Down with Divorce

[Kenny]

How is your viewpoint different? Do you mean in nature? Or in content?

In nature and content. I would think you are offering a viewpoint based on your philosophical worldview and perhaps personal experience. I offer mine on my worldview and my personal experience through the divorce of my parents and the multiplicity of marriage counseling I have done.

 

[LuisDantas]

Marriages should have term limits (3-5 years) where the participants must actively choose to extend the commitment. They should constantly evaluate and reevaluate the legal, financials and personal entanglement, and decide whether the partnership is working to support their needs as an individual, as a parent, as a partner, and whatever else the persons involved deem important. Get rid of divorce. Give us re-enlistments!

Fairly good an idea as ideas go, but I think it would have somewhat difficult consequences.

Take for instance the association of marriage with the idea of lasting stability. I don't know how many people are prepared to face an implicit challenge to that expectation every now and then.

I personally think that it would be healthy, but I expect many to be scared.

It is also interesting to consider that children are not usually raised to consider their parent's eventual separation as a real possibility. Perhaps they should be.

 

[ppp]

In nature and content. I would think you are offering a viewpoint based on your philosophical worldview and perhaps personal experience.

And on the consensus views of those who have studied real world cause and effect. Which is neither philosophical worldview or personal experience.

I offer mine on my worldview and my personal experience through the divorce of my parents and the multiplicity of marriage counseling I have done.

This seems more along the lines of personal testimony. Would you disagree?

 

[ppp]

Fairly good an idea as ideas go

I like that turn of phrase. It's delightful.

but I think it would have somewhat difficult consequences.

Take for instance the association of marriage with the idea of lasting stability. I don't know how many people are prepared to face an implicit challenge to that expectation every now and then.

That is an excellent point, and one that should have been raised earlier. There would need to be a shift in that association. From marriage as a cause of stability to marriage being one tool in the Stability Toolbox.

It is also interesting to consider that children are not usually raised to consider their parent's eventual separation as a real possibility. Perhaps they should be.

I agree. Moreover, their security, stability, social status and sense of love should not be contingent on their parent's relationship. Not even under the system of marriage as it stands today.

 

[Heyo]

By the way, are you married?

No, and no intention to nor had I ever.
(And it's not that I have a bad example in my parents, they are married for over 60 years.)

 

[Trailblazer]

No, and no intention to nor had I ever.
(And it's not that I have a bad example in my parents, they are married for over 60 years.)

Might I ask why you have never had intention of getting married nor have you ever had one?

I never had an intention of getting married either, it just happened quite suddenly because I fell in love.
I was married for 37 years till I was widowed last year, and it still feels strange living alone.
Of course I have my eight cats, but that is not the same as having a person to talk to.

I wonder if I will ever get married again, but I cannot see that happening because my interests and lifestyle are so different from most people.
It is not mostly my religious beliefs that make me incompatible with men I meet, it is much more than that. I cannot see myself married to a Bahai, even though my late husband was a Baha'i, because most Baha'is are not like he was.

I also don't know if I want to get married again since I am totally self-sufficient and I don't really feel lonely.
I would only want to marry if I fell in love again, and only for companionship.

 

[Heyo]

Might I ask why you have never had intention of getting married nor have you ever had one?

I guess I'm a child of my time. I'm a little bit too young to be a "real" 60s child, I was six in '68 but there was no internet and the Zeitgeist came a little later in the province. I questioned all institutions and traditions and found most of them to be nonsense or at least outdated. And I stuck to those insights, unlike many of my contemporaries who talked the same talk in their youth but fell back into the same rituals they learned from their parents.
And I'm not the personality type for marriage. I'm introvert but very independent.

 

[Trailblazer]

I guess I'm a child of my time. I'm a little bit too young to be a "real" 60s child, I was six in '68 but there was no internet and the Zeitgeist came a little later in the province. I questioned all institutions and traditions and found most of them to be nonsense or at least outdated. And I stuck to those insights, unlike many of my contemporaries who talked the same talk in their youth but fell back into the same rituals they learned from their parents.
And I'm not the personality type for marriage. I'm introvert but very independent.

I guess you live in Canada.
I am a lot like you in questioning institutions and traditions, and although I am 10 years older, I am very young for my age. I was a child of the 60s and I was a hippie when the hippie movement first began. I lived in upstate NY back then and I was at Woodstock festival in 1969.

Fast forward a year and I went off to college in southern California and found out about the Baha'i Faith and joined in my freshman year. After that my studies became my primary concern and I was never very involved in Baha'i activities, although I always believed it was the truth. I feel the same way now, 53 years later.

I'm also an introvert but very independent, so maybe I'm not the personality type for marriage. I was never looking to get married, but when I was 32 my late husband showed up at my doorstep and proposed, and we got married three weeks later. The rest is history. Suffice to say, we had much in common and we were in love, and we were both Baha'is, so that is what kept us together for 37 years against all odds.

Even though I am an introvert and very independent, I depended on my husband for certain things and we did everything together, so now I am not comfortable doing things alone, like eating out by myself or going on vacations by myself. The odd thing is that I don't feel lonely yet a part of me thinks it would be nice to get married again. However, I don't think I will ever find a man I am compatible with, not unless God intervenes and puts someone in my life, so I am leaving it to fate.

 

[Kenny]

And on the consensus views of those who have studied real world cause and effect. Which is neither philosophical worldview or personal experience.

