step father is never as good as a married bio father.
None of this interpretation is remotely far fetched and fits perfectly with what Giles has actually said repeatedly in this thread.
Again, he's welcome to clarify, but that messaging seems abundantly clear to me, and not at all implausible.
You know - after reading through some more of his posts your interpretation might be correct. *Smh*
But I'm open to his clarification of what he means.
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I'm willing to bet the opposite - that FIRE aspirants have slightly better marriage success rates than the average, which correlates with things like
higher income
marrying
having children in marriage
Although times may have changed and we are not quite comparing apples with apples, in classic Millionaire Next Door the author does makes it very clear that financial success and long term marriage/relationship do correlate.
The divorce rate among college educated adults is only around 25%. Considering most have at least a Bachelor's, I'd say the odds are lower among FIRE aspirants. I also think marriage still correlates with wealth. Most couples work at some point, even if time is taken off for kids.
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
This is the quote "Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads."
I interpreted the "in some cases" to mean that in some cases divorced moms remarry, not that in some cases step dads are a bad thing.
Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding and nothing offensive is being said. That's just how I interpreted it from the context of all of his replies in this thread.
But I could be wrong, I'm very open to being corrected.
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
Why stop at stepdads? I can’t find it at the moment, but I recently read that girls who grow up in households with no male inhabitants have the lowest rates of child sexual abuse. I don’t think that’s a feasible or necessarily desirable goal as a way to live, rather I just point it out to show where the line is drawn is often arbitrary and selected to support an already decided viewpoint.
I think GilesMM believes about 70% of what he says and the remaining 30% is trolling. I usually skip his comments because I don’t find them valuable but YMMV.
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As a former social worker that spent 4 years in child protection there’s a lot of horrible bio parents!! When I started crying everyday driving home from work I knew that I was burnt out totally because I very rarely cry. I have also seen battered women that need to leave but stay in marriages. Those situations are often life and death.
I actually have known quite a few good step parents and eventually became a step mom myself. I didn’t get married for the third time until I was ready to take on that role because it’s a big responsibility.
My youngest step son asked to live with us at 13 because his home life was awful with his older brother beating him up and his therapist mom not caring and never being home because she was gambling. Even though his dad and I are now divorced he and I are close.
I have my own personal beliefs about what is best for kids and used that as my guide for raising mine. Whatever path people take all involved live with the decision. Also there’s no way to know if a different path would have led to a better outcome.
Personally I know that I made the right choice for my kids because they thanked me as adults. I paid a price because I started to have physical symptoms with the only cause being stress. However, it wasn’t just the marriage but I was also working for the government and it was very toxic. So with both my home and work life bad it started to take a toll. I took a job with a different state and left my marriage and all my physical issues resolved themselves.
We all make decisions that we are happy with and those we regret. If one person in a relationship is leaving then the other person doesn’t have a choice to make. IRL I never offer an opinion unless asked. Forums are different of course:)).
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
This is the quote "Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads."
I interpreted the "in some cases" to mean that in some cases divorced moms remarry, not that in some cases step dads are a bad thing.
Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding and nothing offensive is being said. That's just how I interpreted it from the context of all of his replies in this thread.
But I could be wrong, I'm very open to being corrected.
I meant that kids growing up without a dad was a bad thing and, in some cases, growing up with a bad stepdad was even worse than no dad. There are doubtless many kids who had a great childhood with just mom or just mom and her new bf/husband, but the odds are sort of stacked against them. It's not normal and natural for a man to be a great dad to someone else's kids. It's hard and not all men are good at it. There is a not a lot in it for them. It's the kids who get the short end of the stick some times. You are welcome to disagree.
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
This is the quote "Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads."
I interpreted the "in some cases" to mean that in some cases divorced moms remarry, not that in some cases step dads are a bad thing.
Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding and nothing offensive is being said. That's just how I interpreted it from the context of all of his replies in this thread.
But I could be wrong, I'm very open to being corrected.
I meant that kids growing up without a dad was a bad thing and, in some cases, growing up with a bad stepdad was even worse than no dad. There are doubtless many kids who had a great childhood with just mom or just mom and her new bf/husband, but the odds are sort of stacked against them. It's not normal and natural for a man to be a great dad to someone else's kids. It's hard and not all men are good at it. There is a not a lot in it for them. It's the kids who get the short end of the stick some times. You are welcome to disagree.
This kind of argument is filled with erroneous assumptions. Divorce doesn’t mean a kid no longer has a father, or that the dad will be out of the picture in any meaningful way. It’s also takes constant effort to be a good dad, period - regardless of whether you are biologically related or not. There’s nothing “more” in it for the biological father than a step dad. If you want to be a real cynic the biological father has legal obligations (liabilities) that other people do not.
You also seem stuck on this idea of comparing a sub-par step dad to a thriving marriage between the biological parents, which no one here is arguing against.
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
There have been several studies comparing varying types of abuse in biological versus step-parents. The increased levels of abuse by step-parents, and the potential evolutionary advantage of it, is often referred to as the Cinderella Effect after the fairy tale. The last quote on the wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_effect) certainly has played out in this forum:
Discussing the implications of this line of research, Australian psychologist Greg Tooley, author of a 2006 study confirming the existence of the effect,[27] confessed that "it is certainly difficult to talk about because it is such a hot issue".
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
This is the quote "Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads."
I interpreted the "in some cases" to mean that in some cases divorced moms remarry, not that in some cases step dads are a bad thing.
Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding and nothing offensive is being said. That's just how I interpreted it from the context of all of his replies in this thread.
But I could be wrong, I'm very open to being corrected.
I meant that kids growing up without a dad was a bad thing and, in some cases, growing up with a bad stepdad was even worse than no dad. There are doubtless many kids who had a great childhood with just mom or just mom and her new bf/husband, but the odds are sort of stacked against them. It's not normal and natural for a man to be a great dad to someone else's kids. It's hard and not all men are good at it. There is a not a lot in it for them. It's the kids who get the short end of the stick some times. You are welcome to disagree.
I find it sort of alarming that you think it is not normal or natural for men to give a shit about kids who aren’t their own, and that there is not much “in it” for men to be nurturing.
Like… wtf?
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
This is the quote "Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads."
I interpreted the "in some cases" to mean that in some cases divorced moms remarry, not that in some cases step dads are a bad thing.
Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding and nothing offensive is being said. That's just how I interpreted it from the context of all of his replies in this thread.
But I could be wrong, I'm very open to being corrected.
I meant that kids growing up without a dad was a bad thing and, in some cases, growing up with a bad stepdad was even worse than no dad. There are doubtless many kids who had a great childhood with just mom or just mom and her new bf/husband, but the odds are sort of stacked against them. It's not normal and natural for a man to be a great dad to someone else's kids. It's hard and not all men are good at it. There is a not a lot in it for them. It's the kids who get the short end of the stick some times. You are welcome to disagree.
I find it sort of alarming that you think it is not normal or natural for men to give a shit about kids who aren’t their own, and that there is not much “in it” for men to be nurturing.
Like… wtf?
I think the post above yours speaks to that issue, but applied to both men and women.
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
This is the quote "Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads."
I interpreted the "in some cases" to mean that in some cases divorced moms remarry, not that in some cases step dads are a bad thing.
Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding and nothing offensive is being said. That's just how I interpreted it from the context of all of his replies in this thread.
But I could be wrong, I'm very open to being corrected.
I meant that kids growing up without a dad was a bad thing and, in some cases, growing up with a bad stepdad was even worse than no dad. There are doubtless many kids who had a great childhood with just mom or just mom and her new bf/husband, but the odds are sort of stacked against them. It's not normal and natural for a man to be a great dad to someone else's kids. It's hard and not all men are good at it. There is a not a lot in it for them. It's the kids who get the short end of the stick some times. You are welcome to disagree.
I'd argue most adults can be adequate at parenting and that there is a TON in it for everyone involved. I can't even fathom what type of hetero relationship involving kids being normally present in the household would have a man state "There is nothing in it for me to be a good father to your children since they are biologically not mine." and the woman just accept that and have it be a successful relationship.
Since you said "in some cases, growing up with a bad stepdad was even worse than no dad" - does that mean that you think that "in most cases, growing up with a good stepdad was better than no dad"? If so, that makes sense.
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Giles did say "in some cases". And I believe that the evidence shows that stepdads are more likely to sexually abuse step kids than biological dads are likely to abuse their biological kids.
If Giles doesn't want to elucidate they don't have to, they've already qualified their statement with "in some cases", which makes it incontestable.
This is the quote "Not to mention kids growing up without a dad, or, worse in some cases, a step dad or dads."
I interpreted the "in some cases" to mean that in some cases divorced moms remarry, not that in some cases step dads are a bad thing.
Again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding and nothing offensive is being said. That's just how I interpreted it from the context of all of his replies in this thread.
But I could be wrong, I'm very open to being corrected.
I meant that kids growing up without a dad was a bad thing and, in some cases, growing up with a bad stepdad was even worse than no dad. There are doubtless many kids who had a great childhood with just mom or just mom and her new bf/husband, but the odds are sort of stacked against them. It's not normal and natural for a man to be a great dad to someone else's kids. It's hard and not all men are good at it. There is a not a lot in it for them. It's the kids who get the short end of the stick some times. You are welcome to disagree.
I don't understand what the difference is between a biological father and a step father is.
I was raised by biological parents originally.
After my parents divorced I was raised by my single biological mom and dad and step mom on the weekends for a couple years. Then I was placed in foster care and spent some time being raised by my first set of foster parents, then was placed in a different foster home with a new set of parents, then my foster mom passed away and I finished my teenage years being raised by my widowed foster dad.
Out of all of these parents I had, the best parent I had was my last foster dad - and I *certainly* am not related to him at all. He was just best equipped to fill the parental role because he was compassionate and actually cared about me somewhat, unlike my biological parents and step mom and first set of foster parents.
There are millions of step parents in the world who love their step kids, and people who were successfully raised by step parents.
I can accept that there is some small effect where, on average, some step father's may not be as invested in their step children as a biological parent is.
But I don't think the effect is large enough to say it is generally true, or that men simply cannot successfully raise children who are not biologically theirs.
To state this as a generally true statement will likely offend the millions of step parents, and millions of children who were successfully raised by step parents who they may have strong emotional attachments to.
Does this make sense?
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I don't understand what the difference is between a biological father and a step father is.
I don't understand either, but it's much more common for abuse from step parents (both mother and father) than biological parents in treatment of children.
http://www.martindaly.ca/uploads/2/3/7/0/23707972/d_w_2001_azf.pdf (http://www.martindaly.ca/uploads/2/3/7/0/23707972/d_w_2001_azf.pdf)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513805000929?via%3Dihub (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513805000929?via%3Dihub)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235222001076 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235222001076)
https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/violence-against-children-by-stepparents (https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/violence-against-children-by-stepparents)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21030083/ (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21030083/)
There's a huge amount of data indicating that this is a real thing, unfortunately.
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I don't understand what the difference is between a biological father and a step father is.
I don't understand either, but it's much more common for abuse from step parents (both mother and father) than biological parents in treatment of children.
http://www.martindaly.ca/uploads/2/3/7/0/23707972/d_w_2001_azf.pdf (http://www.martindaly.ca/uploads/2/3/7/0/23707972/d_w_2001_azf.pdf)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513805000929?via%3Dihub (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513805000929?via%3Dihub)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235222001076 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235222001076)
https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/violence-against-children-by-stepparents (https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/violence-against-children-by-stepparents)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21030083/ (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21030083/)
There's a huge amount of data indicating that this is a real thing, unfortunately.
From one of those studies:
However, stepfamilies are also reported to experience more stressors associated with family violence, including alcohol abuse, child’s behavioral problems, adverse contextual backgrounds, and weaker social networks. This suggests that the stepfamily structure may not be a risk factor of violence against children per se.
Another says that the results of studies in developing countries are mixed.
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In summary, this is a thread where a few people repeat weird, outdated stereotypes about marriage, parenting, divorce, and kids, and everyone else pretends that these are valid viewpoints worth debating.
No good marriage ends in divorce.
No good parent ditches their kid, regardless of their relationship with the other parent.
Lots of people are bad parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Lots of people are good parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Kids don't need an adult of any specific sex or gender in their lives to be well parented.
Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless. It’s complicated and there’s no magic answer. It’s a parent’s responsibility to put their kids first and do what’s best for the kids. That’s going to look different for each family depending on individual circumstances. The pendulum has swung too far from never divorcing no matter the circumstances to just do what makes you happy. Either extreme is detrimental.
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In summary, this is a thread where a few people repeat weird, outdated stereotypes about marriage, parenting, divorce, and kids, and everyone else pretends that these are valid viewpoints worth debating.
No good marriage ends in divorce.
No good parent ditches their kid, regardless of their relationship with the other parent.
Lots of people are bad parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Lots of people are good parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Kids don't need an adult of any specific sex or gender in their lives to be well parented.
Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless. It’s complicated and there’s no magic answer. It’s a parent’s responsibility to put their kids first and do what’s best for the kids. That’s going to look different for each family depending on individual circumstances. The pendulum has swung too far from never divorcing no matter the circumstances to just do what makes you happy. Either extreme is detrimental.
Did I miss where someone said that??
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Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless.
Has anyone in this thread actually made such a statement?
I can't find a statement even remotely close to what you are suggesting... but perhaps I missed it?
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Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless.
Has anyone in this thread actually made such a statement?
I can't find a statement even remotely close to what you are suggesting... but perhaps I missed it?
Classic strawman.
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All these issues are so, so loaded that it's nearly impossible to have a rational, impersonal discussion about them. Someone has divorced parents that did it badly, another has stay-married parents that were miserable and caused damaged. Someone is or had an amazing stepparent and another was abused by a step parent. Whatever. These issues are so, so personal that it's nearly impossible for someone to read that "on average, X is less good" and feel the need to defend their existence and goodness, even though their life falls in that less-ideal category.
Just because someone says X is less-ideal and outcomes less good *on average*, doesn't mean that you aren't a great step parents, or a great parent with a new partner who is a stepparent to your kid. And just because you had a shit step parent doesn't mean that there aren't some incredible ones who deeply enrich the lives of their stepkids. And just because on average Steps are more likely to abuse (maybe) than non-steps doesn't mean you aren't an amazing parent or that you did a bad thing for your kids by remarrying and bringing a step into their lives.
The statistics do matter, and they offer perspective. But that doesn't mean anyone is wrong for doing something on the side of the stats with slightly worse numbers. Individual circumstances matter, and we cant quantify and separate out everything.
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All these issues are so, so loaded that it's nearly impossible to have a rational, impersonal discussion about them. Someone has divorced parents that did it badly, another has stay-married parents that were miserable and caused damaged. Someone is or had an amazing stepparent and another was abused by a step parent. Whatever. These issues are so, so personal that it's nearly impossible for someone to read that "on average, X is less good" and feel the need to defend their existence and goodness, even though their life falls in that less-ideal category.
Just because someone says X is less-ideal and outcomes less good *on average*, doesn't mean that you aren't a great step parents, or a great parent with a new partner who is a stepparent to your kid. And just because you had a shit step parent doesn't mean that there aren't some incredible ones who deeply enrich the lives of their stepkids. And just because on average Steps are more likely to abuse (maybe) than non-steps doesn't mean you aren't an amazing parent or that you did a bad thing for your kids by remarrying and bringing a step into their lives.
