I pit people who get married.

[Sierra_Indigo]

@drmark2000

<snip>Well, then, let’s let them all come forward!<snip>

You want to hear from women who were apprehensive about their wedding day? Here’s me.

We got married by a celebrant. It took fifteen minutes. We had three witnesses, none of whom were family. I was not in a splendid white dress, I didn’t march down the aisle to a solemn organ chorus. I stepped up with my partner at my side, we said our vows and were married. I wasn’t the centre of attention. What little attention there was, we both were the centre of. And yet I was still as apprehensive as hell. Was I doing the right thing, making a commitment to this man which is supposed to be for the rest of my life? I was scared on my wedding day. I was shaking for most of it.

But I don’t regret it. Like pinkfreud, I believe that our marriage has made our relationship stronger. It’s changed the tone of our relationship - we’re no longer boyfriend and girlfriend in lust, but we’re partners, best friends and we love each other deeply.

In preview, ditto on what Anastasaeon said.

[Fiveyearlurker]

@drmark2000

Well, then, let’s let them all come forward!

I married my wife at the ripe old age of 22. That was about eight years ago now. I did good.

Do I get the urge to brain her with a frying pan every once in awhile? Sure. But, I haven’t yet, and that’s love.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@drmark2000

Without marriage, you don’t have divorce. Splitting up, however, is a natural thing.

But you put forward the “bad things” of marriage as being a) people splitting up causes them harm, and b) it’s unfair to the children involved. Both of those may be present in a marriage and in cohabitation.

We are rarely monogamous creatures, by nature.

Cite, please. Monogamy seems pretty popular across the world - certainly enough to suggest that we are able to overcome our “nature”, if indeed, as you posit, polygamy is in it.

When we impose the structure of marriage, we create many more complications that would otherwise be unnecessary.

Who imposes it?
But yes, I would agree with you that marriage does create complications - bureaucratic ones. There are forms to be signed, a license to be got. And, in divorce, again there is bureaucracy. I ask you however; unecessary as opposed to what?

50% divioce rate=flip of a coin.

Just because something has the same probability as another event (something you’ve yet to prove, btw) does not mean that the two are related.

Well, then, let’s let them all come forward!

At the time of my posting, one has already.

Uh, huh. So it’s “social mores“ that determine the completely unnatural linking of a couple in matrimony?

Cite that it is unnatural.

Why don’t social mores endorse our natural instincts, as one might think they would?

Social mores don’t endorse our natural instincts. If I see a pretty girl, my first instinct (shamed as i am to admit it) is “wow, I wouldn’t mind having sex with her”. My natural instinct to have sex with her is not endorsed by law, as rape is against it. (note; not saying I want to rape her).

What the hell has happened to us?

It’s called “civilisation”.

Romantic love lasts roughly 2 years, then fades quickly.

Cite, please?

Why do we contrive to trap people when they are at their most vulnerable?

That’s the best time to trap them, of course! Seriously though, who is doing the trapping? Surely both parties are in agreement as to getting married? If not, and you assume that one gender traps the other, i’m afraid you’re sadly mysogynistic. Plus, this particular part of your post, while before I had assumed you were merely an egoist, makes me question your “Clinical Psychologist” status. I suspect that either you have no psychological knowledge at all, or that you failed a (presumably high school level) course in it and are now bitter that the system treated you as the failure you are. So… I guess you communicated something to me. Well done.

If you’re happy, I’m happy.
[/QUOTE]

[BrainGlutton]

@Revenant Threshold

But the marriage industry is not based around that one day - it’s based around the rest of their lives together.

No. The institution of marriage is based on the rest of their lives together. The wedding industry is based on that one day.

[rayh]

@Fiveyearlurker

Do I get the urge to brain her with a frying pan every once in awhile? Sure. But, I haven’t yet, and that’s love.

