# Will the issue of divorce scare off men from getting married? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 9, 2017, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-issue-of-divorce-scare-off-men-from-getting-married/803991 "2017-12-09T04:26:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-issue-of-divorce-scare-off-men-from-getting-married/803991/301 "2017-12-23T02:39:18Z")
That’s the thing - circumstances change and you can change your mind. In one of my sister’s marriage they never intended to have the husband be a stay-at-home dad, but shortly before their second child was born the company he worked for went under and he was unemployed, my sister still had a good job with good benefits, and their daughter wound up having medical problems - in that case the logical choice was for daddy to stay home with the kids and mom to keep working. It was never anticipated, and I’m not sure _chosen_ is the right word here as there was a lot of pressure to make that particular choice, but there is no doubt that was a MUCH easier choice in the 80’s than it would have been in the 50’s. It was what worked for them and later on my BIL said that he wound up really glad he’d been a stay-at-home dad for part his kids’ childhoods even if the circumstances leading to it had been really unpleasant. And _that_, really, was the goal of feminism, that families could make the choices that worked best for them, that women could be the breadwinners if that made sense, and men be full time parents, and that people could switch roles over time if that made sense or circumstances dictated. Or people could be the traditional gender roles, as those two were for their first child’s first few years. Very few people actually stay on the path they started out on. That’s OK. Or rather, it should be. If you’re in a better place now that’s a good thing even if how you got there wasn’t a fun ride. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-issue-of-divorce-scare-off-men-from-getting-married/803991/302 "2017-12-23T16:02:44Z")
There’s a common saying: “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans”. My story isn’t as dramatic as **Broomstick** ’s or **Spice Weasel** ’s, but it contains a lot of the same results: I/we ended up very different from what our 20-something selves had planned and had expected. But our commitment to each other remains undimmed. Not everybody whose life turns out to have a big plot surprise can keep their relationship together. The big error that most parents of Baby Boomers made, and I suspect many current parents still make, is to implicitly or explicitly teach kids that life will be a smooth progression along a predictable path. That does happen to some people, and it can be a pretty comfy rut when it does. But if I had to place an even money bet on whether some particular 20 yo will get to 75 without a major life surprise / disruption / upheaval I’d bet “no” every time. And make bank doing it. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2017, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-issue-of-divorce-scare-off-men-from-getting-married/803991/303 "2017-12-27T19:11:11Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Has anyone else noticed that whenever a woman keeps repeating on social media, or in a blog, how WONDERFUL her husband is and how she’s SO LUCKY to have him, over and over again, that the marriage almost always ends very abruptly, and very badly? That was true before we had social media - that she’s obviously in huge denial. > > I also kinda sorta feel the same way about moms who go on and on about how much they love their children. We get it, okay? WE.GET.IT. (And how does she act the rest of the time?) :rolleyes: > > p.s. I really haven’t observed men doing this. Afterthought: I have seen men doing that kind of thing - gushing nonstop about how much they love their children - and most of the time with this, they’re divorced and not allowed to see or even contact the kids, for some very good reasons. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-issue-of-divorce-scare-off-men-from-getting-married/803991/304 "2018-01-26T22:36:27Z")
[This article](https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-long-term-happiness-the-wedded-win-the-race-1516981260?mod=e2tw) popped up in my Twitter feed today: “For Long-Term Happiness, the Wedded Win the Race” > [@](#): > > The researchers’ answer to their first question—whether marriage had a merely short-lived effect on happiness—was definitively no. When they controlled for their pre-marriage status, married people were 10% more satisfied than people who were single—and were more likely to stay that way. While cohabiting couples were happier than single folks, they were only three-quarters as happy as marrieds. “Marriage seems to be most important in middle age, when people of every marital status experience a dip in well-being,” the economists wrote. > > Not all marriages are created equal, of course. At least a dozen studies show that marriages characterized by stonewalling, contempt or conflict are bad for us, undermining our sleep, immunity and cardiovascular health. Conversely, one of the most telling findings of the Helliwell study is that a close marital bond spurs long-term happiness. People who named their spouse as their best friend were twice as happy as those who didn’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-issue-of-divorce-scare-off-men-from-getting-married/803991.md?page=15)