The statistics do matter, and they offer perspective. But that doesn't mean anyone is wrong for doing something on the side of the stats with slightly worse numbers. Individual circumstances matter, and we cant quantify and separate out everything.
There are really two arguments being made in this thread:
Negative generalizations about very valid personal life decisions like divorce and remarriage that millions and millions of good parents make and people getting pissed off about those generalizations.
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In summary, this is a thread where a few people repeat weird, outdated stereotypes about marriage, parenting, divorce, and kids, and everyone else pretends that these are valid viewpoints worth debating.
No good marriage ends in divorce.
No good parent ditches their kid, regardless of their relationship with the other parent.
Lots of people are bad parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Lots of people are good parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Kids don't need an adult of any specific sex or gender in their lives to be well parented.
Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless. It’s complicated and there’s no magic answer. It’s a parent’s responsibility to put their kids first and do what’s best for the kids. That’s going to look different for each family depending on individual circumstances. The pendulum has swung too far from never divorcing no matter the circumstances to just do what makes you happy. Either extreme is detrimental.
Did I miss where someone said that??
No you didn’t. I was just replying to Snacky countering one ridiculous accusation with the exact opposite. The older I get the more I know that life is gray and not black and white.
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...
Just because someone says X is less-ideal and outcomes less good *on average*, doesn't mean that you aren't a great step parents, or a great parent with a new partner who is a stepparent to your kid. ...
The statistics do matter, and they offer perspective. But that doesn't mean anyone is wrong for doing something on the side of the stats with slightly worse numbers. Individual circumstances matter, and we cant quantify and separate out everything.
MISUSE OF STATISTICS IS BAD.
I do get offended when people toss around the statistic that kids of divorced parents have worse outcomes because it's a correlation, not a causation. To quote in the context of suggesting that people should stay married "for the children," as was actively happening in this thread, is harmful.
We have no proof that people who consider divorce but stay married for their children have happier children than people who divorced. We only know that kids whose parents have a good enough relationship to stay married may have some advantages over kids whose parents didn't. Again, suggesting otherwise is hurtful to people who have felt that divorce is the best thing for their children as well as themselves, AND could possibly be harmful by convincing people to stay in bad marriages.
[Anecdata: My parents had a difficult marriage during the child raising years but are still together. My sister and I have been divorced 3 times between us and have a total of 5 fathers for our combined six children.]
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In summary, this is a thread where a few people repeat weird, outdated stereotypes about marriage, parenting, divorce, and kids, and everyone else pretends that these are valid viewpoints worth debating.
No good marriage ends in divorce.
No good parent ditches their kid, regardless of their relationship with the other parent.
Lots of people are bad parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Lots of people are good parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Kids don't need an adult of any specific sex or gender in their lives to be well parented.
Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless. It’s complicated and there’s no magic answer. It’s a parent’s responsibility to put their kids first and do what’s best for the kids. That’s going to look different for each family depending on individual circumstances. The pendulum has swung too far from never divorcing no matter the circumstances to just do what makes you happy. Either extreme is detrimental.
Did I miss where someone said that??
No you didn’t. I was just replying to Snacky countering one ridiculous accusation with the exact opposite. The older I get the more I know that life is gray and not black and white.
But you said that this is a thread where people said that...but they didn't...
I'm so confused.
People in this thread absolutely made black and white generalizations about divorce and step parents.
No one made generalizations about all parents being good.
Again, I'm super confused.
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In summary, this is a thread where a few people repeat weird, outdated stereotypes about marriage, parenting, divorce, and kids, and everyone else pretends that these are valid viewpoints worth debating.
No good marriage ends in divorce.
No good parent ditches their kid, regardless of their relationship with the other parent.
Lots of people are bad parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Lots of people are good parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Kids don't need an adult of any specific sex or gender in their lives to be well parented.
Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless. It’s complicated and there’s no magic answer. It’s a parent’s responsibility to put their kids first and do what’s best for the kids. That’s going to look different for each family depending on individual circumstances. The pendulum has swung too far from never divorcing no matter the circumstances to just do what makes you happy. Either extreme is detrimental.
Did I miss where someone said that??
No you didn’t. I was just replying to Snacky countering one ridiculous accusation with the exact opposite. The older I get the more I know that life is gray and not black and white.
But you said that this is a thread where people said that...but they didn't...
I'm so confused.
People in this thread absolutely made black and white generalizations about divorce and step parents.
No one made generalizations about all parents being good.
Again, I'm super confused.
All parents are good. :D
I don't have much to add to the discussion at this point so I think I will start adding to the confusion instead. :P
ETA: Honestly I doubt we will come to any sort of agreement on generalizing parenting or divorce or step parents or anything. Every situation is unique, as Cassie says.
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...
Just because someone says X is less-ideal and outcomes less good *on average*, doesn't mean that you aren't a great step parents, or a great parent with a new partner who is a stepparent to your kid. ...
The statistics do matter, and they offer perspective. But that doesn't mean anyone is wrong for doing something on the side of the stats with slightly worse numbers. Individual circumstances matter, and we cant quantify and separate out everything.
MISUSE OF STATISTICS IS BAD.
I do get offended when people toss around the statistic that kids of divorced parents have worse outcomes because it's a correlation, not a causation. To quote in the context of suggesting that people should stay married "for the children," as was actively happening in this thread, is harmful.
We have no proof that people who consider divorce but stay married for their children have happier children than people who divorced. We only know that kids whose parents have a good enough relationship to stay married may have some advantages over kids whose parents didn't. Again, suggesting otherwise is hurtful to people who have felt that divorce is the best thing for their children as well as themselves, AND could possibly be harmful by convincing people to stay in bad marriages.
[Anecdata: My parents had a difficult marriage during the child raising years but are still together. My sister and I have been divorced 3 times between us and have a total of 5 fathers for our combined six children.]
I think the point is to consider all possibilities when making such a big decision as divorce when you have children. Obtaining counseling is the first best step to see if the marriage can be improved so everyone is happy. For some people obviously staying together is harmful for the kids but I think people are too quick to satisfy their own needs versus the serious commitment of putting their kids needs first. Not all marriages are worth saving.
I divorced my first husband and I had a 2 year old. He was an uninvolved crappy dad and we fought a lot. Him being unfaithful was the final straw. It only lasted 3.5 years. I divorced my next two husbands after 23 years each. I wouldn’t have divorced number three if he wasn’t unfaithful.
Someone that has made the best decisions for themselves and their children shouldn’t feel bad about them. If they do maybe they should examine why. I don’t feel bad that I have been divorced 3 times by the age of 66. If that had been the case at the age of 36 then maybe I would’ve tried to figure out why I was making bad decisions.
The only time I’ve given marriage advice in real life is when someone is being physically abused. That’s a no brainer and their life is at stake and possibly those of their children. Many times one of the parents have no choice in the matter because their spouse is leaving them so they don’t get a choice in deciding what’s best for their children. Being a cheerleader for people’s decisions no matter what they are isn’t healthy on a forum or irl.
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In summary, this is a thread where a few people repeat weird, outdated stereotypes about marriage, parenting, divorce, and kids, and everyone else pretends that these are valid viewpoints worth debating.
No good marriage ends in divorce.
No good parent ditches their kid, regardless of their relationship with the other parent.
Lots of people are bad parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Lots of people are good parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Kids don't need an adult of any specific sex or gender in their lives to be well parented.
Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless. It’s complicated and there’s no magic answer. It’s a parent’s responsibility to put their kids first and do what’s best for the kids. That’s going to look different for each family depending on individual circumstances. The pendulum has swung too far from never divorcing no matter the circumstances to just do what makes you happy. Either extreme is detrimental.
I agree. And I think that, all things being equal, kids benefit from a mom and dad or at least parents who can provide the things those roles typically do.
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In summary, this is a thread where a few people repeat weird, outdated stereotypes about marriage, parenting, divorce, and kids, and everyone else pretends that these are valid viewpoints worth debating.
No good marriage ends in divorce.
No good parent ditches their kid, regardless of their relationship with the other parent.
Lots of people are bad parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Lots of people are good parents, no matter the genetic relationship with the kids.
Kids don't need an adult of any specific sex or gender in their lives to be well parented.
Or this is a thread where some people spout some new age crap that parents can just do what they want and kids will be fine regardless. It’s complicated and there’s no magic answer. It’s a parent’s responsibility to put their kids first and do what’s best for the kids. That’s going to look different for each family depending on individual circumstances. The pendulum has swung too far from never divorcing no matter the circumstances to just do what makes you happy. Either extreme is detrimental.
Did I miss where someone said that??
No you didn’t. I was just replying to Snacky countering one ridiculous accusation with the exact opposite. The older I get the more I know that life is gray and not black and white.
But you said that this is a thread where people said that...but they didn't...
I'm so confused.
People in this thread absolutely made black and white generalizations about divorce and step parents.
No one made generalizations about all parents being good.
Again, I'm super confused.
I think Cassie might have been deriving some of her views from statements like this earlier in the thread:
Also, let's remember that divorce is a very, very good thing. It's not some sort of tragedy. A lot of marriages run their course and *should* end so that both people can move on to the next phase of their lives.
Not all relationships should last forever.
Speaking as a second wife, I'm a BIG fan of divorce when it's the right choice, and FIRE is all about making the right choices for living your best life.
I assume you meant that the concept of divorce is a very very good thing, and you weren't generalizing that *all* divorces are very very good, or that all people should get divorced though, or that divorces are generally positive on a societal level, or that marriages should naturally always be short term in nature and people should simply move on when they're done and not consider children, etc.
That is *my* interpretation of your statements though.
I can understand how someone may interpret your post in a more literal manner, and conclude that you are just simply extremely pro divorce, because you literally said
"divorce is a very, very good thing".
Someone may take this individual statement, accept it as your general stance on divorce (because it is a very generalized statement) and interpret it as you being extremely pro divorce in all circumstances.
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"divorce is a very, very good thing".
Someone may take this individual statement, accept it as your general stance on divorce (because it is a very generalized statement) and interpret it as you being extremely pro divorce in all circumstances.
It is a general statement.
Divorce, as a legal right, is a good thing. It is a VERY good thing that people are permitted to leave horrible marriages.
If we look at cultures where women aren't allowed to leave their marriages, it's not a good thing.
The comments about divorce and children *after* that and I made my position about divorce and children very clear. That poorly executed divorces are terrible for children.
I've been very clear and have never said anything in context that any reasonable person could interpret as me saying that parents can do whatever they want and not harm children.
Sorry, but I have more respect for Cassie's intelligence than that.
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"divorce is a very, very good thing".
Someone may take this individual statement, accept it as your general stance on divorce (because it is a very generalized statement) and interpret it as you being extremely pro divorce in all circumstances.
It is a general statement.
Divorce, as a legal right, is a good thing. It is a VERY good thing that people are permitted to leave horrible marriages.
If we look at cultures where women aren't allowed to leave their marriages, it's not a good thing.
The comments about divorce and children *after* that and I made my position about divorce and children very clear. That poorly executed divorces are terrible for children.
I've been very clear and have never said anything in context that any reasonable person could interpret as me saying that parents can do whatever they want and not harm children.
Sorry, but I have more respect for Cassie's intelligence than that.
Sorry, but I am interpreting this as you accusing me of disrespecting Cassie's intelligence.
Maybe you can clarify what you mean here, and what your intention behind this statement is?
ETA: I'm just trying to be more honest with you about how I view and interpret some of your statements.
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Sorry, but I am interpreting this as you accusing me of disrespecting Cassie's intelligence.
Maybe you can clarify what you mean here, and what your intention behind this statement is?
No, I'm not accusing you of insulting Cassie. But I think in your effort to play devil's advocate you went and took a comment out of context, and I'm saying that if the comment is looked at in context that I don't believe anyone as smart as Cassie would go back and misinterpret a comment made before anything about children was even said to be a "new age" comment about parenting.
It just doesn't make sense.
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Sorry, but I am interpreting this as you accusing me of disrespecting Cassie's intelligence.
Maybe you can clarify what you mean here, and what your intention behind this statement is?
No, I'm not accusing you of insulting Cassie. But I think in your effort to play devil's advocate you went and took a comment out of context, and I'm saying that if the comment is looked at in context that I don't believe anyone as smart as Cassie would go back and misinterpret a comment made before anything about children was even said to be a "new age" comment about parenting.
It just doesn't make sense.
Fair enough.
It just seems like this thread does have some extreme, general views about divorce and step parents at times, and maybe Cassie is right that it should not be thought of as so extremely pro divorce or against divorce, and that it really is unique in every situation.
I did also sort of interpret your posts as you being fine with divorce, and almost like you expected relationships to run their course and then end sometime.
ETA: I'm mostly just prodding you at this point to expand on your views of divorce, because I often learn or change my perspective on things from your posts.
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Often, when people stay together "for the children," it is for their own benefit. Both parents have custody rights and I wouldn't want to see my kids half or a third of the time. The season of raising kids flies by too fast as it is.
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A friend decided to stay in an unworkable marriage for years because she didn't want her kids to be raised half the time by her ex and whoever he was with at the time. She finally separated when the kids were 12 and 14 and old enough to let her know if there was anything they weren't comfortable with when staying with ex.
It turned out that ex was still a completely uninvolved parent (which is why friend wanted out in the first place) and she and the kids were almost instantly relieved by moving out of a very strained home situation. In retrospect she could have moved out years earlier since he gave her sole physical custody without hesitation.
Divorce is a VERY good thing. There are states actually trying to ban no fault divorce. This would force the abused partner to PROVE that their abuser has harmed them before they could get out of the marriage. This would send us back in time to when women were considered property. No thanks.
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Sorry, but I am interpreting this as you accusing me of disrespecting Cassie's intelligence.
Maybe you can clarify what you mean here, and what your intention behind this statement is?
No, I'm not accusing you of insulting Cassie. But I think in your effort to play devil's advocate you went and took a comment out of context, and I'm saying that if the comment is looked at in context that I don't believe anyone as smart as Cassie would go back and misinterpret a comment made before anything about children was even said to be a "new age" comment about parenting.
It just doesn't make sense.
Fair enough.
It just seems like this thread does have some extreme, general views about divorce and step parents at times, and maybe Cassie is right that it should not be thought of as so extremely pro divorce or against divorce, and that it really is unique in every situation.
I did also sort of interpret your posts as you being fine with divorce, and almost like you expected relationships to run their course and then end sometime.
ETA: I'm mostly just prodding you at this point to expand on your views of divorce, because I often learn or change my perspective on things from your posts.
All marriages run their course, some will run indefinitely, perpetually getting stronger over time, others will stay generally stable never getting better or worse, some will get steadily worse but will last until one partner dies, some will get worse and not last until either partner dies. Many will cycle between getting worse and getting better and how long they last will depend on the life circumstances during the dips.
It is very, very normal for relationships to not last forever unless the couple are living in conditions where there are horrific consequences for breaking up. In those cultures, marriages lasting forever isn't a blessing, it's a life sentence.
Friendships run their course, business partnerships run their course, hell, some parent/child relationships run their course and are better off ending.
Relationships running their course is a normal, healthy part of life. Clinging to relationships that don't/can't work isn't healthy and shouldn't be praised.
