Quote from: TDoS on Jan 31, 2025, 09:52 AM

Quote from: RE on Jan 30, 2025, 11:08 PMRoughly 40% of 1st marriages end in divorce, so regardless how you meet and get to know your spouse prior to the wedding, there's a pretty good chance it won't last.

A near majority qualifier on your more absolutist original statement if there ever was one. So much for sniff testing  IRL being the be all and end all of trust I guess.

Never said it was the end all and be all.  Only that it's a minimum requirement.  A necessary but not sufficient condition.

QuoteSo your interpretation of marriage started off as just a way to get action regularly, as opposed to a partner, thick and thin, till death due us part?

My ex was the one who wanted to marry.  I think she was just enamored of the IDEA of marriage, not the reality of it.  26 years old, wanted to get the wedding dress and parade down the aisle, etc.  I went along with it because that was the easiest thing to do.  We had been dating and living together for almost 3 years.  If I hadn't said yes, we probably would have broken up, which of course is what we did later.

I wouldn't blame just my mom, both my parents left me with a distaste for marriage.  They divorced when I was 10, a rather ugly divorce and very hard on me.  Went instantly from upper middle class which in Brasil got you maids and a cook and driver from the favelas to lower middle class child of a working mom in the FSoA with just a HS education who was a clerical worker after the divorce.  Before she was just a housewife for 20 years.  Very tough  on her.

Anyhow, my goals in life had little to do with why marriage wasn't a good fit.  After numerous relationships with women generally lasting anywhere from about 6 months to 2 years, I found the same things to be true with all of them.  Mainly that after a certain point in the relationship they felt like they could tell me how to behave and what to do. lol.  When I didn't change my behavior to suit them, arguments ensued followed by breakup.  Then over time I lost the motivation to even start a relationship, the sex wasn't worth the misery I knew would eventually come with it.  So around the time I moved to the Last Great Frontier I quit dating entirely.  It was very liberating.

Some people are cut out for marriage, others are not.  As I got older after 30 or so, most of the people I knew were married.  None of them seemed particularly happy.  By my 40s some were divorced, some still married because divorcing was too expensive and selling the house would be necessary etc etc.  So I definitely didn't envy them.  A couple of guys I know have lived in bad marriages for years, that is hell on earth, the worst outcome I think.

If I could remake society, I wouldn't have lifetime marriages.  I'd raise all the kids communally, Kibbutz style.  People who are good with kids would raise them, that would be their job.  Then people could stay together as long as they were happy, break up if not.  No jointly held property.  No divorce lawyers!  :)

RE