Does this mean I love drmark2000?

drmark2000, do you have any evidence for the assertions you made in post #16? Or are you just bullshitting to try to make some obsure point?

[liberty3701]

@drmark2000

<snip> Well, then, let’s let them all come forward! <snip>

Bride-to-be checking in here. I have no desire to be the center of attention. I’m trying to convince my groom to wear the white dress and walk down the aisle. While I don’t doubt some women love it, generalizations are just silly. This pit is pretty silly, too.

[RTFirefly]

@Gorgonzola

But I chose to marry another stayer – Sam Stone – who also happens to be someone who is very highly unlikely to engage in the few activities that would make it imperative for me to leave, barring catastrophic frontal lobe dissolution on his part. He also happens to be, as far as I am concerned, the best person on Earth, aside from our daughter.

Gotta say, you found a good one in Sam, as if you needed to be told that after being married to him that long. I’ve never met him in person, but we’ve debated everything under the sun over the past six or seven years, and disagreed about almost all of it. And through it all, he’s been almost unfailingly polite and reasonable. People like that aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. Good on ya for realizing in just six weeks that you’d found a keeper.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@BrainGlutton

No. The institution of marriage is based on the rest of their lives together. The wedding industry is based on that one day.

Ah, good point. I take that back, then.

[Voyager]

If you want to pit weddings so expensive that people go into debt for them, be my guest. Your 50% disinformation has already been refuted.

We got married with only 25 people, very close family and friends, in the Ethical Culture Society, had a nice lunch, and then my wife’s parents invited everyone to their house. 28 years and counting.

Maybe you’re not up to the challenge.

[drmark2000]

@tomndebb

For someone who has made repeated efforts to persuade us of his credentials as a [ *basso profundo * ] Clinical Psychologist [ /*basso profundo *

I have responded to challenges that I am, in fact, what I say I am by stating, unequicocally, and in matter of fact, that I DO possess a PhD in clinical psychology. I have never initiated such discourse, except in my already admittedly unwise choice to include my earned title of “Dr” in my screen name. As I have said so many times before, and undoubtedly will say many times again, the truth remains the truth, regardless of what you decide to believe.

@tomndebb

…you have just demonstrated an absurdly easily refuted statistic and, worse, have demostrated an appalling misunderstanding of the basis of that statistic.*(hint: even when the divorce rate was near 50%, it still included a large number of people who married more than twice, so the number of people who married and then divorced was still less than 50%.

crow has posted some stats, above. Okay, assuming that those figures are accurate, let’s say the divorce rate is in the 40’s, or even high 30’s. Of the remaining percentage, what percent of those consider themselves happier than before they got married? How many of them consider it to have been a good decision?

No matter how we dice the numbers, by and large, marriage sucks for everyone concerned.

@tomndebb

Heck, Mickey Rooney and Liz Taylor probably account for a couple of points just between them.)*

Probably not. You should be thinking more about the ordinary person, who commits (and can only afford to commit) this mistake but once, and then regrets it for the rest of his/her life.

[CanvasShoes]

@drmark2000

Is it fair to another person** (and to any children who may be produced)** to get married when there has been a 50% divorce rate for the past 40 years?

So, it’s preferable to just have children willy nilly OUT of wedlock? Speaking on the children thing alone. That is one of the most compelling reasons TO get married, that is, to protect the interests of the children. When a man and woman have entered into a legally binding union. They can’t just decide they’re “tired of it” where the children are concerned, however the marriage may turn out.

The legality of the marriage helps in making sure that those children are cared for by both parents, at least financially.

Why do we continue to perpetuate this shibboleth of marriage when it is clearly an ineffective and damaging means to bind one man and one woman together in an unnatural monagamous union?

Why the hell do we do it?

A lot of people feel the same about the “any old hole in the fence will do” attitude toward men, women and sexuality. There’s no one “right” answer, there is only what works for each person.

