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Aug. 8th, 2009 01:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameI've been thinking a lot about marriage and divorce and kids out of wedlock and all that lately.
BEFORE YOU GET YOUR PANTIES IN A TWIST, I have divorced parents with their own divorced parents, I started having sex at 14 and I had 4 of my own 5 kids out of wedlock. With two different biological fathers. So I am not "throwing stones" or passing judgements on individuals here, ok? If anything I am reflecting on the damage that poor choices have caused in my own family and life history and wondering what it all means for "society".
Count yourself lucky that I'm too tired to write more - this is what I have for now, just random bits of what's floating around in my brain:
-"arranged marriages" in other cultures and strict religions typically work out well and last the lifetime, because the participants have really different expectations and worldviews about what marriage is all about
-it's proven again and again that married people are healthier and happier overall than single people, and FAR, FAR healthier and happier overall than divorced people - EVEN those who remarry
-divorce effects far more people than the two people who are married...it causes friendships to collapse, businesses to close, in-laws to disengage, and obviously it impacts any children in a big way
-my paternal grandparents were the only long term husband and wife I ever observed - they married in the 50s and she died in the late 90s or they would still be together. They fought A LOT. They struggled through medical issues, drinking issues, money problems, temperament clashes, all kinds of crap, I heard them screaming at each other in spanish any time I was over. But he misses her terribly, and THEY HELD THE FAMILY TOGETHER. They were there to lend money or offer a place to stay, because when two people combine resources there is more to go around, but beyond that they were a foundation - everyone went there for holiday gatherings, and reunions, and through phone calls and birthday cards they kept everyone informed on what cousins, aunts, uncles, etc were doing. You also invariably ran into other extended family members while visiting, which you were obligated to do. Since my Ma died and my Pa became a single guy, it's incredible how YEARS pass without any of us talking to each other. The point is I'm really glad they stayed the course. And he was devastated when she was gone, fights or no fights.
-my sister has pointed out that just about every Crazy Thing that happened when we were kids - psycho stepdad, embezzlement stuff, jail stuff, wacked out moving around, all kiiiiiiinds of things including my Dad giving up on life for about 7 years, would have most likely been completely avoided if my mom and Dad had just dealt with each other and made it work. He was way overly controlling, had a bad temper and he went out too much. He was also a good provider and a great dad. The men she ended up with in place of him were as bad or worse all around. She was hard to deal with, depressive and unmotivated. But the women he's ended up with are EASILY twice as bad that way as my mom. I think my sister is right.
-but what does all this MEAN, then, for the unhappy individual, like my friend irl who has no christian beliefs about marriage, is at her sexual peak, is passionate and beautiful and smart and feels unappreciated by her boring and unappreciative husband? Her kids love their house, she is able to stay home, but she's losing her mind and she was going to leave. It was all planned out. Then she had this nervous breakdown about losing her lifestyle - her event organizing, crafting, home with her kids lifestyle where the big house on big land is paid off - and she's realizing she has to...deal with him. Try to make it work, with him. Even though it all makes her stir crazy and miserable sometimes.
-I watch Grant's divorced parents. She has an ongoing stream of health issues, and money problems. They both pass their daughter's kids back and forth and struggle to try to raise them in two households with two sets of rules as single people with jobs and bills. Well, ok she is not single, but she remarried to someone who has cerebral palsy, and never had kids, and needs a lot of emotional support for everyday life, so in many ways she is on her own in the regard I'm talking about. The point is that I think sometimes how SIMPLE it would all seem, if they were still married, to work together. Schedules, rides, money. How much less unhappy he would be, how much more help with health stuff she would have, how much more stable the kids' lives would be. They're both committed to those grandkids, but without any other connection it can just get awkward. And don't even think of bringing the new, remarried guy in for disagreements or everything goes crazy - he has no inherent obligation to them, and it really shows. For him, it gets to a point with the daughter or the grandkids where he's had enough and thinks they need to just not be a part of their life. When that could never be the case for the people with the stronger bond and longer connection.
I guess it is just nuts to me how people give up in America. In the modern world. However it is accurate to say. It is nuts how people think divorce will fix their problems and give them a happier life. Or how it's even an option at all, after you made vows for life. Like what my mother's new husband has just done - she was going through menopause. She was moody and antisocial. She also went with him to the hospital when he had allergy problems and was there in place as the stepmother to his children. Those kids came to my nana and Pa's and got Christmas presents every year. They passed clothes down to my kids. My KIDS THINK OF THAT LOSER AS GRANDPA TODD, and still ask about him. And he "fell in love" with someone from his WoW Guild and left my mom? My mom and his mom are still friends. They worked at the same place, so one of them had to go. They shared one vehicle, so she was out a car, even though she'd have had her own if she hadn't been paying his legal bills. I just don't get it.