I think we are looking at the same animal but coming at it from a different angle. Real world cause and effect produces knowledge from which we gain wisdom to form a philosophical view. The first gives birth to the second (in my understanding).

This seems more along the lines of personal testimony. Would you disagree?

Yes, I would disagree yet they are connected. Yes, I had personal experience. But then I acquired knowledge which gave birth to wisdom and realized how my personal experience was indeed verified by knowledge.

Through study, understanding and practical application in the giving of marital counseling, I have found my knowledge and practical application to have value.

If anything, 49 years of marriage also speak of knowing something. I may not know it all, but you could say living, along with knowledge, has taught me something. Or as they say, “I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but I can still cut”.

 

[Estro Felino]

What women are these? I think most men and women are for premarital sex, although I am one of those women who would never engage in it.

Men are not "forced" to get married, they can just find another woman to have sex with.
All men I have met on dating sites move on after they find out I don't have sex out of wedlock.
That's fine by me since I don't have any interest in men who can't wait till they get married to have sex.

My university was not that far from a US Naval Base...and I have seen so many female students sleeping with American soldiers.
Even teenagers sleeping with 25 year old men. Also relatives of mine.
I guess we are much more disinhibited...over here.

 

[Trailblazer]

My university was not that far from a US Naval Base...and I have seen so many female students sleeping with American soldiers.
Even teenagers sleeping with 25 year old men. Also relatives of mine.
I guess we are much more disinhibited...over here.

Where is "over here"?

 

[Estro Felino]

Where is "over here"?

Italy.
But Europe in general, I'd say.

 

[Trailblazer]

Italy.
But Europe in general, I'd say.

Probably women in Europe are less inhibited than in the United States but I am sure there are women here doing the same things as you described.
Way back when I was a teenager my friends were sleeping with college boys but I never did.

 

[ppp]

I think we are looking at the same animal but coming at it from a different angle. Real world cause and effect produces knowledge from which we gain wisdom to form a philosophical view. The first gives birth to the second (in my understanding).

Real world cause and effect sometimes produces knowledge. And sometimes produces BS. And ofttimes produces a mixture of the two. Your resume and self-evaluation of yourself is insufficient grounds to consider you credible. You are literally calling yourself learned and telling me that I should feel compelled to agree based on nothing more than the your say-so.

No.

You are not self-verifying. What else do you got?

 

[Heyo]

I guess you live in Canada.

Germany.

I'm also an introvert but very independent, so maybe I'm not the personality type for marriage. I was never looking to get married, but when I was 32 my late husband showed up at my doorstep and proposed, and we got married three weeks later. The rest is history. Suffice to say, we had much in common and we were in love, and we were both Baha'is, so that is what kept us together for 37 years against all odds.

I have lived together with women but the question never came up. In fact, I still share ownership of this house we bought together though we live our lives apart from each other now.
And there was never any societal or religious pressure to get married. I guess Europe has taken the '60s more serious than you did?

 

[Trailblazer]

And there was never any societal or religious pressure to get married. I guess Europe has taken the '60s more serious than you did?

I think it is more likely that the United States is a Christian society for the most part, so marriage is the acceptable norm, although many people go against that nowadays and live together out of wedlock.

I recall meeting a Baha'i on Baha'i Forums some time ago and he lived in Germany. He told me that most people in Germany are not religious. Although he found a woman and got married she was not a Baha'i.

 

[flowerpower]

Marriages should have term limits (3-5 years) where the participants must actively choose to extend the commitment. They should constantly evaluate and reevaluate the legal, financials and personal entanglement, and decide whether the partnership is working to support their needs as an individual, as a parent, as a partner, and whatever else the persons involved deem important. Get rid of divorce. Give us re-enlistments!

Creative little take on the concept.

Skyrocketing divorce rates aren't a good thing.

People in The West seem be be able to construct whatever kinds of legally sanctioned relationships they want nowadays - the trend is that anything goes and that's probably the attitude that has driven divorce rates up more than anything.

It's a shame something as beautiful as marriage doesn't seem to be as sacred as it once was.

 

[1213]

Marriage is not a life sentence because people can get a divorce if they choose to, and that is what many people do.

Maybe so, and maybe the life sentence is not a good word in this case, but the intention is that it is life long, at least in Christianity.

 

[Kenny]

Real world cause and effect sometimes produces knowledge. And sometimes produces BS. And ofttimes produces a mixture of the two.

Yes… and we have to figure out which of the three it is.

Your resume and self-evaluation of yourself is insufficient grounds to consider you credible.

I’m not trying to convince you of capacity. Just informing. One could ask, why should I trust your position? What background do you have? What training have you gone through?

You are literally calling yourself learned and telling me that I should feel compelled to agree based on nothing more than the your say-so.

No. I think you are misinterpreting what I am saying. In no way am I trying to compel you to agree with what I am saying. I am offering a viewpoint. Even though it is listed in a “debate” forum, I am not really trying to debate, just offering a perspective

No.

Not sure what “no” is towards.

You are not self-verifying.

OK

What else do you got?

Nothing… unless you have a question to ask… nothing else to offer.

One thing I have learned in counseling is that when a person is closed to any options, suggestions, or helpful point because they have already made their decision… no need to continue.

 

[ppp]

It's a shame something as beautiful as marriage doesn't seem to be as sacred as it once was.

I think you're imagining something that never was.