And while you have no cite for your statistics of 50% divorce, if it were a true statistic, that would mean that 50% WORKS. And there, in your own statistic, is at least one of the answers which you are supposedly seeking.

Though really, it just seems you want to gripe that people get married, because it “takes off the market” women whom you think would otherwise be available for you to bed at will and with no strings attached.

[Skywatcher]

@liberty3701

Bride-to-be checking in here. I have no desire to be the center of attention. I’m trying to convince my groom to wear the white dress and walk down the aisle. While I don’t doubt some women love it, generalizations are just silly. This pit is pretty silly, too.

As is the OP and its author.

[Smeghead]

Every word you spew onto this message board proves you to be an even bigger idiot, drmark. I can only assume from this trend that your constantly-threatened (and probably wholly fictional) magnum opus will consist entirely of you bashing your head on your drool-encrusted keyboard for 20,000 characters.

[drmark2000]

@Smeghead

I can only assume from this trend that your constantly-threatened (and probably wholly fictional) magnum opus will consist entirely of you bashing your head on your drool-encrusted keyboard for 20,000 characters.

More than 20,000! You can count on it, as it were!

[Scarlett67]

@Voyager

If you want to pit weddings so expensive that people go into debt for them, be my guest. Your 50% disinformation has already been refuted.

We got married with only 25 people, very close family and friends, in the Ethical Culture Society, had a nice lunch, and then my wife’s parents invited everyone to their house. 28 years and counting.

Yo. Five-minute ceremony at the courthouse, 23 guests (including ourselves and our two attendants), everyone in regular dressy clothes. We both greeted guests as they arrived; no bride hiding in the back room, no frou-frou procession down the aisle. We just all stood around until the Family Court Commissioner showed up. Everyone went out to dinner at a restaurant, then we all hung out at a hotel bar. Our honeymoon was a weekend in Milwaukee. That was nearly 16 years ago and we are bonded way more strongly than when we started. We talk all the time about how lucky and happy we are to have each other and to share our lives. No divorce prospects here, and so far no one has run out of romantic thoughts or actions.

If you’ve been burned and want to eschew marriage in your own life, hey, knock yourself out. But kindly don’t project your disdain onto my marriage, thanks. We’re doing just fine. My marriage most emphatically does NOT suck and I most certainly do NOT regret it. If Mr. S were here he’d say the same.

[crowmanyclouds]

@Smeghead

Every word you spew onto this message board proves you to be an even bigger idiot, drmark. I can only assume from this trend that your constantly-threatened (and probably wholly fictional) magnum opus will consist entirely of you bashing your head on your drool-encrusted keyboard for 20,000 characters.

I predict something between,
Crazy, and not ordinary crazy, mind you, but 20 pages, typewritten, single-spaced, both sides of the page with scribbles in the margins crazy.
and
Like someone taught a monkey to use a computer, and then got the monkey drunk and angry.

CMC fnord!

[Thudlow_Boink]

This is one of those fish-in-a-barrel OP’s, isn’t it?

[What_Exit]

drmark2000, your still here? I figure you would have flamed out by now. Please spare us the Opus. I am sure we will be unable to appreciate your genius.

Oh, your Op, its as stupid as most of your Ops have been.
Jim

[Q.E.D]

@drmark2000

I have responded to challenges that I am, in fact, what I say I am by stating, unequicocally, and in matter of fact, that I DO possess a PhD in clinical psychology.

Whoop-dee-shit. I can make unequivocal, matter-of-fact claims, too. That, and a buck, will get you a cup of coffee.

[thirdwarning]

If you are, as you say, a clinical psychologist, I would most certainly hate to be your patient. People keep telling you that things in their lives are not the way you say they are, and you keep repeating that everybody feels the way you say. Didn’t any of your courses in school teach you to listen? Is this what you do, refuse to hear what’s actually going on with people, then tell them how they feel? I sure hope you’re not actually in practice.

I think I’ve had enough of such silliness for now.