I know my mom is hard to live with. Believe me, I know. But you made a vow. You're a part of a larger family and there is interdependence and committment here. And kids.
There are obvious times I think it is better to be done with a spouse, like cheating in many cases (JESUS even said that could excuse a person to go get a divorce if they didn't have the fortitude to work through it), or when they are a danger to you or to the kids.
But even in those instances it's a sad thing that messes up a lot of stuff on a lot of levels. It just becomes the lesser of two evils after a certain point.
I'm going to be downright controversial and say that I think people divorcing like there's no tomorrow is part of the general selfishness of secular modern society - it's part of the value system that says you do what feels good, and stop doing things that don't feel good. And I have certainly been as guilty of following those sorts of guidelines as anyone.
I also have a huge advantage in this thought process of mine because, now, I have the best husband on earth, which allows me whatever bias I want to have. I was having my monthly bout of anemia weakness today and he swung by the grocery store on the way home from a 12 hour shift, and then came home and made me steak and shrooms in a cream sauce before singing to and praying with the baby to get her into bed.
But STILL! :p
Really though...I have divorced friends and relatives I don't want to alienate. I worry about how emphasizing marriage in a society that disallows gay marriage alienates gay people. I don't even always have a strong logical rebuttal to polyamorous or cohabiting arguments for happy freedom for all (though there are some pretty strong numbers to suggest that kind of stuff rarely works out...studies even show people who cohabit before marriage are more likely to divorce - and yes, I am in that group, too).
AND YET. What if it really WAS better for society at large - society being all these separate families and businesses and interdependencies like I've described here, on a much much larger scale - to have the pressure and the judgements and the stigmas alive and well? The kind of thing that, in that movie Walk the Line, made strangers insult June Carter in the grocery store for having gotten a public divorce? I think if my Ma and Pa had grown up now instead of then, they'd never have made it. Divorce just WASN'T AN OPTION, back then, people took marriage too seriously and so it "wasn't done". So they didn't do it. I cried for that poor woman in "The Scarlet Letter", but those people all had the village it takes. Right? RIGHT?!
And then there's also this whole thing with how birth control and abortion give women the freedom to be way more indepedent and also allow marriages to involve a lot less responsibility than they typically did a couple of generations ago. And those things also allow people to spend long portions of their lives responsible for nobody but themselves before attempting marriage or kids at all. And I don't think sex resulting in pregnancies was all a lot of saddling miserable people with unbearable workloads, back in the day, either - I think a lot of it is just a different mindset that comes from depending on each other in a good way.
But depending on anyone else is seen as being a leech in the society we live in today. People are embarassed to ask for help with a new baby, because after all, they CHOSE to have that baby. They're stigmatized for living with relatives or for needing a loan or they keep it a secret that they're on government aid of any sort. Everyone tries to pretend they're not in debt or not struggling, if they are. I think it's a lot of hooey. I think nationalized charity is a big part of all this, too, btw - people think a homeless person or a kid in the hospital or a single mom with a toddler on her hip are all irrelevant to them. Not their problem. There's help out there for them, or there should be. But that's cold...it's dehumanizing.
Just thinking. Thinking, late at night and delerious, which is even worse than normal! Feel free to interject.
BEFORE YOU GET YOUR PANTIES IN A TWIST, I have divorced parents with their own divorced parents, I started having sex at 14 and I had 4 of my own 5 kids out of wedlock. With two different biological fathers. So I am not "throwing stones" or passing judgements on individuals here, ok? If anything I am reflecting on the damage that poor choices have caused in my own family and life history and wondering what it all means for "society".
Count yourself lucky that I'm too tired to write more - this is what I have for now, just random bits of what's floating around in my brain:
-"arranged marriages" in other cultures and strict religions typically work out well and last the lifetime, because the participants have really different expectations and worldviews about what marriage is all about
-it's proven again and again that married people are healthier and happier overall than single people, and FAR, FAR healthier and happier overall than divorced people - EVEN those who remarry
-divorce effects far more people than the two people who are married...it causes friendships to collapse, businesses to close, in-laws to disengage, and obviously it impacts any children in a big way
-my paternal grandparents were the only long term husband and wife I ever observed - they married in the 50s and she died in the late 90s or they would still be together. They fought A LOT. They struggled through medical issues, drinking issues, money problems, temperament clashes, all kinds of crap, I heard them screaming at each other in spanish any time I was over. But he misses her terribly, and THEY HELD THE FAMILY TOGETHER. They were there to lend money or offer a place to stay, because when two people combine resources there is more to go around, but beyond that they were a foundation - everyone went there for holiday gatherings, and reunions, and through phone calls and birthday cards they kept everyone informed on what cousins, aunts, uncles, etc were doing. You also invariably ran into other extended family members while visiting, which you were obligated to do. Since my Ma died and my Pa became a single guy, it's incredible how YEARS pass without any of us talking to each other. The point is I'm really glad they stayed the course. And he was devastated when she was gone, fights or no fights.