It's great when a friendship lasts from daycare to death, not because the friendship lasted that long, but because the friendship stayed good that long. If you stopped getting along with that person in highschool, then forcing the uncomfortable friendship for decades, that would be horrible.
A lot of marriages just aren't built to last forever.
A younger couple I know are engaged and everyone is raving what a lovely couple they make, but I keep shaking my head and thinking: "yes, I think it's wonderful they're getting married because they will make excellent divorced co-parents."
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Thanks for the write up @Metalcat. I enjoy reading about your perspective on things.
I will add this to chapter 3 section 2 of your book. :P
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Sorry, but I am interpreting this as you accusing me of disrespecting Cassie's intelligence.
Maybe you can clarify what you mean here, and what your intention behind this statement is?
No, I'm not accusing you of insulting Cassie. But I think in your effort to play devil's advocate you went and took a comment out of context, and I'm saying that if the comment is looked at in context that I don't believe anyone as smart as Cassie would go back and misinterpret a comment made before anything about children was even said to be a "new age" comment about parenting.
It just doesn't make sense.
Fair enough.
It just seems like this thread does have some extreme, general views about divorce and step parents at times, and maybe Cassie is right that it should not be thought of as so extremely pro divorce or against divorce, and that it really is unique in every situation.
I did also sort of interpret your posts as you being fine with divorce, and almost like you expected relationships to run their course and then end sometime.
ETA: I'm mostly just prodding you at this point to expand on your views of divorce, because I often learn or change my perspective on things from your posts.
All marriages run their course, some will run indefinitely, perpetually getting stronger over time, others will stay generally stable never getting better or worse, some will get steadily worse but will last until one partner dies, some will get worse and not last until either partner dies. Many will cycle between getting worse and getting better and how long they last will depend on the life circumstances during the dips.
It is very, very normal for relationships to not last forever unless the couple are living in conditions where there are horrific consequences for breaking up. In those cultures, marriages lasting forever isn't a blessing, it's a life sentence.
Friendships run their course, business partnerships run their course, hell, some parent/child relationships run their course and are better off ending.
Relationships running their course is a normal, healthy part of life. Clinging to relationships that don't/can't work isn't healthy and shouldn't be praised.
It's great when a friendship lasts from daycare to death, not because the friendship lasted that long, but because the friendship stayed good that long. If you stopped getting along with that person in highschool, then forcing the uncomfortable friendship for decades, that would be horrible.
A lot of marriages just aren't built to last forever.
A younger couple I know are engaged and everyone is raving what a lovely couple they make, but I keep shaking my head and thinking: "yes, I think it's wonderful they're getting married because they will make excellent divorced co-parents."
This is a semi-tangent, but your thoughts on friendship (in other, earlier posts) really helped me clarify ad make peace with a difficult friend-relationship in my life, and brought me a sense of acceptance and peace, and I'm so grateful for it. I won't go into it more here since it's not at all about divorce, but it helped me let go of something I was holding on to mostly for sentimental reasons. This person is still in my life, but I let go and stopped trying to make it be what it had been, and accepted that it's now just someone I send a birthday wish to, or get an occasional update from, but she's not my BFF, and that's not only fine, it is healthy and natural. I hadn't expected that, after 20 years of solid friendship, but I guess people don't expect divorce after 20 years of a healthy, loving relationship. But sometimes it still ends up that way.
And, to bring this back someone what on-topic, that's the lens through which I read your "divorce is good" perspective--that relationships evolved and often even devolve, and that it is a very good thing we have a mechanism for ending them when they do. Allowing people to move on when a relationship no longer serves them, their partner, or their children is indeed good and healthy for everyone involved.
Sure, the ideal is a happy, loving, in tact family. But keeping the "in tact" part of that when they "happy, loving" part is gone ins't a favor to anyone (a few exceptions aside). If the choices are "unhappy, resentful, angry, contemptuous, in tact family" or "content, hopeful, relieved, divorced family", it seems clear to me which is better for everyone involved.
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Metalcat and tree leaf, I was sarcastically responding to Snacky’s comments that some people were stating old fashioned incorrect beliefs about divorce so purposefully just turned it around for her only. I wasn’t talking about anything you guys have said. Obviously I think divorce is a good thing as I have used it 3 times:)).
I was shocked to read in this thread that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce. That’s one of the best things that has happened for both sexes but especially women. It saddens me that we have taken abortion away as a federal right and left it to the states. It seems like the republicans want to take us back in time to when women were property essentially. I am old enough to remember that it was very difficult to get divorced and abortions were illegal. Both are not good for women.
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Often, when people stay together "for the children," it is for their own benefit. Both parents have custody rights and I wouldn't want to see my kids half or a third of the time. The season of raising kids flies by too fast as it is.
That’s true and I hadn’t really considered that aspect. Financially it’s often better also unless high earners because you aren’t supporting two households.
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This is a semi-tangent, but your thoughts on friendship (in other, earlier posts) really helped me clarify ad make peace with a difficult friend-relationship in my life, and brought me a sense of acceptance and peace, and I'm so grateful for it. I won't go into it more here since it's not at all about divorce, but it helped me let go of something I was holding on to mostly for sentimental reasons. This person is still in my life, but I let go and stopped trying to make it be what it had been, and accepted that it's now just someone I send a birthday wish to, or get an occasional update from, but she's not my BFF, and that's not only fine, it is healthy and natural. I hadn't expected that, after 20 years of solid friendship, but I guess people don't expect divorce after 20 years of a healthy, loving relationship. But sometimes it still ends up that way.
And, to bring this back someone what on-topic, that's the lens through which I read your "divorce is good" perspective--that relationships evolved and often even devolve, and that it is a very good thing we have a mechanism for ending them when they do. Allowing people to move on when a relationship no longer serves them, their partner, or their children is indeed good and healthy for everyone involved.
Sure, the ideal is a happy, loving, in tact family. But keeping the "in tact" part of that when they "happy, loving" part is gone ins't a favor to anyone (a few exceptions aside). If the choices are "unhappy, resentful, angry, contemptuous, in tact family" or "content, hopeful, relieved, divorced family", it seems clear to me which is better for everyone involved.
Yesss, I remember that conversation. It's funny, I never remember what I've written, but I remember what other people have written to me.
You have to know you can let something go in order to choose to keep it.
Endings are a wonderful thing when they're called for, it's just the healthy process of pruning so that the best relationships have space and resources to thrive.
Unhealthy relationships that aren't worth fixing are an astronomical time and energy suck and they draw resources away from the relationships that matter most, or worse, cockblock good relationships from ever forming.
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Often, when people stay together "for the children," it is for their own benefit. Both parents have custody rights and I wouldn't want to see my kids half or a third of the time. The season of raising kids flies by too fast as it is.
That’s true and I hadn’t really considered that aspect. Financially it’s often better also unless high earners because you aren’t supporting two households.
One of my new friends out here stayed with her horrible, abusive husband because she never wanted her kid alone with him.
That's fucking horrible.
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Metalcat and tree leaf, I was sarcastically responding to Snacky’s comments that some people were stating old fashioned incorrect beliefs about divorce so purposefully just turned it around for her only. I wasn’t talking about anything you guys have said. Obviously I think divorce is a good thing as I have used it 3 times:)).
I was shocked to read in this thread that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce. That’s one of the best things that has happened for both sexes but especially women. It saddens me that we have taken abortion away as a federal right and left it to the states. It seems like the republicans want to take us back in time to when women were property essentially. I am old enough to remember that it was very difficult to get divorced and abortions were illegal. Both are not good for women.
Thank you for the clarification. :)
I am also shocked that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce laws, and this is the first time I have heard of it since I don't follow politics much.
That is just...completely insane...
For both parties actually.
I don't even know why anyone would want to be married to someone who didn't actively want to be married to them.
That whole idea of repealing no fault divorce is just...weird for everyone, except for perhaps people who want to trap their spouse in an unhealthy and abusive marriage.
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Often, when people stay together "for the children," it is for their own benefit. Both parents have custody rights and I wouldn't want to see my kids half or a third of the time. The season of raising kids flies by too fast as it is.
That’s true and I hadn’t really considered that aspect. Financially it’s often better also unless high earners because you aren’t supporting two households.
One of my new friends out here stayed with her horrible, abusive husband because she never wanted her kid alone with him.
That's fucking horrible.
I think I have posted here before that the only time I did somewhat seriously consider divorce was when the kids were little and DH did a shit job of controlling his anger. It was a huge surprise, because as I posted above, one of the things that initially attracted me to him was his consideration and gentleness with people who were more vulnerable than him. But he just lost it with the kids. Turns out his dad was authoritarian and his mom was a yeller, so combine that with a highly-sensitive, highly-ADHD daughter that he just. did. not. get., and it turns out his parenting style was basically to turn into a giant angry bear every time a kid did not do what he wanted, when he wanted it. It was never physical abuse, but it was not remotely healthy for the kids.
That was also when I realized I couldn't leave, because our state defaults to joint custody, and I did not want them with him 50% of the time without me there to run interference.* So I just made a point to always take the lead with the kids and intervene before he felt he had to (basically, I was always watching both the kids and him for signs of an impending meltdown). I also lost it a few times with him in private, drew some very firm lines in the sand, and got him into counseling (by pretending it was counseling for DD); plus I got DD appropriate medical treatment, did a bunch of research on parenting and psychology and such, and basically told him how we were going to handle discipline and what exactly I needed him to do.** And the kids got older, and ultimately things calmed down.
But my relationship with DH was really not great for several years, because I resented having to take on all of that extra burden, instead of having an actual partner -- that this fucking brilliant Ph.D scientist just could not get his head out of his ass long enough to see something as basic as cause and effect between his behavior and DD's reaction (known in our family as the "death spiral") and was effectively throwing his own tantrums in response to hers (to which at one point I said, "she's 4. You're 40. What's your excuse?"). And I resented the extra pressure not to lose my own shit with the kids or be less than perfect, because they needed someone who was "safe" to be normal, imperfect kids with. So there was a metric shit-ton of swallowed anger for what felt like forever. Being a single parent would have been easier during that stretch -- at least I'd have had only 2 pigheaded people to manage.
OTOH, if he didn't have the anger issues but had cheated on me, I'd have booted him out in a heartbeat. It's crappy behavior and a bad example, but it's not dangerous to my kids, so I'd have trusted him with joint custody.
*I also live in a major metropolitan area with areas of high poverty, and where CPS is massively overwhelmed with serious physical abuse cases. So I didn't think going to court asking for full custody because "he yells at the kids" was going to get me very far.
**You don't fuck with my kids. Even if they're yours too.
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Metalcat and tree leaf, I was sarcastically responding to Snacky’s comments that some people were stating old fashioned incorrect beliefs about divorce so purposefully just turned it around for her only. I wasn’t talking about anything you guys have said. Obviously I think divorce is a good thing as I have used it 3 times:)).
I was shocked to read in this thread that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce. That’s one of the best things that has happened for both sexes but especially women. It saddens me that we have taken abortion away as a federal right and left it to the states. It seems like the republicans want to take us back in time to when women were property essentially. I am old enough to remember that it was very difficult to get divorced and abortions were illegal. Both are not good for women.
Ahh, thank you, that's why it made zero sense to me. I appreciate clarification.
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Metalcat and tree leaf, I was sarcastically responding to Snacky’s comments that some people were stating old fashioned incorrect beliefs about divorce so purposefully just turned it around for her only. I wasn’t talking about anything you guys have said. Obviously I think divorce is a good thing as I have used it 3 times:)).
I was shocked to read in this thread that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce. That’s one of the best things that has happened for both sexes but especially women. It saddens me that we have taken abortion away as a federal right and left it to the states. It seems like the republicans want to take us back in time to when women were property essentially. I am old enough to remember that it was very difficult to get divorced and abortions were illegal. Both are not good for women.
Thank you for the clarification. :)
I am also shocked that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce laws, and this is the first time I have heard of it since I don't follow politics much.
That is just...completely insane...
For both parties actually.
I don't even know why anyone would want to be married to someone who didn't actively want to be married to them.
That whole idea of repealing no fault divorce is just...weird for everyone, except for perhaps people who want to trap their spouse in an unhealthy and abusive marriage.
As as I understand it, "at-fault" divorce (as the opposite of no-fault divorce), isn't usually about staying married even if the other person wants out. Occasionally it it might be--but that is a contested divorce, not necessarily an at-fault situation. It's more about proving who is at fault because of the financial implications of that. It's not like once the prove the yes, someone did something so the marriage can end, they then default back to an equal or equitable distribution of assets and child custody. So, if you prove your spouse cheated, for example, you get more and they get less. The "harmed" party can be given extra financial consideration. Fault-based divorce in some cases can speed up the process. For example, when a state has a mandatory waiting period, that may be waived in a fault-based divorce. (Yes, some states have both no-fault and at-fault divorces.)
In addition to the financial implications, I think it's also about dragging your spouse through the wringer as a punitive action. You get it on the record that bitch wife cheated or your asshole husband hired hookers and has a gambling problem, or whatever the case may be.
Thirty three states currently offer at least the option of fault-based divorce. But every state currently has a no-fault option (or that's the only option), though a certain segment of American politics (3 guess which one!) has talked about trying to change that, to move toward fault-only. That makes it more challenging, more expensive, and often more damaging--especially when there are kids involved.
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Metalcat and tree leaf, I was sarcastically responding to Snacky’s comments that some people were stating old fashioned incorrect beliefs about divorce so purposefully just turned it around for her only. I wasn’t talking about anything you guys have said. Obviously I think divorce is a good thing as I have used it 3 times:)).
I was shocked to read in this thread that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce. That’s one of the best things that has happened for both sexes but especially women. It saddens me that we have taken abortion away as a federal right and left it to the states. It seems like the republicans want to take us back in time to when women were property essentially. I am old enough to remember that it was very difficult to get divorced and abortions were illegal. Both are not good for women.
Thank you for the clarification. :)
I am also shocked that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce laws, and this is the first time I have heard of it since I don't follow politics much.
That is just...completely insane...
For both parties actually.
I don't even know why anyone would want to be married to someone who didn't actively want to be married to them.
That whole idea of repealing no fault divorce is just...weird for everyone, except for perhaps people who want to trap their spouse in an unhealthy and abusive marriage.
As as I understand it, "at-fault" divorce (as the opposite of no-fault divorce), isn't usually about staying married even if the other person wants out. Occasionally it it might be--but that is a contested divorce, not necessarily an at-fault situation. It's more about proving who is at fault because of the financial implications of that. It's not like once the prove the yes, someone did something so the marriage can end, they then default back to an equal or equitable distribution of assets and child custody. So, if you prove your spouse cheated, for example, you get more and they get less. The "harmed" party can be given extra financial consideration. Fault-based divorce in some cases can speed up the process. For example, when a state has a mandatory waiting period, that may be waived in a fault-based divorce. (Yes, some states have both no-fault and at-fault divorces.)
In addition to the financial implications, I think it's also about dragging your spouse through the wringer as a punitive action. You get it on the record that bitch wife cheated or your asshole husband hired hookers and has a gambling problem, or whatever the case may be.
Thirty three states currently offer at least the option of fault-based divorce. But every state currently has a no-fault option (or that's the only option), though a certain segment of American politics (3 guess which one!) has talked about trying to change that, to move toward fault-only. That makes it more challenging, more expensive, and often more damaging--especially when there are kids involved.
