What is the cause of the high divorce rate?

[Lethevich]

If marriage is a prison then I'm throwing away the keys...

[owlice]

Mirror Image, marriage may not mean anything to you, but it does NOT hold that marriage does not mean anything. It means a great deal to many others, including those who cannot enter into it. There are people fighting for the right to marry; some of these people are raising children together, and want the protections that marriage brings to a family.

You may claim that a piece of paper is meaningless, but I have found that there are many pieces of paper which mean a great deal.

No one has said people cannot enter into a loving relationship without marriage -- gay couples in many places, for example, bear this out -- but please do not try to claim for others that marriage is meaningless. It clearly isn't, or they wouldn't marry.

If 50% of marriages end in divorce, it means that 50% of marriages don't.

[Florestan]

If you love somebody, then you don't need a piece of paper saying that you do.

That's a strawman. Marriage is not about a piece of paper sanctioning love.

The point I'm making is you don't need a piece of paper to be in a committed, loving, healthy relationship. Like I said, love triumphs over everything.

That might be true but the argument can easily be turned upside-down: a committed, loving and healthy relationship has nothing to fear from a piece of paper, has it? If love triumphs over everything, then marriage is no obstacle for it. 

[Lethevich]

We need an angry loners thread

[Scarpia]

That's not the point I'm making, Scarps. The point I'm making is you don't need a piece of paper to be in a committed, loving, healthy relationship. Like I said, love triumphs over everything.

If I had to pick one simple answer, I'd say the highlighted notion above is the reason for the high divorce rate in the US.  The notion that if you find your true love it will automatically work.  In the long term it only works if there is effort and committement, and that is what marriage is, piece of paper or no piece of paper.  If you are committed to such a relationship the official sanction (the piece of paper) is an advantage, since various legal rights and privileges come along with it which are of practical importance.

[Florestan]

If I had to pick one simple answer, I'd say the highlighted notion above is the reason for the high divorce rate in the US.  The notion that if you find your true love it will automatically work.  In the long term it only works if there is effort and committement, and that is what marriage is, piece of paper or no piece of paper.  If you are committed to such a relationship the official sanction (the piece of paper) is an advantage, since various legal rights and privileges come along with it which are of practical importance.

QFT. Curiously enough, the ueber-Romantic slogan quoted above comes from someone who, judging by his musical tastes, doesn't have much use for Romanticism. 

[MishaK]

A mental connection is what I'm talking about. She knows you from the inside and you know her from the inside. You both connect with similar ideas, thoughts, you both know what the other person has gone through in their life to get them to where they are today, etc.

That's actually not a very good recipe there, MI. If you are too similar, you may end up boring each other to death. A relationship is far more successful if you complement each other and can kindle each other's interests in new things that any one of you individually was not aware of. There was a recent research piece I can't find now that suggested that couples stay together for as long as the partner can keep meaningfully enriching the other person's life experience. If you're too similar I don't see how that would work for very long.

[DavidRoss]

The US divorce rate doubled between 1950 and 1980 (television a factor?  along with post-war women's lib?) but has declined steadily since (decreasing stigmatization of unmarried mothers?).  http://www.divorcereform.org/03statab.html

[MishaK]

The US divorce rate doubled between 1950 and 1980 (television a factor?  along with post-war women's lib?) but has declined steadily since (decreasing stigmatization of unmarried mothers?).  http://www.divorcereform.org/03statab.html

I don't have the scientific data to back it up, but my guess is rather the destigmatization of single women in their late 20s and onwards, as well as their emancipation in the sense of being able to sustain a career on their own. Women are now no longer dependent on men to provide for them financially and are no longer pressured into marriages by age 30. I know so many older women of my parents' and grandparents' generations who lived their lives in miserable marriages because they were getting "old" and were still single and so were pressured into marrying the next guy who came along. I bet that generation accounts for the significant surge in divorces between 1950 and 1980 as divorce got de-stigmatized. That pressure to marry by age 30 at the latest doesn't seem nearly as strong any more as it used to be.

[mc ukrneal]

One of the biggest reasons that people divorce today is money.  I'd have to look it up, but I'd be willing to bet it's the #1 reason. Part (all?) of it comes down to values again: keeping budgets or not, spending or not, saving or not, how to track money or not, etc. Most people do not spend enough time on this before getting married. It is impacted by who earns more (control), roles of each, debt or assets each may bring to the table, cost of the wedding, etc.  Lack of agreement and openness on this can kill a marriage very fast...

[MishaK]

One of the biggest reasons that people divorce today is money.  I'd have to look it up, but I'd be willing to bet it's the #1 reason. Part (all?) of it comes down to values again: keeping budgets or not, spending or not, saving or not, how to track money or not, etc. Most people do not spend enough time on this before getting married. It is impacted by who earns more (control), roles of each, debt or assets each may bring to the table, cost of the wedding, etc.  Lack of agreement and openness on this can kill a marriage very fast...

