So here's what I got out of this piece:
- Marriage requires too much work.
- So much work, in fact, that most people just don't have the temperament for it.
- Women are especially unsatisfied because they are expected to initiate and/or do most of that work.
- We in the U.S. tend to overemphasize the importance of marriage, and have an unrealistic view of it, leading us to have a high divorce rate.
- Married couples in their 40s and up rarely, if ever, have sex.
It's scary if you think she's saying that this breakdown is inevitable, that after a time your marriage just wears out and you can't bring yourself to rekindle it yet again.
But I can't believe that, because among all the reasons she lists for staying married (for the dual income, for the kids, to avoid being alone, to prove that we can) she never once mentions her actual husband.
So, I do think post-divorce anti-marriage screeds tend to be a little reductionist: my marriage failed, so marriage is a bad idea. But it didn't make me throw up.
It didn't make me throw up, but I did happen to think that she is exactly the kind of person for whom marriage would not work. I expect a follow-up essay on why people shouldn't have children.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that. She seems very pro-kids. And I think it's because kids are a very different kind of work -- you may have to negotiate about their curfew or what they eat for dinner, but you don't have to negotiate for, or earn, their love and trust. Those are yours to lose. I think the effort of rebuilding that when it's dwindled so far is what makes some marriages irretrievable.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really interesting article.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts are that she cheated on her husband, he found out and threw her out (she mentions it in the video), and now she's trying to talk about what made her so unhappy so that she cheated. Very sad situation.
I don't usually read her work so I don't know if she is generally pro-kids, but I didn't necessarily get that impression from the article. Her kids are young. Wait until she really has to work to figure them out. She might, like a lot of parents, throw her hands up when they become teenagers because parenting teens takes extraordinary patience and a willingness to relinquish parental power/authority in some areas (but not all); the rewards are neither immediate nor obvious. I see it happen a lot (the giving up begins slowly when they're preteens and descends quickly) and it makes me sad for all concerned.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a lot of people go into marriage without realistic expectations about what it will take to succeed, but that alone isn't the problem. The problem comes when one is unwilling or unable to adjust to the reality--that's the "work" part.
Wow, that's a very direct article. I do think that marriage requires a LOT of work. And that a lot of people go into it with unrealistic expectations. But if you go into it with love and an understanding that there will be ups and downs and that BOTH partners have to be willing to work through those ups and downs and not give up, then I think you can make it. Life's hard but it's better with someone to share the load.
ReplyDelete