Based on @Villanelle 's explanation above, somebody take a wild guess at which industry would lobby against no-fault divorce.
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Metalcat and tree leaf, I was sarcastically responding to Snacky’s comments that some people were stating old fashioned incorrect beliefs about divorce so purposefully just turned it around for her only. I wasn’t talking about anything you guys have said. Obviously I think divorce is a good thing as I have used it 3 times:)).
I was shocked to read in this thread that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce. That’s one of the best things that has happened for both sexes but especially women. It saddens me that we have taken abortion away as a federal right and left it to the states. It seems like the republicans want to take us back in time to when women were property essentially. I am old enough to remember that it was very difficult to get divorced and abortions were illegal. Both are not good for women.
Thank you for the clarification. :)
I am also shocked that some states are trying to repeal no fault divorce laws, and this is the first time I have heard of it since I don't follow politics much.
That is just...completely insane...
For both parties actually.
I don't even know why anyone would want to be married to someone who didn't actively want to be married to them.
That whole idea of repealing no fault divorce is just...weird for everyone, except for perhaps people who want to trap their spouse in an unhealthy and abusive marriage.
As as I understand it, "at-fault" divorce (as the opposite of no-fault divorce), isn't usually about staying married even if the other person wants out. Occasionally it it might be--but that is a contested divorce, not necessarily an at-fault situation. It's more about proving who is at fault because of the financial implications of that. It's not like once the prove the yes, someone did something so the marriage can end, they then default back to an equal or equitable distribution of assets and child custody. So, if you prove your spouse cheated, for example, you get more and they get less. The "harmed" party can be given extra financial consideration. Fault-based divorce in some cases can speed up the process. For example, when a state has a mandatory waiting period, that may be waived in a fault-based divorce. (Yes, some states have both no-fault and at-fault divorces.)
In addition to the financial implications, I think it's also about dragging your spouse through the wringer as a punitive action. You get it on the record that bitch wife cheated or your asshole husband hired hookers and has a gambling problem, or whatever the case may be.
Thirty three states currently offer at least the option of fault-based divorce. But every state currently has a no-fault option (or that's the only option), though a certain segment of American politics (3 guess which one!) has talked about trying to change that, to move toward fault-only. That makes it more challenging, more expensive, and often more damaging--especially when there are kids involved.
Based on @Villanelle 's explanation above, somebody take a wild guess at which industry would lobby against no-fault divorce.
The legal industry?
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Way way back when divorce was only for fault (Ontario), my Mom told me of a couple she knew where they wanted an amicable divorce but the law would not let them, because there were no grounds for an at fault divorce. The husband set it up so he looked like he was having an affair (he was not), so his wife could sue him for divorce.
People want to go back to that!?!?!?!?
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Way way back when divorce was only for fault (Ontario), my Mom told me of a couple she knew where they wanted an amicable divorce but the law would not let them, because there were no grounds for an at fault divorce. The husband set it up so he looked like he was having an affair (he was not), so his wife could sue him for divorce.
People want to go back to that!?!?!?!?
I remember reading that some tabloid in NY- which was slow to adopt no-fault- ran an expose called something like "I was the unnamed blonde in a hundred New York divorces!" Same idea. The dude takes this nice lady to dinner and gives her a little something for her time, someone takes pictures, and bam, you have divorce for adultery!
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Way way back when divorce was only for fault (Ontario), my Mom told me of a couple she knew where they wanted an amicable divorce but the law would not let them, because there were no grounds for an at fault divorce. The husband set it up so he looked like he was having an affair (he was not), so his wife could sue him for divorce.
People want to go back to that!?!?!?!?
I remember reading that some tabloid in NY- which was slow to adopt no-fault- ran an expose called something like "I was the unnamed blonde in a hundred New York divorces!" Same idea. The dude takes this nice lady to dinner and gives her a little something for her time, someone takes pictures, and bam, you have divorce for adultery!
Exactly. How demeaning for everyone involved.
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I'm willing to bet the opposite - that FIRE aspirants have slightly better marriage success rates than the average, which correlates with things like
higher income
marrying
having children in marriage
Although times may have changed and we are not quite comparing apples with apples, in classic Millionaire Next Door the author does makes it very clear that financial success and long term marriage/relationship do correlate.
The divorce rate among college educated adults is only around 25%. Considering most have at least a Bachelor's, I'd say the odds are lower among FIRE aspirants. I also think marriage still correlates with wealth. Most couples work at some point, even if time is taken off for kids.
Basically every bit of data about marriage supports the correlation between education, income, and marriage.
The problem is that it's a classic "all good things go together" problem. It's very tough to suss out what's causing what.
And so this thread goes on with appeal to anecdotes, because most of our thoughts about marriage aren't driven by data, they're driven by personal experience and ideology.
For example, I don't think there's any data in the world that anyone could marshal that would create a consensus that no-fault divorce was a bad idea, and we should return to requiring fault. It's not an empirical question to people, it's an ideological commitment.
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How many non-FIRE circles do you run in? How many blogs and forums do you read on a non-FIRE topic, where they discuss their personal lives, the status of their marriage, etc.?
And so this thread goes on with appeal to anecdotes, because most of our thoughts about marriage aren't driven by data, they're driven by personal experience and ideology.
Right. People that spend all day reading FIRE blogs / forums and seeing stories about divorce are going to instinctively think "wow, lots of divorces in these parts." But they don't have any kind of statistical comparison to make.
Maybe go visit a "buy all the boats" blog / forum and see if anyone there mentions divorce...
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Hmm... now I'm thinking about how you could really get at the question of whether divorce is positive, neutral, or negative for kids in households where the parental relationship has gone south.
It seems like you could track any number of outcomes - standardized test scores, physical and mental health metrics, and/or run-ins with the law jump to mind - before, during, and after their parents divorce. If divorce is indeed positive for the kids, then those measures, or others, should generally improve, or at least the trajectory generally should improve, after the divorce.
Can anyone point me to any research that tries to determine the effects of the divorce itself on the kids' outcomes? This seems like a fairly straightforward study that people must have run.
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I strongly disagree that that is straightforward to pick apart. Some coparenting arrangements improve following divorce, some deteriorate dramatically.
That's not to say that the study hasn't been done, just that I doubt the conclusions are clear.
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Hmm... now I'm thinking about how you could really get at the question of whether divorce is positive, neutral, or negative for kids in households where the parental relationship has gone south.
It seems like you could track any number of outcomes - standardized test scores, physical and mental health metrics, and/or run-ins with the law jump to mind - before, during, and after their parents divorce. If divorce is indeed positive for the kids, then those measures, or others, should generally improve, or at least the trajectory generally should improve, after the divorce.
Can anyone point me to any research that tries to determine the effects of the divorce itself on the kids' outcomes? This seems like a fairly straightforward study that people must have run.
It would be an extremely difficult study to run.
How would you know which kids to pre-test? How would you pre-test measures that only show up as long term outcomes?
You would have to track an entire cohort for decades and even then, wouldn't the measures be unclear because what would you be comparing to what exactly?
And how would you quantify which divorces were more healthy or toxic than others?
I can't wrap my mind around how this would be an easy experiment.
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Hmm... now I'm thinking about how you could really get at the question of whether divorce is positive, neutral, or negative for kids in households where the parental relationship has gone south.
It seems like you could track any number of outcomes - standardized test scores, physical and mental health metrics, and/or run-ins with the law jump to mind - before, during, and after their parents divorce. If divorce is indeed positive for the kids, then those measures, or others, should generally improve, or at least the trajectory generally should improve, after the divorce.
Can anyone point me to any research that tries to determine the effects of the divorce itself on the kids' outcomes? This seems like a fairly straightforward study that people must have run.
Not very straightforward I think . . . there's a lot of conflicting data:
https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html)
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How would you know which kids to pre-test?
Randomly. And there's no actual pre-test. I'm thinking of mining existing datasets.
How would you pre-test measures that only show up as long term outcomes?
It's a natural experiment. The results were collected independently of the study. Getting access would be a challenge.
You would have to track an entire cohort for decades and even then, wouldn't the measures be unclear because what would you be comparing to what exactly?
IAs long as the sample is big enough and representative enough, just sample the population at intervals pre-divorce and post-divorce.
And how would you quantify which divorces were more healthy or toxic than others?
With a big enough sample, you wouldn't need to. Sample size washes that out as noise.
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Hmm... now I'm thinking about how you could really get at the question of whether divorce is positive, neutral, or negative for kids in households where the parental relationship has gone south.
It seems like you could track any number of outcomes - standardized test scores, physical and mental health metrics, and/or run-ins with the law jump to mind - before, during, and after their parents divorce. If divorce is indeed positive for the kids, then those measures, or others, should generally improve, or at least the trajectory generally should improve, after the divorce.
Can anyone point me to any research that tries to determine the effects of the divorce itself on the kids' outcomes? This seems like a fairly straightforward study that people must have run.
Not very straightforward I think . . . there's a lot of conflicting data:
https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html)
I don't think you could draw much useful information because there's no control group. Like, if they DIDN'T improve, that could be because having divorced parents does suck sometimes, but we don't know if their outcomes would have been WORSE! You would also be comparing younger kids with older kids, so not apples to apples at all.
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Not very straightforward I think . . . there's a lot of conflicting data:
https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html)
This is basically a literature review of the ways that divorce harms kids. This seems at the very least to set a very high bar for the argument that high levels of divorce across society are good for kids.
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I don't think you could draw much useful information because there's no control group. Like, if they DIDN'T improve, that could be because having divorced parents does suck sometimes, but we don't know if their outcomes would have been WORSE! You would also be comparing younger kids with older kids, so not apples to apples at all.
If indeed divorce is generally a net positive for kids in households with toxic relationships, it should show up as a clear improvement in standard measures after divorce. Maybe it varies by age, gender, whatever. But somewhere there must be evidence of positive outcomes.
Given the link that @GuitarStv posted, the onus seems to be on demonstrating the society-level positivity of divorce, since an array of negative outcomes seems pretty well documented.
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How would you know which kids to pre-test?
Randomly. And there's no actual pre-test. I'm thinking of mining existing datasets.
How would you pre-test measures that only show up as long term outcomes?
It's a natural experiment. The results were collected independently of the study. Getting access would be a challenge.
You would have to track an entire cohort for decades and even then, wouldn't the measures be unclear because what would you be comparing to what exactly?
IAs long as the sample is big enough and representative enough, just sample the population at intervals pre-divorce and post-divorce.
And how would you quantify which divorces were more healthy or toxic than others?
With a big enough sample, you wouldn't need to. Sample size washes that out as noise.
But no one said divorce is good for kids, we said that a healthy divorce with parents who collaborate productively is frequently better for kids than those same parents staying in an unhappy marriage.
Why you assume anyone here said that divorce is generally good for kids??
Divorce is the result of marriages breaking down. Typically marital breakdown is damaging to kids. The question is whether it's better for parents to stay together despite a broken marriage or separate?
Sadly, a marriage breaking down often doesn't result in a healthy, collaborative divorce, the same way staying together for the kids often doesn't result in a healthy and collaborative home for kids either.
This is actually a very complex thing to research.
ETA: also how would you possibly identify which households were toxic before the divorce? And how would you track that data for individuals???
This would absolutely need to be a prospective, longitudinal study, and the measures would be incredibly complex.
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Why you assume anyone here said that divorce is generally good for kids??
Because apparently divorce in general is bad for kids, but for everyone here it's personally been good. We are all outliers, I guess.
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Some coparenting arrangements improve following divorce, some deteriorate dramatically.
We still haven't told our kids that we are separating. I would have preferred to do so much earlier, but SO felt differently and I decided to go along to get along. I thought the kids would ask if that was a reason when we told them we were selling the big expensive house and moving into a rental a few weeks ago. But they didn't. It may be that we have been getting along so much better since we hashed out the terms of the separation a couple of years ago that they think things are fine. For me, that was one of the big turning points in my feelings about things/ability to let go of the emotions about it all -- once I had it in writing that we would be splitting things equally, it was much easier to interact amicably. We sat on the draft for over two years, and if you asked the kids they probably would say those were two of the happier years in our family life. I am optimistic that things will be even better when we are actually separated/divorced -- I'm happy to continue to have regular meals and even vacations together as a family, just want separate rooms!
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Why you assume anyone here said that divorce is generally good for kids??
Because apparently divorce in general is bad for kids, but for everyone here it's personally been good. We are all outliers, I guess.
I think you're misunderstanding the anecdotes people have been sharing. No one thinks that divorce is good for kids. They just think it's better than those same parents staying in a failed marriage.
Obviously if a marriage is healthy and loving, then there's no reason to divorce, and that is way better for kids than having parents who hate each other, whether married or not.
The problem is that statistics don't compare bad marriages that continue vs divorce, they compare all marriages that continue vs all marriages that divorce. So all those happy, healthy marriages are being compared to the divorces, and then used to conclude that divorce is bad. It's an unfair comparison that gives an unfair conclusion.
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I don't think you could draw much useful information because there's no control group. Like, if they DIDN'T improve, that could be because having divorced parents does suck sometimes, but we don't know if their outcomes would have been WORSE! You would also be comparing younger kids with older kids, so not apples to apples at all.
If indeed divorce is generally a net positive for kids in households with toxic relationships, it should show up as a clear improvement in standard measures after divorce. Maybe it varies by age, gender, whatever. But somewhere there must be evidence of positive outcomes.
Given the link that @GuitarStv posted, the onus seems to be on demonstrating the society-level positivity of divorce, since an array of negative outcomes seems pretty well documented.
I disagree! The question isn't do they actively improve, it's are they better or worse off than they would have been? And to know that, you would have to have a control group of people whose parents had divorce-level conflict but didn't divorce for whatever reason, and I don't know how you create that control group.
My children were super young when I divorced (preschool age). The effects of our marriage's toxicity would, I think, have become more noticeable with age as they became more attuned to things like the emotional temperature in the house. They are now middle school aged. What would be the effect on them of living with a couple who didn't respect each other? Who rarely did things as a family? A father who avoided the house (and therefore them) in order to avoid their mother? People who came to visit me during the last year of my divorce report feeling super uncomfortable around the pair of us.
We don't know and can't know. I'm sure they have some stress/anxiety around moving houses, sharing holidays, being away from their baby sister for prolonged periods- for instance, my 11yo gets super upset when it's not my year to have Thanksgiving dinner with them, for reasons I don't fully understand and I don't think he doesn't either. There is simply no way to compare that to what their lives would have been.
I suspect that one adventage of earlier divorce for kids is a better chance that their lifestyle will stabilize by adolescence. I was certainly pretty broke for a few years post-divorce and so was my ex, but I'm measurably better off now than I ever was when their dad and I were married (as I found a husband who is capable of holding down a job!)
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This is actually a very complex thing to research.
The complexity of the research depends in significant part on what questions you ask, and what questions you're willing to set aside.
If all you want to know is whether for a random sample of kids in a dataset including math scores and parents' marital status over time divorce had a discernible positive, neutral, or negative effect on math scores, it's fairly straightforward. Literally just crosstabs.
If you want to drill down to the hows and whys and 10,000 intervening variables, I agree that's going to get incredibly complex and launch a thousand research ships.