Actually, I recall seeing a survey recently that showed that the absolute No.1 reason for divorces is one party absolutely not being able to deal with the obnoxious, overbearing in-laws, and the other side refusing or unable to properly choose between spouse and parents. 

[Florestan]

One of the biggest reasons that people divorce today is money.  I'd have to look it up, but I'd be willing to bet it's the #1 reason. Part (all?) of it comes down to values again: keeping budgets or not, spending or not, saving or not, how to track money or not, etc. Most people do not spend enough time on this before getting married. It is impacted by who earns more (control), roles of each, debt or assets each may bring to the table, cost of the wedding, etc.  Lack of agreement and openness on this can kill a marriage very fast...

Actually, I recall seeing a survey recently that showed that the absolute No.1 reason for divorces is one party absolutely not being able to deal with the obnoxious, overbearing in-laws, and the other side refusing or unable to properly choose between spouse and parents. 

Actually. it boils down to a very simple and inescapable fact: relationships in general and marriages in particular do not operate in a social vacuum, romantic --- or rather teenage-ish --- sloganeering about love conquering all notwithstanding. Yes, marriage is a social arrangement --- and all those who scorn it should ask themselves why is it that basically each and every civilized society under the sun felt the need to institute it, under one form or another. To discard the collective experience and wisdom of centuries of historical evolution in the name of "true love which doesn't need a piece of paper to be true" may be an attractive stance for an immature mind, but it betrays either complete misunderstanding, or plain ignorance, of what society is about in the first place.

Love? Very well and most commendable. But how about raising children? How about earning money for a living? How about "keeping budgets" and "spending"? How about coping with "obnoxious, overbearing in-laws"? How about integrating love in the society in which one lives? Or maybe "love which conquers all" doesn't bother to stoop to such materialistic preoccupations? Granted, these are much less pleasant things than gazing at each other in rapture, or reaching the heights of sexual ecstacy, or  exchanging informed comments about Ravel's music --- yet they are hard, harsh and inescapable facts of life which must be faced and worked through by any adult human being worth this name.

History is full of "true lovers" whose love was supposed to "triumph over everything" and instead ended in disaster not only for both of them but also for others as well --- in this respect, a free relationship is no less prone to danger and failure than a marriage. Actually, we discuss only data about marriage failure, but I wonder: are there any statistics about the fate of non-marriage relationships? Divorces are recorded because they are official; how about unrecorded "divorces", i.e. broken "free relationships"? I'd suspect they are much more frequent than divorces...

[MishaK]

Actually. it boils down to a very simple and inescapable fact: relationships in general and marriages in particular do not operate in a social vacuum, romantic  [...]

Love? Very well and most commendable. But how about raising children? How about earning money for a living? How about "keeping budgets" and "spending"? How about coping with "obnoxious, overbearing in-laws"? How about integrating love in the society in which one lives?

A relationship is always a work in progress that requires both partners to be active participants all of the time. The moment you become passive, you effectively give up on the relationship. The social context, whether or not you want to raise children, or whatever obstacles you may face, is immaterial. The main challenge is to be constantly working on the relationship, which means constantly continuing to discover yourself and your partner. Re: the obnoxious and overbearing in-laws, that too is an outside challenge that both must cope with. The one by working to find an accomodation with the in-laws, the other by emancipating him/herself from his/her parents and drawing clear borders that show the parents that they do not have controlling voting rights within this relationship. Because of the nature and level of emotional baggage from child-parent relationships, this is often very difficult to do. It may be one of the most difficult challenges for couples, hence the leading cause of divorce, ahead of financial troubles. You don't realize that when you marry, to some extent you marry the entire family that comes attached to your spouse even if he/she is very different from his/her parents.

[greg]

A relationship is always a work in progress that requires both partners to be active participants all of the time. The moment you become passive, you effectively give up on the relationship.

Sounds like too much of a pain...

[MishaK]

Sounds like too much of a pain...

Everything that is worthwhile takes time and effort. Such is life.

[Scarpia]

Sounds like too much of a pain...

Yes, slouching in front of a television as your life passes you buy is a much better life strategy.   

[greg]

Yes, slouching in front of a television as your life passes you buy is a much better life strategy.   

Sure, that is the only other alternative. I completely implied that.

[Henk]

Sure, that is the only other alternative. I completely implied that.

You just have given Scarpia his knock-out.

But is investment in a relation really the only way of having a meaningful life? Sounds rather as a waste to me. What about creation, what about listening to music, what about giving shape to your own life?

Henk

[greg]

You just have given Scarpia his knock-out.

But is investment in a relation really the only way of having a meaningful life? Sounds rather as a waste to me. What about creation, what about listening to music, what about giving shape to your own life?

Henk

Could be anything. I probably find the most satisfaction in learning, for example. A lot of people put the whole meaning of their existence into relationships, which is kind of sad.

[Scarpia]

Sure, that is the only other alternative. I completely implied that.

Sorry if I was out of bounds,, but after your frequently repeated plan to attain happiness by chemically induced suppression of sexual desire, you seem to be taking apathy to the level of an art form.