-my sister has pointed out that just about every Crazy Thing that happened when we were kids - psycho stepdad, embezzlement stuff, jail stuff, wacked out moving around, all kiiiiiiinds of things including my Dad giving up on life for about 7 years, would have most likely been completely avoided if my mom and Dad had just dealt with each other and made it work. He was way overly controlling, had a bad temper and he went out too much. He was also a good provider and a great dad. The men she ended up with in place of him were as bad or worse all around. She was hard to deal with, depressive and unmotivated. But the women he's ended up with are EASILY twice as bad that way as my mom. I think my sister is right.
-but what does all this MEAN, then, for the unhappy individual, like my friend irl who has no christian beliefs about marriage, is at her sexual peak, is passionate and beautiful and smart and feels unappreciated by her boring and unappreciative husband? Her kids love their house, she is able to stay home, but she's losing her mind and she was going to leave. It was all planned out. Then she had this nervous breakdown about losing her lifestyle - her event organizing, crafting, home with her kids lifestyle where the big house on big land is paid off - and she's realizing she has to...deal with him. Try to make it work, with him. Even though it all makes her stir crazy and miserable sometimes.
-I watch Grant's divorced parents. She has an ongoing stream of health issues, and money problems. They both pass their daughter's kids back and forth and struggle to try to raise them in two households with two sets of rules as single people with jobs and bills. Well, ok she is not single, but she remarried to someone who has cerebral palsy, and never had kids, and needs a lot of emotional support for everyday life, so in many ways she is on her own in the regard I'm talking about. The point is that I think sometimes how SIMPLE it would all seem, if they were still married, to work together. Schedules, rides, money. How much less unhappy he would be, how much more help with health stuff she would have, how much more stable the kids' lives would be. They're both committed to those grandkids, but without any other connection it can just get awkward. And don't even think of bringing the new, remarried guy in for disagreements or everything goes crazy - he has no inherent obligation to them, and it really shows. For him, it gets to a point with the daughter or the grandkids where he's had enough and thinks they need to just not be a part of their life. When that could never be the case for the people with the stronger bond and longer connection.
I guess it is just nuts to me how people give up in America. In the modern world. However it is accurate to say. It is nuts how people think divorce will fix their problems and give them a happier life. Or how it's even an option at all, after you made vows for life. Like what my mother's new husband has just done - she was going through menopause. She was moody and antisocial. She also went with him to the hospital when he had allergy problems and was there in place as the stepmother to his children. Those kids came to my nana and Pa's and got Christmas presents every year. They passed clothes down to my kids. My KIDS THINK OF THAT LOSER AS GRANDPA TODD, and still ask about him. And he "fell in love" with someone from his WoW Guild and left my mom? My mom and his mom are still friends. They worked at the same place, so one of them had to go. They shared one vehicle, so she was out a car, even though she'd have had her own if she hadn't been paying his legal bills. I just don't get it.
I know my mom is hard to live with. Believe me, I know. But you made a vow. You're a part of a larger family and there is interdependence and committment here. And kids.
There are obvious times I think it is better to be done with a spouse, like cheating in many cases (JESUS even said that could excuse a person to go get a divorce if they didn't have the fortitude to work through it), or when they are a danger to you or to the kids.
But even in those instances it's a sad thing that messes up a lot of stuff on a lot of levels. It just becomes the lesser of two evils after a certain point.
I'm going to be downright controversial and say that I think people divorcing like there's no tomorrow is part of the general selfishness of secular modern society - it's part of the value system that says you do what feels good, and stop doing things that don't feel good. And I have certainly been as guilty of following those sorts of guidelines as anyone.
I also have a huge advantage in this thought process of mine because, now, I have the best husband on earth, which allows me whatever bias I want to have. I was having my monthly bout of anemia weakness today and he swung by the grocery store on the way home from a 12 hour shift, and then came home and made me steak and shrooms in a cream sauce before singing to and praying with the baby to get her into bed.