Underneath and driving the choice of what type of question people want asked and answered I'd suggest is actually ideological commitment. If you think divorce is a moral failing that's solved by getting spouses to straighten up, the simple questions and simple answers are appealing. However, if you think divorce is part of a complex array of social forces and relationships, going full sociologist is going to be more appealing. At bottom it's ideology.
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I disagree! The question isn't do they actively improve, it's are they better or worse off than they would have been? And to know that, you would have to have a control group of people whose parents had divorce-level conflict but didn't divorce for whatever reason, and I don't know how you create that control group.
You don't need a control group. You're measuring against the trend.
To put it differently, the trendline is effectively the control.
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I disagree! The question isn't do they actively improve, it's are they better or worse off than they would have been? And to know that, you would have to have a control group of people whose parents had divorce-level conflict but didn't divorce for whatever reason, and I don't know how you create that control group.
You don't need a control group. You're measuring against the trend.
To put it differently, the trendline is effectively the control.
Then you're not testing the impact of divorce. You're testing the impact of parents who like each other vs parents who don't like each other.
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Then you're not testing the impact of divorce. You're testing the impact of parents who like each other vs parents who don't like each other.
Not if you only include kids of parents who got divorced.
Imagine the following question: For all kids or a sample of kids whose parents got divorced at age 10, did the rate of math proficiency increase or decrease at age 11?
I appreciate that people may not like that question or think it's a good question, but it's not a particularly difficult question.
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I disagree! The question isn't do they actively improve, it's are they better or worse off than they would have been? And to know that, you would have to have a control group of people whose parents had divorce-level conflict but didn't divorce for whatever reason, and I don't know how you create that control group.
I would guess a lot of the effects could be seen by comparing a cohort of individuals whose parents divorced when they were 10-12 to a cohort whose parents divorced when they were 18-20. Among the group whose parents divorce when they were 18-20, I don't believe it is unreasonable to assume that a significant number of the parents would have gotten divorced early had it not been for the children still in the house.
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I disagree! The question isn't do they actively improve, it's are they better or worse off than they would have been? And to know that, you would have to have a control group of people whose parents had divorce-level conflict but didn't divorce for whatever reason, and I don't know how you create that control group.
I would guess a lot of the effects could be seen by comparing a cohort of individuals whose parents divorced when they were 10-12 to a cohort whose parents divorced when they were 18-20. Among the group whose parents divorce when they were 18-20, I don't believe it is unreasonable to assume that a significant number of the parents would have gotten divorced early had it not been for the children still in the house.
I agree that would be an interesting study, if limited!
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Why you assume anyone here said that divorce is generally good for kids??
Because apparently divorce in general is bad for kids, but for everyone here it's personally been good. We are all outliers, I guess.
Some people made a generalization that parents should stay together for the kids.
A number of us who have had positive experiences with divorce gave our personal examples of why that generalization doesn't hold up for us.
When someone says all swans are white, personal examples of black swans matter.
You weren't going to get a bunch of folks sharing their horrible divorce stories because no one was arguing against horrible divorces being bad for kids, hence why people only shared good divorce stories.
I'm sure if anyone was insane enough to say that divorce is always good for kids that we would be flooded with divorce horror stories.
As for whether we're outliers, that would depend on how common cooperative divorces are.
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This is actually a very complex thing to research.
The complexity of the research depends in significant part on what questions you ask, and what questions you're willing to set aside.
If all you want to know is whether for a random sample of kids in a dataset including math scores and parents' marital status over time divorce had a discernible positive, neutral, or negative effect on math scores, it's fairly straightforward. Literally just crosstabs.
If you want to drill down to the hows and whys and 10,000 intervening variables, I agree that's going to get incredibly complex and launch a thousand research ships.
Underneath and driving the choice of what type of question people want asked and answered I'd suggest is actually ideological commitment. If you think divorce is a moral failing that's solved by getting spouses to straighten up, the simple questions and simple answers are appealing. However, if you think divorce is part of a complex array of social forces and relationships, going full sociologist is going to be more appealing. At bottom it's ideology.
But no one is arguing against the well established fact that divorces are usually terrible for kids.
No one has said anything of the sort. So if we were to just study the impact of divorce, we would expect to see a negative outcome.
That wasn't the question though. The question was, is a healthy, cooperative divorce better for kids than unhappily married parents staying together?
That "is* a complex and difficult to quantify issue.
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Marriages that are flawed enough to lead to divorce are usually bad for kids.
When those marriages do lead to divorce--which they don't always do-- whether that makes the situation less or more bad for the kids is what we are discussing. (I think.)
Put another way, mommy hating daddy and daddy hating mommy (or mommy/mommy, daddy/daddy) is not good for kids. Whether it is then more or less bad for the kids if that mommy and daddy divorce, compared to if they stay together and continue hating each other, is the question, particularly if the parents who hate each other as spouses are able to be semi-cooperative co-parents.
And yeah, I don't really see how that could be studied because you'd need to find marriages with equal amount of parent hate (which is impossible to quantify) and then look at outcomes for the kids when the parents divorce versus when they stay together. (And maybe a subset of that is if they hate each other for a few years and then divorce, hate each other for a decade then divorce, hate each other and immediately divorce, etc.)
(And yes, I'm using "hate" as a grossly simplifed way of describing the issue. There's fighting, contempt, disrespect, abuse in its various types, and many other situations that would apply here. But the gist of it remains the same. You'd have to quantify *bad* in the bad marital relationships and then compare outcomes of divorce or non-divorce for a family with the same "badness" score in the parental relationship.
I suspect the reason it seems that hasn't been done is because there's no good way to do it.
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Marriages that are flawed enough to lead to divorce are usually bad for kids.
When those marriages do lead to divorce--which they don't always do-- whether that makes the situation less or more bad for the kids is what we are discussing. (I think.)
Put another way, mommy hating daddy and daddy hating mommy (or mommy/mommy, daddy/daddy) is not good for kids. Whether it is then more or less bad for the kids if that mommy and daddy divorce, compared to if they stay together and continue hating each other, is the question, particularly if the parents who hate each other as spouses are able to be semi-cooperative co-parents.
And yeah, I don't really see how that could be studied because you'd need to find marriages with equal amount of parent hate (which is impossible to quantify) and then look at outcomes for the kids when the parents divorce versus when they stay together. (And maybe a subset of that is if they hate each other for a few years and then divorce, hate each other for a decade then divorce, hate each other and immediately divorce, etc.)
(And yes, I'm using "hate" as a grossly simplifed way of describing the issue. There's fighting, contempt, disrespect, abuse in its various types, and many other situations that would apply here. But the gist of it remains the same. You'd have to quantify *bad* in the bad marital relationships and then compare outcomes of divorce or non-divorce for a family with the same "badness" score in the parental relationship.
I suspect the reason it seems that hasn't been done is because there's no good way to do it.
I suppose if we rounded up 5,000 families and put cameras in every room of their house, recorded with audio for 5 years or so, then had all of the footage reviewed by a team of 20,000 psychologists and rated for things like psychological safety, and level of emotional bonding and fighting, then compared these scores with a slew of academic test scores and well being metrics for the children...
....
Wait - what was the question?
Yeah I think it would be a challenging and expensive study.
I wonder if there are any other metrics we can use as rough proxies for toxic parents that can be easier to derive, like # of references to alcoholism, drugs, overt sexual references in their Facebook posts, etc, which would be cheaper to determine.
I think we could do some sort of study, but the correctness and accuracy of it would be highly questionable, and would likely involve violating the privacy in some way or thousands of people, even more than Google and Facebook already do...
And even then the study methodology would be highly questionable, I would imagine, especially in how they even define something like "level of hatred between parents".
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Then you're not testing the impact of divorce. You're testing the impact of parents who like each other vs parents who don't like each other.
Not if you only include kids of parents who got divorced.
Imagine the following question: For all kids or a sample of kids whose parents got divorced at age 10, did the rate of math proficiency increase or decrease at age 11?
I appreciate that people may not like that question or think it's a good question, but it's not a particularly difficult question.
The problem would be you are addressing a question no one here is asking. Perhaps that is why you find it to be not terribly difficult.
Your methodology excludes those who’s parents were unhappy but did not get a divorce, which is what we are all discussing here. Your study explicitly ignores the group of primary concern.
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Not very straightforward I think . . . there's a lot of conflicting data:
https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html)
This is basically a literature review of the ways that divorce harms kids. This seems at the very least to set a very high bar for the argument that high levels of divorce across society are good for kids.
Not entirely.
"The psychological adjustment of the custodial parent after divorce is emerging as a central factor in determining children’s post-divorce adjustment (Cohen, 1995; Kelly, 1993), although the role of maternal adjustment after divorce has been more often examined than the impact of paternal adjustment on children and no studies have looked at the relative contribution of maternal versus paternal adjustment on children."
I suspect a reasonable case can be made that if both parents (in the case of joint custody arrangements) end up happier and better adjusted after the divorce, then divorce would most likely be a net positive for the children in the long run. That would seem to line up with my own experience at least.
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/
Define violence. Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.
What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present? What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other? What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them? What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?
There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/
Define violence. Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.
What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present? What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other? What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them? What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?
There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.
There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused. Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/)
Define violence. Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.
What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present? What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other? What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them? What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?
There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.
There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused. Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.
If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/)
Define violence. Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.
What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present? What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other? What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them? What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?
There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.
There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused. Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.
If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?
Jesus fucking Christ.
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/)
Define violence. Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.
What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present? What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other? What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them? What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?
There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.
There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused. Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.
If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?
Jesus fucking Christ.
Lol. 😂.
Sorry I know this is a serious discussion but this response seemed pretty funny to me.
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/
You need to up your googlefu, dude:
https://www.cathmed.org/programs-resources/cma-resources/linacre-quarterly/
"The Linacre Quarterly (LQ) is the official journal of Catholic Medical Association."
Biased much?
Plus, that is essentially an opinion/advocacy piece. No discussion whatsoever of methodology (which should be required for any peer-reviewed article, even a meta-analysis of other studies). Also seem to presume ONLY negative outcomes from divorce without considering/mentioning any potential positives. Classic example of cherry-picking data to prove a thesis.
If I were a professor grading this as a graduate seminar paper, it would get an F. Not how research is done.
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/
You need to up your googlefu, dude:
https://www.cathmed.org/programs-resources/cma-resources/linacre-quarterly/
"The Linacre Quarterly (LQ) is the official journal of Catholic Medical Association."
Biased much?
Plus, that is essentially an opinion/advocacy piece. No discussion whatsoever of methodology (which should be required for any peer-reviewed article, even a meta-analysis of other studies). Also seem to presume ONLY negative outcomes from divorce without considering/mentioning any potential positives. Classic example of cherry-picking data to prove a thesis.
If I were a professor grading this as a graduate seminar paper, it would get an F. Not how research is done.
I also wonder if people realize how many current/former academic researchers are participating in this conversation.
Off of the top of my head I can think of about 5 folks with doctorates or professional research experience in this thread...
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I also wonder if people realize how many current/former academic researchers are participating in this conversation.
Off of the top of my head I can think of about 5 folks with doctorates or professional research experience in this thread...
Mostly the ones who keep chiming in with "No, that's not how to design a study..."
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/)
Define violence. Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.
What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present? What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other? What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them? What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?
There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.
There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused. Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.
If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?
When someone makes a belittling “joke” like this about emotional abuse, it’s a pretty clear sign they really don’t get it. Like, at all.
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"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/)
You need to up your googlefu, dude:
https://www.cathmed.org/programs-resources/cma-resources/linacre-quarterly/ (https://www.cathmed.org/programs-resources/cma-resources/linacre-quarterly/)
"The Linacre Quarterly (LQ) is the official journal of Catholic Medical Association."
Biased much?
Plus, that is essentially an opinion/advocacy piece. No discussion whatsoever of methodology (which should be required for any peer-reviewed article, even a meta-analysis of other studies). Also seem to presume ONLY negative outcomes from divorce without considering/mentioning any potential positives. Classic example of cherry-picking data to prove a thesis.
If I were a professor grading this as a graduate seminar paper, it would get an F. Not how research is done.
It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
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It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.
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I also wonder if people realize how many current/former academic researchers are participating in this conversation.
Off of the top of my head I can think of about 5 folks with doctorates or professional research experience in this thread...
Mostly the ones who keep chiming in with "No, that's not how to design a study..."
I'm pretty well aware that someone in public health or sociology wouldn't design a study as I spitballed above. And I'm repeating myself here, but underneath that decision is a set of normative commitments to outcomes and explanations that don't moralize. You can explain divorce and its outcomes all sorts of ways, just not a lack of character, commitment, and daily decision (or not) to honor your vows. If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important. The dominant research decision to design studies that go looking for extensive explanations that don't boil down to morality is itself a normative judgement.
The best analogy I can think of would be two economists discussing poverty. One economist says that all you need to know about poverty is that people who get a degree or certification and hold down a job are rarely in poverty, so the solution to poverty is training and hard work. Poverty is a problem of work ethic (a moral category), and that's all there is to it. The other economist, tearing his hair out, points to the bookshelves ringing his office, and says, "these are all about poverty, and none of them say what you're saying! You don't even know how to think about poverty, much less create questions about it!" Now, only the second economist is ever likely to publish anything on poverty, but are either of them wrong? Is either of them a bad economist? I don't think so. They just start from different places, have different values, and are more and less willing to use moral categories in their conclusions.
Similarly, I'm suggesting, those of us participating in this thread start from different places, are more and less willing to think about divorce through a moral lens, and as a result ask very different questions about marriage and divorce.
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It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.
From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr
The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.
Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?
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It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.
I could start a journal of finance. That doesn't make it disreputable. Not sure what is brings to this discussion, though.
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It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.
From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr (https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr)
The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.
Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?
It's the journal of CMA. So, we are apparently bashing all Catholic health professionals.
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It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.
From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr
The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.
Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?
It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.
Catholicism and science have an awkward relationship historically.
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I have seen religion affect people's otherwise rational thinking in the oddest ways. So if I was reading a paper in a journal founded/run by a church (any church) I would expect it to be affected by the dogma of that church.
The most important part of a scientific paper is the materials and methods section. Not the results. Because if you look at a well written M&M you know exactly how the experiment/study was done, and if there are flaws in the design and analysis.
Actually no, the most important part is the one that gives the authors' affiliations and acknowledgement of support. Then the M&M.
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If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?
It depends on how your criticism is delivered.
If you say to your spouse, “dear, I appreciate how you made the effort to make a home cooked meal, but I find it to be way too spicy for my tastes” - no, that’s not emotional abuse. But if you throw your plate against the wall, or belittle your spouse’s effort in front of their peers, or threaten to retaliate if the cooking doesn’t improve, then that is emotional abuse.
One can be abusive in countless ways, just as one can be kind even in bad moments.
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It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.
From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr (https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr)
The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.
Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?
It's the journal of CMA. So, we are apparently bashing all Catholic health professionals.
I have made no statement about the journal's reputability. All I am arguing is that "it's a journal of bioethics" is not sufficient to consider it a trustworthy source.
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It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.
From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr
The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.
Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?
It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.
Catholicism and science have an awkward relationship historically.
Poor Galileo. He didn't deserve that sort of treatment.
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It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.
I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.
From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr (https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr)
The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.
Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?
It's the journal of CMA. So, we are apparently bashing all Catholic health professionals.
I have made no statement about the journal's reputability. All I am arguing is that "it's a journal of bioethics" is not sufficient to consider it a trustworthy source.
