(October 5, 2015 at 6:45 am)ignoramus Wrote: Wife and I used to catch up with several friends regularly over the years.
1] John -My mate from primary school - lifelong friend - married 25 years - 2 kids.
Left his wife and kids for (wait for it!) another bloke! Yes, it took him 50 years to come out!
2] Mark my copper mate... Lots of great times together with him and his wife Vivienne.
Only to find out that he's been seeing another woman the last few times they visited us as a couple.
My wife won't forgive him for that! women! go figure!
3] Dario - shacked up with a woman with 2 kids! He treated them like his own kids - nicest guy you could meet.
8 years later she left him out of boredom! Met a pilot interstate who sounded more interesting!
4] My own godson Michael (I baptised him when I was 12). 3 great kids and "HE" met another woman while visiting Greece!
(My sister tells me that it was pretty much over before then, which is why he went by himself)
5] Nephew - had a kid, Noah, with his Girlfriend, she wanted to get married, he wasn't ready, she didn't want to wait ...it's over.
She lives on one end of Australia, he's on the other!
What the fuck is wrong with everyone!
Truth is, we're probably just old fashioned fuddy duddies! This stuff must be no biggie these days...
Not everyone has a problem with monogamy. I am happily married, and have been for over 20 years. I expect to be with my wife until I die.
In my case, I was not in a hurry to marry, and did not marry young.
I remember reading some divorce statistics about the divorce rate being much higher for people who marry when young versus those who marry when old. I just did a quick search to find it:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf
There are many other things that correlate with the divorce rate, but the age thing in particular makes a lot of sense to me (though some of the other things make sense, too; see the document at the link above). (I know, it is U.S. statistics; you can search online for your country, but I expect that the age correlation will stand nearly everywhere.) The human brain is not fully formed until about the age of 25 (which explains why a typical 25-year-old is generally more sensible than a typical 20-year-old). But also, if you commit to something early on, you are more likely to change your mind about what you want out of life than if you wait until you are older, as you are more likely to be settled in your thinking and less likely to change your mind about what you want. Of course, "less likely" does not mean that no one does (as, for example, your friend who came out gay after 50 years).
For me, getting married was the best decision of my life. For many people, though, getting married is the worst decision of their lives. It can also be anywhere in between.
I think people should think very carefully about what they really want out of life, and decide that before making any long-term commitments. Obviously, if what one wants out of life is not compatible with marriage, then one ought not marry. And, of course, if marrying a particular person is not compatible with what one wants out of life, one ought not marry that particular person.
To put this another way, if you are not suited for marriage, you ought not marry. And you ought not marry someone who is not suited to be your spouse.
For the most part, I think that most people don't put enough thought into the decision beforehand, though there can be extraordinary circumstances that come up that destroy a marriage. But I think, by far, the most common reason for divorce is that people did not think it through properly in advance. All of the people who I know personally who have divorced did not, in my opinion, think it through properly before they married.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
