Posted on 08/30/2005 10:14:07 PM PDT by tbird5
I've seen two movies lately, one very funny ( Wedding Crashers ) and one infuriatingly stupid ( Must Love Dogs ), but both baffling in their lockstep to happily-ever-afterland. Why does romantic love, the kind that doesn't occur in life except fleetingly and disappointingly, still play to the crowds? I give the impecunious boat-builder and the petit bourgeois schoolteacher five years at the outside -- he's not going to keep her in end-tables. And Daddy's Little Girl will have ditched the immature arriviste long before that.
Why, in an era when men and women can barely achieve détente, in a First World where everyone suffers from attachment disorder, are we still ponying up for marriage? On the HBO series Six Feet Under a show I adore because all the characters behave abominably at all times, yet never manage to have more than a millisecond of fun men and women can't stay married or remain faithful from one week to the next. We're not quite that bad, we HBO viewers, but we're getting there.
I'm no historian, but it doesn't take a Paul Johnson (author of A History of the American People ) to tell us why it's so hard to stay married. We live too long. Marriage is a naturally polarizing process that causes one person to detest, over time, what the other person loves. Only after a couple divorces do they move back toward the center, where their interest in one another began. (I knew a man who left his wife because of the endless chintz and throw pillows. I went to visit him once in his new Bauhaus apartment, but he couldn't really talk he was too distracted by trying to choose the right tassels for his new Salamandre curtains.)
(Excerpt) Read more at hartfordadvocate.com ...
Maybe she hopes she can pick up a husband once that happens...but for her, interest rates will always be low.
Haven't noticed that. My wife and I are alike on most levels. We like books (esp. SF/F), good food, travel and, *ahem!*. We're both conservative.
We differ slightly - my wife was far more independent than I - she ran off to see the world at 15(!), and has been a purple-haired "punk" type. Before she had kids, she could just dump everthing and go.
There are areas of stress, but I just do it her way, and that solves things, usually.
Holy cow what a long opinion piece. She needs an editor.
She sounds like an absolute shrew. Chased the poor guy right out of the bedroom and then ridicules his new partner.
Especially to be around.
There is something special about Minnesotans
It's only eclipsed by Texans that happen to live in Minnesota :)
I once had to work with a shrew like this. She was completely self-absorbed. As a consequence she could not hold onto a relationship. She is still the same to this day, and still alone.
Whenever the company would undergo layoffs she would lament loudly how she should be spared because unlike the other women in the company she had no HUSBAND at home bringing in a paycheck.
One of her classics: "I know he is a nice guy and I should continue dating him, but he's a carpenter (beneath her) and his hands are smaller than mine."
Sounds like the jerk was into sibling rivalry with his own kid. It barely takes an iota of altruism to look at your infant child and admit to yourself that this little person needs my wife a heck of a lot more than I need her. It barely takes an iota of love to look at your offspring and thank God for a brand new life just starting out in the greatest time and place history and to know that this new life is worth so much more than anything you might have left even if you are only 18 much less than around 50. Everybody is selfish almost all the time, but some people never even transcend their selfishness in their thoughts.
Sure do. Maureen Dowd's tipsy scribblings epitomize that genre.
"Anyway, cut her some slack. She's lost her kid. If my husband had dumped me for a neighbor woman and then I lost my kids, I'd be bitter too."
She isn't bitter because she lost her kid and her husband dumped her.
Her husband dumped her and she lost her kid because she's a bitter, self-obsessed person.
She created her own mess. She deserves no slack. The only thing she deserves, from the looks of it, is to be alone for the rest of her life so she doesn't inflict herself on anyone else.
>>There will always be a new crop, that wants to tie the knot with their one true love. Having been through one divorce myself, I'm very glad I took another dive into the marriage pool. The second time around was a winner.<<
Same here. But you BOTH have to be committed.
I look at it like this: If someone gives you a car and says it is the only one you will ever get, you will take care of it, change the oil, do the maintenance, touch up rust spots, etc. If you go in thinking, "hey, when it stops tickling my fancy I can always trade it in," you may not invest yourself in keeping it running. It is doomed from the getgo.
If both parties truly go into marriage with the "this is all I get" attitude and keep it, the marriage will probably survive.
Oh, and one other thing. EVERYONE is loveable and hateable. If you fall out of love with your mate, it is not their responsibility, it is yours.
Well said. Lasting marriage is easy. All you need do is care more for your spouse and children's happiness than your own. As long as both do this, the marriage will last.
Words of a hardened, selfish and miserable woman.
Note to author: Millions of successful marriages blow your theory right out of the water. If marriage itself were to blame, happy, successful, fulfilling marriages would be impossible. Look up. Look around. They're out there.
Marriages fail because of two reasons: 1) The husband and/or 2) The wife. ...usually both, in varying proportion.
After 30 rollicking years
Oh oh. One of you is going to have to take out the other. You are living too long. NOT!
This author has tard written all over.
What nonsense. Even if we grant that people who weren't a good match to begin with will lose tolerance for one another through prolonged proximity, the fact is that longer lifespans are offset by later marriage.
A word of wisdome for the oung lady.
Turn off TV
Stop watching HBO
Go do something interesting.
In short, get a life.
This bitter, sour, and egomaniacal woman sounds to me like one of the legions who get their ideas of what life should be like from movies, TV, and other imaginary vehicles. She needs to try real life. But that probably would clash with her preconceptions
I take a more holistic approach to the genus known as "bitter drunk chick." What they really need to do is just stay away from me. I've found that life is tough enough with some harpie screeching tales of woe in my ear...
Amen... as Louis Grizzard noted years ago: "My Dad fought the Nazis, the Italians, and the North Koreans, and he always said, 'Son, there's nothing meaner than a contentious woman...'"
I agree. I also think it's a big mistake to pick they same type of person you did the first time. This causes the same old problems. Some women are particularly bad at this, loving the bad boys too much.
One person can't make a marriage. You're absolutely right.
One person may carry the water for a while and the other person carry it later on, but both have to work at it, and preferable at the same time all the time.
Thanks for the comments.
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