"That doesn't mean it's reputable" (above) would be interpreted by the average person on the street as raising the question of reputability.
Saying "that doesn't mean she's a woman" raises the question of gender.
Saying "that doesn't mean he's not a child molester" raises the question of child molestation.
Denying that any of them are raising a question is gaslighting. This is out in the land of "people are saying" as a way of introducing doubt with plausible deniability.
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It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.
Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently. And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.
Bullshit gets published. Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.
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"That doesn't mean it's reputable" (above) would be interpreted by the average person on the street as raising the question of reputability.
Someone called its reputability into question. Giles defended it by saying "It is a journal of bioethics." My intention was specifically to criticize that statement as a defense of the journal. It's a flimsy appeal to authority.
I do acknowledge your point; I'm now clarifying my intention. To be extra explicit, the "it" in "that doesn't make it reputable" was intended to be the hypothetical bioethics journal I'm starting tomorrow.
I'm not criticizing the journal because I haven't looked into it one bit. That said, others have made more knowledgeable criticisms. It would be foolish not to consider whether the publishing organization has an incentive to come to a particular conclusion on the topic. Even THAT alone doesn't make the journal irreputable, but we shouldn't consider the findings without that context; we require conflict of interest disclosures for a reason. The most important information to assess would be the methods section of the article, which someone else here has already done.
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It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.
Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently. And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.
Bullshit gets published. Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.
I *think* you're referring to the police shooting study?
If so, that's a VERY interesting debate about the motivations behind retraction. I'm DEFINITELY not getting into it here, with you, but it is very interesting.
Also, very, very different from publishing a paper promoting conversion therapy, IMO.
They published an embarrassingly poorly done study promoting a therapy that the mental health world has condemned.
That's like when the Sackler-owned journals knowingly published garbage literature claiming that Oxycontin was less addictive even though any scientist who actually looked at it could see that it was bullshit.
When a Catholic journal publishes really, really bad science that happens to align with Catholic religious ideology, it isn't a good look.
But you're right, it's not a garbage journal, it just has an obvious ideological bias, which is why it's not surprising that an opinion piece would be highly biased to that ideology.
Remember, no one is arguing that research shows that divorce leads, on average, to bad outcomes for kids, the research obviously supports that. Very, very clearly. The correlation is solid and always has been.
But it's a very Catholic ideological interpretation of that data that concludes that the divorce is the cause and not the toxicity and conflict between the parents.
There's data and then there's how it's interpreted. And I don't take a Catholic ideological interpretation of a correlation very seriously.
I haven't seen an ounce of evidence that shows that a child is better off with two parents who scream at each other every night, but stay married, is better for them than parents who split and move on.
Whether you consider that marriage breakdown a moral failure or not has no bearing on whether or not a broken down, toxic marriage is good for a child.
Have you ever lived in a house run by parents in a toxic marriage? Do you have any grasp of what that's actually like??
Have you ever seen a little boy throw himself in front of his mother because he's terrified that his screaming father is going to hurt her?
There are marriages that hurt children. That is the only thing that some of us are saying. That there ARE marriages that hurt children.
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It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.
Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently. And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.
Bullshit gets published. Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.
About four highly scientific articles per year are retracted in Nature. I guess we will throw that source out as well.
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It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.
Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently. And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.
Bullshit gets published. Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.
About four highly scientific articles per year are retracted in Nature. I guess we will throw that source out as well.
Way to ignore the point I made. But whatever.
After your comment about spousal abuse, nothing should surprise me.
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It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.
Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently. And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.
Bullshit gets published. Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.
About four highly scientific articles per year are retracted in Nature. I guess we will throw that source out as well.
Way to ignore the point I made. But whatever.
Your point being if you can cherry-pick an unrelated paper that was retracted it means the journal doesn't fit your standards?
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It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.
Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently. And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.
Bullshit gets published. Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.
About four highly scientific articles per year are retracted in Nature. I guess we will throw that source out as well.
Way to ignore the point I made. But whatever.
Your point being if you can cherry-pick an unrelated paper that was retracted it means the journal doesn't fit your standards?
I literally already explained this.
What I take issue with is their ideological values. The paper cited stated interpretation and opinion about what the existing research means. I don't respect the ideological basis of that opinion.
The same ideological values very likely promoted them to publish a very, very poor quality paper that supported a therapy that is soundly condemned by the psychological world. I don't think you grasp how big a deal that is. That would be like publishing an article that promotes the health benefits of smoking.
Again, it points to an ideology that I don't agree with.
So when someone posts what is basically an opinion paper, I can say that I don't find opinions published by them to be very credible because I perceive a clear ideological bias.
Now, I was sloppy in how I made my statement earlier, I did not mean to imply that the journal generally published bad science. Not at all.
I was saying more that I don't find the position taken in the posted article as credible and gave an example to demonstrate the ideological bias that I believe underpins the opinions in that paper.
Journals that publish good science can absolutely have a heavily biased ideology behind them, and there are countless biases known to exist in research publication patterns. This is a known issue.
So me saying that this journal likely has a Catholic ideological publication bias is not at all an extreme statement.
And yes, ALL reputable journals have various publication biases, it's a major issue actually. ESPECIALLY in psychology. In fact, it's considered a crisis. You should care about it.
But yes, I was definitely sloppy in implying that the journal itself isn't reputable, when what I really meant was that I don't take the opinion a in the article very seriously.
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Let's also talk about how the data supports the obvious correlation that divorce doesn't end well for kids.
But let's also look at other science that can help clarify why.
Poor parent mental health has substantial negative impacts on children's wellness outcomes.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42844-021-00037-7
This paper cites marital conflict as a source of toxic stress
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/1/3/390
This paper talks about the impact on children of witnessing violence.
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/17383
This paper specifically talks about strategies for avoiding damage to children from divorce by preventing toxicity in the process of divorce.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.174-1617.2001.tb00620.x
This is a very small selection of research and not definitive of anything, but it is what research is which is evidence that people can interpret.
My interpretation, which is biased, is that the research shows decent evidence that it's the stress of parental conflict that is most harmful to children. And it would seem that that stress can exist within a marriage or within the process of divorce.
Either way, toxic dynamica between parents could reasonably explain the damage to children.
The question remains, are some children better off if their parents try to stay together or if they split?
Wouldn't that come down to which approach they can manage with less conflict and toxicity?
ETA: what I will say is that a lot of folks make the divorce process worse for kids than it needs to be, and I absolutely believe that there should be publicly funded mental health resources available to all families experiencing toxic conflict.
That would help save the marriages that can be saved and help more peacefully dissolve the ones that can't.
Seems like a no-brainer to me. But what do I know.
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I also wonder if people realize how many current/former academic researchers are participating in this conversation.
Off of the top of my head I can think of about 5 folks with doctorates or professional research experience in this thread...
Mostly the ones who keep chiming in with "No, that's not how to design a study..."
I'm pretty well aware that someone in public health or sociology wouldn't design a study as I spitballed above. And I'm repeating myself here, but underneath that decision is a set of normative commitments to outcomes and explanations that don't moralize. You can explain divorce and its outcomes all sorts of ways, just not a lack of character, commitment, and daily decision (or not) to honor your vows. If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important. The dominant research decision to design studies that go looking for extensive explanations that don't boil down to morality is itself a normative judgement.
The best analogy I can think of would be two economists discussing poverty. One economist says that all you need to know about poverty is that people who get a degree or certification and hold down a job are rarely in poverty, so the solution to poverty is training and hard work. Poverty is a problem of work ethic (a moral category), and that's all there is to it. The other economist, tearing his hair out, points to the bookshelves ringing his office, and says, "these are all about poverty, and none of them say what you're saying! You don't even know how to think about poverty, much less create questions about it!" Now, only the second economist is ever likely to publish anything on poverty, but are either of them wrong? Is either of them a bad economist? I don't think so. They just start from different places, have different values, and are more and less willing to use moral categories in their conclusions.
I think I can definitively say that someone who says "all you need to know about poverty is that people who get a degree or certification and hold down a job are rarely in poverty, so the solution to poverty is training and hard work. Poverty is a problem of work ethic (a moral category), and that's all there is to it." is wrong.
Education to degree/certificate level is not available to all. Education plus profound disability plus lack of family/social support is highly likely to lead to poverty. Higher education cannot usually be accessed by people with less than average intelligence or geographical, social or financial disadvantage. People outside the developed economies or in unstable or discriminatory societies don't get education (see women in Afghanistan). 35 million refugees in the world are unlikely to get "degrees or certificates".
"All you need to know" shows a very narrow, privileged, understanding of the world. It is only partially true for some very lucky people. And there is nothing "moral" about it.
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"That doesn't mean it's reputable" (above) would be interpreted by the average person on the street as raising the question of reputability.
Someone called its reputability into question. Giles defended it by saying "It is a journal of bioethics." My intention was specifically to criticize that statement as a defense of the journal. It's a flimsy appeal to authority.
I do acknowledge your point; I'm now clarifying my intention. To be extra explicit, the "it" in "that doesn't make it reputable" was intended to be the hypothetical bioethics journal I'm starting tomorrow.
I'm not criticizing the journal because I haven't looked into it one bit. That said, others have made more knowledgeable criticisms. It would be foolish not to consider whether the publishing organization has an incentive to come to a particular conclusion on the topic. Even THAT alone doesn't make the journal irreputable, but we shouldn't consider the findings without that context; we require conflict of interest disclosures for a reason. The most important information to assess would be the methods section of the article, which someone else here has already done.
Thanks, this is a fair explanation. I appreciate you taking the time to write it.
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"All you need to know" shows a very narrow, privileged, understanding of the world. It is only partially true for some very lucky people. And there is nothing "moral" about it.
I think you missed the point. The point is that the history of much social science over the past 70 years is replacing moral explanations with material ones. Degeneracy, lunacy, impiety, imbecility, etcetera did a whole lot of explanatory work before 1950. In popular culture, they still do - what percentage of Americans will tell you that the poor are lazy? Lots? Most? That's a modern application of degeneracy, a moral explanation. You and I may both disagree that its explanatory power is satisfying, but it is an explanation, and lots of people find it satisfying.
Some of the people who find those old moral categories more compelling than the newer material categories understand perfectly well how the translation works, and simply do other sorts of work. They dissent, but mostly with their feet rather than in writing.
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"All you need to know" shows a very narrow, privileged, understanding of the world. It is only partially true for some very lucky people. And there is nothing "moral" about it.
I think you missed the point. The point is that the history of much social science over the past 70 years is replacing moral explanations with material ones. Degeneracy, lunacy, impiety, imbecility, etcetera did a whole lot of explanatory work before 1950. In popular culture, they still do - what percentage of Americans will tell you that the poor are lazy? Lots? Most? That's a modern application of degeneracy, a moral explanation. You and I may both disagree that its explanatory power is satisfying, but it is an explanation, and lots of people find it satisfying.
Some of the people who find those old moral categories more compelling than the newer material categories understand perfectly well how the translation works, and simply do other sorts of work. They dissent, but mostly with their feet rather than in writing.
Edit: I asked a bunch of questions, but I changed my mind.
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"All you need to know" shows a very narrow, privileged, understanding of the world. It is only partially true for some very lucky people. And there is nothing "moral" about it.
I think you missed the point. The point is that the history of much social science over the past 70 years is replacing moral explanations with material ones. Degeneracy, lunacy, impiety, imbecility, etcetera did a whole lot of explanatory work before 1950. In popular culture, they still do - what percentage of Americans will tell you that the poor are lazy? Lots? Most? That's a modern application of degeneracy, a moral explanation. You and I may both disagree that its explanatory power is satisfying, but it is an explanation, and lots of people find it satisfying.
Some of the people who find those old moral categories more compelling than the newer material categories understand perfectly well how the translation works, and simply do other sorts of work. They dissent, but mostly with their feet rather than in writing.
You know, you are making a point… but I’m not sure it’s the point you think you are making.
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Then you're not testing the impact of divorce. You're testing the impact of parents who like each other vs parents who don't like each other.
Not if you only include kids of parents who got divorced.
Imagine the following question: For all kids or a sample of kids whose parents got divorced at age 10, did the rate of math proficiency increase or decrease at age 11?
I appreciate that people may not like that question or think it's a good question, but it's not a particularly difficult question.
The problem is that this is the only question that has been tested. That's where all these "divorce is bad for kids" studies come from: they compare things like standardized test scores from kids from divorced or single-parent families against kids from two-parent households, see the scores are lower, and then conclude "therefore, divorce is bad for kids."
The problem with the conclusion is that it ignored all of the confounding factors. For example, do they group kids by SES? We all know that SES is highly correlated with academic performance, so if you're ignoring SES variations, you're not testing the harm of the divorce itself. And of course what we've all be talking about here: the parental relationship. It's safe to assume that the parents who divorced don't like each other very much and couldn't find a way to get along. But what about the baseline group of non-divorced parents? Some of them may not like each other very much, but have found some way to get along. Some don't like each other but are staying together for some external reason (can't afford to live separately, don't believe in divorce, etc.). Some of them do like each other and get along fine. So you are comparing apples and oranges.
Your data shows that kids from divorced families do worse at math than the broad group of kids who do not come from divorced families. But it cannot show that that those kids do worse at math than kids from unhappy marriages where the parents are staying together from some other reason. And unless you do that apples-to-apples comparison, you cannot conclude that it is the divorce itself that leads to the worse math performance vs. the poor relationship between the parents.
The best analogy I can think of is the college admissions/success data. For years, many many people (including me) have seen admission to a great college as the path to subsequent career success. And if you look at the overall population data, you'd reach the same conclusion, because certainly, overall, Harvard graduates are going to be much more successful in their careers than kids who don't go to college at all, or go to East Directional State U. The problem is that you are comparing a very specific, limited universe of kids -- kids who are smart/hardworking/privileged enough to go to Harvard -- with a much broader universe of kids. Sure, some of those kids will be just as smart/hardworking/privileged as the kids who go to Harvard, but many, many of them will be missing one or more of those traits. So how do you know it's the Harvard education that makes the difference, instead of the IQ, or work ethic, or SES, or lack of connections, or any of a thousand other things?
Well, a few years ago, some scientists had a pretty brilliant idea: they'd compare the career success of kids who attended schools like Harvard with kids who applied and met the standards for admission but were rejected and went to another school instead. Because with those top schools having admissions rates on the order of 5%, there will always be many, many more kids who are just as smart/hardworking/privileged than the schools can admit. And you know what that study showed? No significant difference between the kids who went to a school like Harvard than similar kids who went elsewhere. Which suggests that long-term success is driven more by the characteristics that make you eligible for admission to a top-notch school than the actual school you attend.
The problem with these divorce studies, including the proposed math one, is that you're still comparing a very specialized cohort (kids from divorced/single-parent families) against a much broader universe of kids. And many of the kids within that broader universe will have other traits that will lead them to perform better in math, including happy families, psychologically healthy parents, higher SES, etc. etc. etc. Which is why people keep saying you need a comparable control group. You cannot conclude that A causes B unless your study involves similar universes of study participants, so you take those confounding variables out of play. Or to put it another way: the proposed math study will show, overall, that kids from divorced families will do worse in math than kids from families that are not divorced. But the study cannot show that the kids from divorced families will do worse in math than the same kids would do if their parents had stayed together.