But STILL! :p
Really though...I have divorced friends and relatives I don't want to alienate. I worry about how emphasizing marriage in a society that disallows gay marriage alienates gay people. I don't even always have a strong logical rebuttal to polyamorous or cohabiting arguments for happy freedom for all (though there are some pretty strong numbers to suggest that kind of stuff rarely works out...studies even show people who cohabit before marriage are more likely to divorce - and yes, I am in that group, too).
AND YET. What if it really WAS better for society at large - society being all these separate families and businesses and interdependencies like I've described here, on a much much larger scale - to have the pressure and the judgements and the stigmas alive and well? The kind of thing that, in that movie Walk the Line, made strangers insult June Carter in the grocery store for having gotten a public divorce? I think if my Ma and Pa had grown up now instead of then, they'd never have made it. Divorce just WASN'T AN OPTION, back then, people took marriage too seriously and so it "wasn't done". So they didn't do it. I cried for that poor woman in "The Scarlet Letter", but those people all had the village it takes. Right? RIGHT?!
And then there's also this whole thing with how birth control and abortion give women the freedom to be way more indepedent and also allow marriages to involve a lot less responsibility than they typically did a couple of generations ago. And those things also allow people to spend long portions of their lives responsible for nobody but themselves before attempting marriage or kids at all. And I don't think sex resulting in pregnancies was all a lot of saddling miserable people with unbearable workloads, back in the day, either - I think a lot of it is just a different mindset that comes from depending on each other in a good way.
But depending on anyone else is seen as being a leech in the society we live in today. People are embarassed to ask for help with a new baby, because after all, they CHOSE to have that baby. They're stigmatized for living with relatives or for needing a loan or they keep it a secret that they're on government aid of any sort. Everyone tries to pretend they're not in debt or not struggling, if they are. I think it's a lot of hooey. I think nationalized charity is a big part of all this, too, btw - people think a homeless person or a kid in the hospital or a single mom with a toddler on her hip are all irrelevant to them. Not their problem. There's help out there for them, or there should be. But that's cold...it's dehumanizing.
Just thinking. Thinking, late at night and delerious, which is even worse than normal! Feel free to interject.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-08 08:57 pm (UTC)The thing is, I wonder how in the world a culture is supposed to move toward anything as one without a unifying standard. You know? I am very against forcing any religion on anyone, and very against governments disallowing freedoms that would mean they could control public opinion. But without anything functioning for society as religion has in generations past, there's no way to have a generalized, broad spectrum shift in any direction. Or so it seems to me.
This is me talking hypothetically because obviously I believe my religion is true or it wouldn't be my religion.
But it really is a real, non-hypothetical conundrum for me...because even seeing it as true, I genuinely DO NOT want to try to mandate or force it on anybody. I'd like it if people found what I see as the Truth for themselves but I'm not going to try to shove them in that direction. And I am really horrified by governments limiting things like differing beliefs, or orientations, or free speech in general...
So how can a culture shift, without a faith or creed or whatever that guides public opinion?
Also, I have friends who mean the world to me. But I have a sort of pet peeve about people equating them with family. This is because I've watched, over and over, as stepparents and in-laws and related extended peeps cease to be a part of peoples' lives anymore when divorces happen. What's left, is almost always blood, and/or people who've legally adopted or otherwise committed themselves in more than a "nice feelings, spoken promises" sort of way...my mother and I had it out about whether or not her soon to be x husband's kids were my Nana and Pa's grandkids, laura and I's siblings, etc, and she thought I was so cold hearted and judgemental and terrible because I told her I liked them, I would surely grow to love them, and yes they were "part of the family" - but she has to understand that you can't introduce an elementary schooler to a 20 something and say "this is your sister; you'll see her twice a year for as long as her Dad and I stay on good terms" and expect that to mean what "sister" means when we're talking about Laura and I. My kids have already loved and lost "Grandpa Jud" and "Grandpa Todd" and I've already decided whoever comes along next is first name only, for them.
I guess my point is, I think it is ok for actual family to trump the metaphorical family we all are to each other in certain ways. I love the sentiment, and I try hard to live it out as a Christian, through giving and how I treat people I encounter in my life; we even have a "We Are All One Human Family" bumper sticker, because that's the Key West slogan and I can dig it. And yet...it is usually the actual blood/legal family that has no choice but to put up with you when you've put everyone in your life through hell for extended periods, or had one too many emergencies for anyone else to deal with, or whatever. Good friends and strong communities can rarely be called upon to do the really sacrificial things families are obligated to. When they do - it is incredible, and even that much MORE meaningful because they CHOSE to do, out of sheer love. And I have experienced that, too. I am just saying that in addition to good will and acceptance among the population, the huge lack of respect for marriage that you mentioned is also a major specific problem area, that I feel would be leftover as an existing problem even if the one big human family thing came to pass...