You can mock the anecdotes here about how we're all statistical outliers who benefited from their parents' divorce. Or you can look at it another way: we have the advantage of having witnessed our parents' behavior, and having felt the impacts of that behavior, both before the divorce and after it. So if we are saying that we are better off because we divorced, it's because we actually have something to compare it to -- we've seen, with our own eyes, what the relationship was like pre-divorce, and how that tension made us feel as kids.
Now, I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass and say everything was hunky-dory and we were surrounded by unicorns farting rainbows for the rest of our lives. As I mentioned above, it was fucking hard at times, particularly being made fun of because I was both poor and the daughter of an apparent Jezabel (because in 1970 in SE TX, that was how the word "divorcee" was interpreted). OTOH, I can tell you from personal experience that if my mom and dad stayed together "for the kids," that better SES would have been more than offset by the insecure, angry household I'd have lived in. My very first memory, c. 2 1/2 yrs old, is being in my crib and hearing my parents yelling at each other in the living room and being terrified to utter a single sound. And even though the marriage ended only a few years after that, I still have trouble voicing fears/negative emotions to other people -- when I'm really upset, I just shut down and curl up in that same little psychological ball. I cannot imagine how fucked I'd be if I'd lived with that terrible fear and insecurity for another decade or more.
IOW, all these anecdotes here are individual data points that can directly attest to the effect of divorce as compared to the effect of an unhappy marriage. Obviously, the plural of anecdote is not data. At the same time, the various studies that we do have have not been able to figure out how to find a comparably-situated control group for comparison. So in the abscence of any actual study, our individual data points at least provide some insight.
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For those of us with limited education...
SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)
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For those of us with limited education...
SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)
Thank you, Neo. ;-) I'm lazy -- never met an abbreviation/acronym I didn't like.
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In retrospect it made sense, but the first time through I kind of thought it some like CHIP or that program that got me free lunches as a kid. But then I realized I was reading too fast, and that made no sense. Especially since my web search for SES turned up other things.
Also scientific evidence supporting... :-)
(Seriously I was reading too fast and none of my thoughts made any sense.)
My parents' divorce had good and bad results. The quite frequent screaming between two adults was reduced drastically. But my dad largely stopped being a father figure in my life for the next ~5 years. My mom was a narcissist. As the youngest of 4 children, as a ~12-13 year old, I suddenly started being extra independent, because I had to be. But I did start to see my older siblings more as responsible people I could turn to.
It took about 20 more years for me to re-learn healthy male/female relationships though. My parents staying together would not have helped. The damage mostly happened before they split, but then I didn't really have them to look to any more. I did have a kind of trigger response that if I was in a relationship, and we fought, we would probably break up. So I made most fights worse than they should have been!
My parents had very different relationships with money, and that was often a source of contention.
My sister was out of the house and away at college by the time my parents divorced. I was just becoming a teenager, and spent my teenage years being raised by a very impoverished narcissist.
30 years later, and I'm 9 years into my (first) marriage and my net worth is roughly $1.2m. My sister is hanging in there financially... by a thread. She has been divorced twice. Does that tell us anything, or is the sample size WAY TOO DAMN SMALL?!
I just think... the question doesn't make sense. "Couples that figure out how to spend money according to their values... do they divorce (meaningfully) more than average couples?"
They are probably in a better financial position than average.
They probably value their time, and have other values in better order than average.
So given that, sure, perhaps if they realize their marriage isn't working best for both parties, they might divorce, where the average person might be stuck.
Of course, that was why we transitioned to this question "are divorces bad? good? in what situations?"
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For those of us with limited education...
SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)
Thanks for this explanation neo.
Reading through these posts - Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the forum who went to a community college, lol. :P
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For those of us with limited education...
SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)
Thanks for this explanation neo.
Reading through these posts - Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the forum who went to a community college, lol. :P
I started at the community college then transferred. It was a wise financial choice.
Sounds like you have all the degrees you need to be successful in your career and anything else you want to learn about can be accomplished at the library. If you don't work in anything social service-adjacent you would have no reason to know SES, just like I don't know all your computer jargon stuff. I do know SEO for some reason though. Weird.
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For those of us with limited education...
SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)
Thanks for this explanation neo.
Reading through these posts - Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the forum who went to a community college, lol. :P
I started at the community college then transferred. It was a wise financial choice.
Sounds like you have all the degrees you need to be successful in your career and anything else you want to learn about can be accomplished at the library. If you don't work in anything social service-adjacent you would have no reason to know SES, just like I don't know all your computer jargon stuff. I do know SEO for some reason though. Weird.
Thank you..
This is like the most respectful corner of the internet. I can't even disrespect myself here without someone else stepping in and standing up for me.
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For those of us with limited education...
SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)
Thanks for this explanation neo.
Reading through these posts - Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the forum who went to a community college, lol. :P
I started at the community college then transferred. It was a wise financial choice.
Sounds like you have all the degrees you need to be successful in your career and anything else you want to learn about can be accomplished at the library. If you don't work in anything social service-adjacent you would have no reason to know SES, just like I don't know all your computer jargon stuff. I do know SEO for some reason though. Weird.
Thank you..
This is like the most respectful corner of the internet. I can't even disrespect myself here without someone else stepping in and standing up for me.
I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
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I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
So, you might say... socioeconomic status?
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For those of us with limited education...
SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)
Thanks for this explanation neo.
Reading through these posts - Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the forum who went to a community college, lol. :P
I started at the community college then transferred. It was a wise financial choice.
Sounds like you have all the degrees you need to be successful in your career and anything else you want to learn about can be accomplished at the library. If you don't work in anything social service-adjacent you would have no reason to know SES, just like I don't know all your computer jargon stuff. I do know SEO for some reason though. Weird.
Thank you..
This is like the most respectful corner of the internet. I can't even disrespect myself here without someone else stepping in and standing up for me.
I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
Yep. Everyone knows acronyms that other people don't know.
I knew SES because I have a social science background, but it took me a bit to figure out a lot of acronyms here as well. I had never seen the acronym HCOL before.
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I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
So, you might say... socioeconomic status?
Yes. We used to call it "social class" or just "class" but that became a politically loaded term so we had to make up something longer.
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I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
So, you might say... socioeconomic status?
Yes. We used to call it "social class" or just "class" but that became a politically loaded term so we had to make up something longer.
Hmm, I think that SES actually makes sense compared to using social class. Because someone could be in a higher social class but not be in a higher economic class because of job situations (I am thinking a lot of teachers fit here). Or have achieved a lot of wealth, but the mindset is lower class because of upbringing.
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I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
So, you might say... socioeconomic status?
Yes. We used to call it "social class" or just "class" but that became a politically loaded term so we had to make up something longer.
Hmm, I think that SES actually makes sense compared to using social class. Because someone could be in a higher social class but not be in a higher economic class because of job situations (I am thinking a lot of teachers fit here). Or have achieved a lot of wealth, but the mindset is lower class because of upbringing.
SES makes less sense to me.I understand social class which can be independent of financial status and economic status which is just income or spending. I can’t see how to combine the two. What is high SES? A founding family heritage, Harvard degree, private club memberships, friends with yachts, cousins in the Senate and no job or income OR a self-made million dollar per year salary selling potatoes to McDonalds?
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I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
So, you might say... socioeconomic status?
Yes. We used to call it "social class" or just "class" but that became a politically loaded term so we had to make up something longer.
Hmm, I think that SES actually makes sense compared to using social class. Because someone could be in a higher social class but not be in a higher economic class because of job situations (I am thinking a lot of teachers fit here). Or have achieved a lot of wealth, but the mindset is lower class because of upbringing.
SES makes less sense to me.I understand social class which can be independent of financial status and economic status which is just income or spending. I can’t see how to combine the two. What is high SES? A founding family heritage, Harvard degree, private club memberships, friends with yachts, cousins in the Senate and no job or income OR a self-made million dollar per year salary selling potatoes to McDonalds?
APA's definition makes it seem pretty difficult to measure in absolute terms:
"Socioeconomic status is the position of an individual or group on the socioeconomic scale, which is determined by a combination of social and economic factors such as income, amount and kind of education, type and prestige of occupation, place of residence, and—in some societies or parts of society—ethnic origin or religious background."
https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status
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I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
So, you might say... socioeconomic status?
Yes. We used to call it "social class" or just "class" but that became a politically loaded term so we had to make up something longer.
Hmm, I think that SES actually makes sense compared to using social class. Because someone could be in a higher social class but not be in a higher economic class because of job situations (I am thinking a lot of teachers fit here). Or have achieved a lot of wealth, but the mindset is lower class because of upbringing.
SES makes less sense to me.I understand social class which can be independent of financial status and economic status which is just income or spending. I can’t see how to combine the two. What is high SES? A founding family heritage, Harvard degree, private club memberships, friends with yachts, cousins in the Senate and no job or income OR a self-made million dollar per year salary selling potatoes to McDonalds?
APA's definition makes it seem pretty difficult to measure in absolute terms:
"Socioeconomic status is the position of an individual or group on the socioeconomic scale, which is determined by a combination of social and economic factors such as income, amount and kind of education, type and prestige of occupation, place of residence, and—in some societies or parts of society—ethnic origin or religious background."
https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status
Yeah, it doesn't have a clear delineation, it's more a collectively agreed upon scale within whatever population you are talking about.
I live in two locations and in one, being a 6 figure earning tradesperson definitely makes you very high up on the SES scale, while in the other, which has an enormous proportion of folks with higher education and white collar jobs, even if a tradesperson made a bit more than a government executive with a PhD, they wouldn't be considered higher on the SES scale.
The "socio" aspect is socially determined, not absolutely defined.
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I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
So, you might say... socioeconomic status?
Yes. We used to call it "social class" or just "class" but that became a politically loaded term so we had to make up something longer.
Hmm, I think that SES actually makes sense compared to using social class. Because someone could be in a higher social class but not be in a higher economic class because of job situations (I am thinking a lot of teachers fit here). Or have achieved a lot of wealth, but the mindset is lower class because of upbringing.
SES makes less sense to me.I understand social class which can be independent of financial status and economic status which is just income or spending. I can’t see how to combine the two. What is high SES? A founding family heritage, Harvard degree, private club memberships, friends with yachts, cousins in the Senate and no job or income OR a self-made million dollar per year salary selling potatoes to McDonalds?
APA's definition makes it seem pretty difficult to measure in absolute terms:
"Socioeconomic status is the position of an individual or group on the socioeconomic scale, which is determined by a combination of social and economic factors such as income, amount and kind of education, type and prestige of occupation, place of residence, and—in some societies or parts of society—ethnic origin or religious background."
https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status (https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status)
Not very useful with such a vague definition.
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I didn't know what SES was either - STEM degrees. Without context my first thought would have been a statistics program. ;-)
Never put yourself down about education. One of the smartest people I know left school at 16 for economic (and bad family dynamics) reasons, she never finished high school.
So, you might say... socioeconomic status?
Yes. We used to call it "social class" or just "class" but that became a politically loaded term so we had to make up something longer.
Hmm, I think that SES actually makes sense compared to using social class. Because someone could be in a higher social class but not be in a higher economic class because of job situations (I am thinking a lot of teachers fit here). Or have achieved a lot of wealth, but the mindset is lower class because of upbringing.
SES makes less sense to me.I understand social class which can be independent of financial status and economic status which is just income or spending. I can’t see how to combine the two. What is high SES? A founding family heritage, Harvard degree, private club memberships, friends with yachts, cousins in the Senate and no job or income OR a self-made million dollar per year salary selling potatoes to McDonalds?
APA's definition makes it seem pretty difficult to measure in absolute terms:
"Socioeconomic status is the position of an individual or group on the socioeconomic scale, which is determined by a combination of social and economic factors such as income, amount and kind of education, type and prestige of occupation, place of residence, and—in some societies or parts of society—ethnic origin or religious background."
https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status (https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status)
Not very useful with such a vague definition.
They didn't invent the term, they're just providing a definition for an existing term. That's about as accurate a definition of the term as possible. The fact is that SES is a fundamentally vague social construct.
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I wonder if it could have to do with personality type. I remember a poll years ago about what Myers-Briggs personality type members were... as I recall there was a very high population (over 30%?) of INTJ which is normally one of the rarest personality types. A quick google doesn't seem to show that this personality type is more prone to divorcing, or being divorced, but it wouldn't shock me that if it was from observing relationship discussions on this forum compared to other places I read.
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I wonder if it could have to do with personality type. I remember a poll years ago about what Myers-Briggs personality type members were... as I recall there was a very high population (over 30%?) of INTJ which is normally one of the rarest personality types. A quick google doesn't seem to show that this personality type is more prone to divorcing, or being divorced, but it wouldn't shock me that if it was from observing relationship discussions on this forum compared to other places I read.
It would also be interesting to compare astrological signs of Mustachians vs. the general population.
*ducks and runs from all the angry Myers-Briggs subscribers*
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I wonder if it could have to do with personality type. I remember a poll years ago about what Myers-Briggs personality type members were... as I recall there was a very high population (over 30%?) of INTJ which is normally one of the rarest personality types. A quick google doesn't seem to show that this personality type is more prone to divorcing, or being divorced, but it wouldn't shock me that if it was from observing relationship discussions on this forum compared to other places I read.
It would also be interesting to compare astrological signs of Mustachians vs. the general population.
*ducks and runs from all the angry Myers-Briggs subscribers*
Hey, I'm a Leo and I resent that! ;-)
I actually saw a study many years ago that found that astrology was bunk but when a baby was born did matter. It affected lots of things, including how old they were relative to classmates when they started school, to sports, to how much they were outside during infancy. I certainly saw some of those effects as a summer baby, often youngest in a sports group (therefore smaller and weaker and sometimes less coordinated) to school (again one of the youngest and smallest).
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I wonder if it could have to do with personality type. I remember a poll years ago about what Myers-Briggs personality type members were... as I recall there was a very high population (over 30%?) of INTJ which is normally one of the rarest personality types. A quick google doesn't seem to show that this personality type is more prone to divorcing, or being divorced, but it wouldn't shock me that if it was from observing relationship discussions on this forum compared to other places I read.
It would also be interesting to compare astrological signs of Mustachians vs. the general population.
*ducks and runs from all the angry Myers-Briggs subscribers*
Hey, I'm a Leo and I resent that! ;-)
I actually saw a study many years ago that found that astrology was bunk but when a baby was born did matter. It affected lots of things, including how old they were relative to classmates when they started school, to sports, to how much they were outside during infancy. I certainly saw some of those effects as a summer baby, often youngest in a sports group (therefore smaller and weaker and sometimes less coordinated) to school (again one of the youngest and smallest).
The most ridiculous clickbait headline I saw this week was something like "how each mbti type reacts to the silent treatment".
I didn't click to find out but I assume nobody reacts well to it.
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I wonder if it could have to do with personality type. I remember a poll years ago about what Myers-Briggs personality type members were... as I recall there was a very high population (over 30%?) of INTJ which is normally one of the rarest personality types. A quick google doesn't seem to show that this personality type is more prone to divorcing, or being divorced, but it wouldn't shock me that if it was from observing relationship discussions on this forum compared to other places I read.
It would also be interesting to compare astrological signs of Mustachians vs. the general population.
*ducks and runs from all the angry Myers-Briggs subscribers*
Hey, I'm a Leo and I resent that! ;-)
I actually saw a study many years ago that found that astrology was bunk but when a baby was born did matter. It affected lots of things, including how old they were relative to classmates when they started school, to sports, to how much they were outside during infancy. I certainly saw some of those effects as a summer baby, often youngest in a sports group (therefore smaller and weaker and sometimes less coordinated) to school (again one of the youngest and smallest).
The most ridiculous clickbait headline I saw this week was something like "how each mbti type reacts to the silent treatment".
I didn't click to find out but I assume nobody reacts well to it.
I'm sure it partly depends on who is giving them the silent treatment. With some people it might be a blessing in disguise? ;-)
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I wonder if it could have to do with personality type. I remember a poll years ago about what Myers-Briggs personality type members were... as I recall there was a very high population (over 30%?) of INTJ which is normally one of the rarest personality types. A quick google doesn't seem to show that this personality type is more prone to divorcing, or being divorced, but it wouldn't shock me that if it was from observing relationship discussions on this forum compared to other places I read.
It would also be interesting to compare astrological signs of Mustachians vs. the general population.
*ducks and runs from all the angry Myers-Briggs subscribers*
Hey, I'm a Leo and I resent that! ;-)
I actually saw a study many years ago that found that astrology was bunk but when a baby was born did matter. It affected lots of things, including how old they were relative to classmates when they started school, to sports, to how much they were outside during infancy. I certainly saw some of those effects as a summer baby, often youngest in a sports group (therefore smaller and weaker and sometimes less coordinated) to school (again one of the youngest and smallest).
The most ridiculous clickbait headline I saw this week was something like "how each mbti type reacts to the silent treatment".
I didn't click to find out but I assume nobody reacts well to it.
Hell, the silent treatment is the only goddamn peace and quiet I get (INTJ).
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It's all about transparency...
My wife doesn't know what FIRE is, but she is better with money than me.
We are too old for the RE, I retired a few months ago at 62, and she went inactive in real-estate.
We now have a lot of passive income.
Most of our money came from 40+ years of hard labor.
The passive income is mostly due to her genuine focus research and diligence but I am learning.
I think the key to the money part of the relationship is that both people have to be totally transparent about anything and everything money.
We are both interested. We look at our spreadsheets and talk about every investment ad nauseum. Every day.
It has made us far stronger in every way.
We just moved into a new house in a cheaper area.
She wants a new kitchen and new hardwood... I am handy but this is beyond me. So, I will let her have this one. (I suspect it will be 40 or 50K)
I know that I will enjoy it too.
But in the end. It is OUR decision.
(Just like the new Zero Turn mower and trailer that I wanted).
But... None of it came as a surprise, and all of it is within budgeted expense.
Transparency...
Thanks,
Chris
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If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important.
Can you say more about why a person would have this moral position? Is it because you think God has forbidden divorce? Or is it about thinking that marriage involves a promise to stay together forever, and breaking a promise is wrong? Or something else?
Side note and not necessarily directed at you, my pet peeve in Internet discussions of marriage is the assumption that all marriage vows are the same. Of course not every married person promised to stay together forever. You also hear "but you're breaking your vows!!!" in discussions of extramarital sex, but of course not every married person vowed to be monogamous.
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If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important.
Can you say more about why a person would have this moral position? Is it because you think God has forbidden divorce? Or is it about thinking that marriage involves a promise to stay together forever, and breaking a promise is wrong? Or something else?
Side note and not necessarily directed at you, my pet peeve in Internet discussions of marriage is the assumption that all marriage vows are the same. Of course not every married person promised to stay together forever. You also hear "but you're breaking your vows!!!" in discussions of extramarital sex, but of course not every married person vowed to be monogamous.
And a hell of a lot of marriages aren't religious, so what does one person's moral position on marriage vows have to do with another person's.
My wedding was officiated by a friend who happens to be a judge and who also happens to be twice divorced, and I was marrying a divorced guy.
What does someone else's (presumably).religious stance on marriage have to do with the contract I signed with my spouse? A contract, which last I checked, was largely financial in terms of its implications, not moral.
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If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important.
Can you say more about why a person would have this moral position? Is it because you think God has forbidden divorce? Or is it about thinking that marriage involves a promise to stay together forever, and breaking a promise is wrong? Or something else?
Side note and not necessarily directed at you, my pet peeve in Internet discussions of marriage is the assumption that all marriage vows are the same. Of course not every married person promised to stay together forever. You also hear "but you're breaking your vows!!!" in discussions of extramarital sex, but of course not every married person vowed to be monogamous.
And a hell of a lot of marriages aren't religious, so what does one person's moral position on marriage vows have to do with another person's.
My wedding was officiated by a friend who happens to be a judge and who also happens to be twice divorced, and I was marrying a divorced guy.
What does someone else's (presumably).religious stance on marriage have to do with the contract I signed with my spouse? A contract, which last I checked, was largely financial in terms of its implications, not moral.
Indeed. Both DH and I are atheists. So all religious overlays onto our marriage are unwelcome and frankly offensive.
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If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important.
Can you say more about why a person would have this moral position? Is it because you think God has forbidden divorce? Or is it about thinking that marriage involves a promise to stay together forever, and breaking a promise is wrong? Or something else?
Side note and not necessarily directed at you, my pet peeve in Internet discussions of marriage is the assumption that all marriage vows are the same. Of course not every married person promised to stay together forever. You also hear "but you're breaking your vows!!!" in discussions of extramarital sex, but of course not every married person vowed to be monogamous.
And a hell of a lot of marriages aren't religious, so what does one person's moral position on marriage vows have to do with another person's.
My wedding was officiated by a friend who happens to be a judge and who also happens to be twice divorced, and I was marrying a divorced guy.
What does someone else's (presumably).religious stance on marriage have to do with the contract I signed with my spouse? A contract, which last I checked, was largely financial in terms of its implications, not moral.
Indeed. Both DH and I are atheists. So all religious overlays onto our marriage are unwelcome and frankly offensive.
Yep. I am agnostic. I'm not particularly offended when people try and overlay their religious beliefs onto my life though. If anything I feel kind of sorry for them, sort of like the same way I would feel towards a lost puppy or something similar.
They deserve a certain amount of compassion I think, because they often just subscribe to the same beliefs their parents have, etc. It's not really their fault per se. It's like the information just got placed into their subconscious along the way of life and that's what they grew up believing.
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If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important.
Can you say more about why a person would have this moral position? Is it because you think God has forbidden divorce? Or is it about thinking that marriage involves a promise to stay together forever, and breaking a promise is wrong? Or something else?
Side note and not necessarily directed at you, my pet peeve in Internet discussions of marriage is the assumption that all marriage vows are the same. Of course not every married person promised to stay together forever. You also hear "but you're breaking your vows!!!" in discussions of extramarital sex, but of course not every married person vowed to be monogamous.
And a hell of a lot of marriages aren't religious, so what does one person's moral position on marriage vows have to do with another person's.
My wedding was officiated by a friend who happens to be a judge and who also happens to be twice divorced, and I was marrying a divorced guy.
What does someone else's (presumably).religious stance on marriage have to do with the contract I signed with my spouse? A contract, which last I checked, was largely financial in terms of its implications, not moral.
Indeed. Both DH and I are atheists. So all religious overlays onto our marriage are unwelcome and frankly offensive.
I'm not even atheist, but I'm not religious *about* marriage, and even if I was, that would be a personal thing.
Whatever God I believe in would never condemn my DH for leaving his horrible marriage and building a truly loving, and unfathomably generous one with me. I refuse to believe that the man who this year has changed my bed pan and bathed me for months with a smile on his face and never making me feel like a burden is morally lacking or not committed enough to marriage.
It's literally laughable.
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Interestingly, just Googling turns up a few results that indicate atheists have the lowest rate of divorce in the U.S., far lower than that of any of the Christian identifying groups. I suspect this is due to other factors apart from faith or lack thereof, but it's amusing.
As one of the longest marriages present on this board, WE WIN! :kidding:
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Interestingly, just Googling turns up a few results that indicate atheists have the lowest rate of divorce in the U.S., far lower than that of any of the Christian identifying groups. I suspect this is due to other factors apart from faith or lack thereof, but it's amusing.
As one of the longest marriages present on this board, WE WIN! :kidding:
Just spitballing here, but I felt constant pressure to get married by the Catholic friends and family even before I finished college. I felt no such pressure by my atheist/agnostic friends and family.
I’m glad I didn’t cave into peer pressure to marry either of my long term girlfriends from my early/mid 20s as I’m certain we would have been divorced by now.
(Happily married now to my spouse who I met in my late 20s).
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Interestingly, just Googling turns up a few results that indicate atheists have the lowest rate of divorce in the U.S., far lower than that of any of the Christian identifying groups. I suspect this is due to other factors apart from faith or lack thereof, but it's amusing.
As one of the longest marriages present on this board, WE WIN! :kidding:
Just spitballing here, but I felt constant pressure to get married by the Catholic friends and family even before I finished college. I felt no such pressure by my atheist/agnostic friends and family.
I’m glad I didn’t care into peer pressure to marry either of my long term girlfriends from my early/mid 20s as I’m certain we would have been divorced by now.
(Happily married now to my spouse who I met in my late 20s).
Yeah, no one in my family or friend group ever made me feel like I had to get married.
My mom always told me not to worry too much about marriage, people get married and divorced all the time, just to be extremely careful about who I have kids with, because whether the relationship works out or not, you have to work closely with them for the rest of your life on the most important thing you will ever do.
And also, that your kid will look and talk like them, so it's a huge pain in the ass when your ex is a prick. lol.
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Interestingly, just Googling turns up a few results that indicate atheists have the lowest rate of divorce in the U.S., far lower than that of any of the Christian identifying groups. I suspect this is due to other factors apart from faith or lack thereof, but it's amusing.
As one of the longest marriages present on this board, WE WIN! :kidding:
This is sort of hilarious, considering how often the church emphasises marriage, sex only within marriage, emphasises pre-marital counseling, marriage counseling, and looks down on divorce.
Yet this other group of people who aren't even religious at all have lower divorce rates.
Really makes ya think...like...maybe people who are rational, less prone to simply believe everything they're told, are also more likely to talk with and understand their significant other? Maybe they are more likely to talk in general because they are less afraid of religious judgment? Maybe they carry less religious guilt? Idk.
Or maybe they only get married if THEY want to get married and not because someone else pressured them to get married.
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Interestingly, just Googling turns up a few results that indicate atheists have the lowest rate of divorce in the U.S., far lower than that of any of the Christian identifying groups. I suspect this is due to other factors apart from faith or lack thereof, but it's amusing.
As one of the longest marriages present on this board, WE WIN! :kidding:
This is sort of hilarious, considering how often the church emphasises marriage, sex only within marriage, emphasises pre-marital counseling, marriage counseling, and looks down on divorce.
Yet this other group of people who aren't even religious at all have lower divorce rates.
Really makes ya think...like...maybe people who are rational, less prone to simply believe everything they're told, are also more likely to talk with and understand their significant other? Maybe they are more likely to talk in general because they are less afraid of religious judgment? Maybe they carry less religious guilt? Idk.
Or maybe they only get married if THEY want to get married and not because someone else pressured them to get married.
I'm sure there are a ton of contributing factors, this is massive populational data.
It would be interesting to see what other features correlate with those datasets, age at time of marriage perhaps?
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Interestingly, just Googling turns up a few results that indicate atheists have the lowest rate of divorce in the U.S., far lower than that of any of the Christian identifying groups. I suspect this is due to other factors apart from faith or lack thereof, but it's amusing.
As one of the longest marriages present on this board, WE WIN! :kidding:
This is sort of hilarious, considering how often the church emphasises marriage, sex only within marriage, emphasises pre-marital counseling, marriage counseling, and looks down on divorce.
Yet this other group of people who aren't even religious at all have lower divorce rates.
Really makes ya think...like...maybe people who are rational, less prone to simply believe everything they're told, are also more likely to talk with and understand their significant other? Maybe they are more likely to talk in general because they are less afraid of religious judgment? Maybe they carry less religious guilt? Idk.
Or maybe they only get married if THEY want to get married and not because someone else pressured them to get married.
It helps when one or both spouses do NOT have an ethical system flexible enough to rationalize "god wants me to be happy" or "if I repent, I'm guaranteed forgiveness" or "maybe god is leading me in the direction of this person I'm having an affair with". It also helps when we don't believe or accept the inevitability of being "sinners" as the Bible says we are, and feel no need to demonstrate this point so that the Bible is proven true by our own behavior.
The moral relativism is a feature, not a bug, and such ethical systems are appealing for that reason. It's an intellectual device for shedding personal accountability. Most people hate personal accountability.
A simple secular ethical system based on the wrongness of harming other people prevents a lot of marital issues. It's much harder to rationalize bad behavior when you can see or foresee the harm.
Just heard a story from an old friend. When she caught her husband cheating (both evangelicals), he said "Aw shit, I had the best of both worlds." You can bet he's been repenting in front of a prayer group somewhere, and his behavior is only strengthening everyone else's belief. So it goes.
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Atheist or religious, if you want your marriage to last don't have sex before meeting your husband/wife.
(https://ifstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wolfinger-sex-partners-divorce-figure-1-1.png)
- https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability (https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability)
:P
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I think that religion strongly contributed to my parents getting married too young, because it was the socially acceptable way for my mom to leave the family home. It also contributed to her marriage lasting way longer than it should have, because she felt so much pressure to stay married despite being unhappy.
When I was a teen I was definitely aware that my parents fought a lot and had bouts of sleeping apart, and they ended up separating three months after my younger sister moved out.
I believe that divorce is much less likely when both parties are getting married because they want to, with full knowledge of who their partner is, preferably after living together, and when both people have the option to leave (financially and socially) but choose to stay because they want to.
As a child of divorce, I never want that for my own child, but I would be willing to do it if I felt it was in my and her best interest. Financial knowledge and independence is a key part of being able to leave an unhappy situation. Luckily I have a very strong marriage with very strong communication and shared values and goals, and we are both highly educated and affluent enough, so the odds are in our favour.
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Atheist or religious, if you want your marriage to last don't have sex before meeting your husband/wife.
(https://ifstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wolfinger-sex-partners-divorce-figure-1-1.png)
- https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability (https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability)
:P
On the other hand, if you have had two partners the data suggests going for broke.
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Atheist or religious, if you want your marriage to last don't have sex before meeting your husband/wife.
(https://ifstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wolfinger-sex-partners-divorce-figure-1-1.png)
- https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability (https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability)
:P
Or that you should be the kind of person that no one would ever break up with, lol.
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Atheist or religious, if you want your marriage to last don't have sex before meeting your husband/wife.
(https://ifstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wolfinger-sex-partners-divorce-figure-1-1.png)
- https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability (https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability)
:P
On the other hand, if you have had two partners the data suggests going for broke.
Hahaha, yep!
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Apparently, my husband is beating the odds on this graph as well LOL.
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Apparently, my husband is beating the odds on this graph as well LOL.
Apparently any of us who hooked up with more than 2 people are.
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Apparently, my husband is beating the odds on this graph as well LOL.
Apparently any of us who hooked up with more than 2 people are.
Apparently that graph is showing the number of parters of women. They did not have available data for men. And of course no statistics were applied, and now estimates of variance are presented.