Dealing with Adultery

[wet_suit_one]

Also, given the fact that no one is perfect, most people are reasonably selfish and the standards of fidelity that some folks have are beyond any reasonable scale (women don't really get how men work it seems, or they know all too well and completely overreact). It's just a situation where you're set up to fail.

Plus there's the fact (a fact in my view) that marriage has nothing to do with love as it is historically constructed. It's about property, tradition, religion, duty, domestic economy but not "love" as that term is understood today. Women don't need men anymore, and men don't need women as much (though children still need their parents), so the glue that used to keep people married (NEED not WANT <i.e. love>) isn't really there anymore. It's a matter of iron will to stay married because why not just walk away because the romance isn't there anymore, he got fat and bald, she lost her job, he has annoying habits, the neighbour looks better or whatever other number of stupid reasons people get divorced these days (like she went out for drinks with a co worker).

Divorce used to be illegal. Not a bad idea on the whole in my view from a policy perspective. What we have now, for an individual, is a mess.

I recall once hearing the advice that Italian mothers gave their daughters at their marriage, "he will cheat, but is he a good man?" Sound advice, but utterly nonsensical nowadays. Now, if your husband looks at the hot young thing on the street, the wife's on the phone with the divorce lawyer. Completely unreasonable.

Anyways, I'm sure I'm going to spark a slugging match, so bring it and let's go!

My position: Marriage is broken and no longer workable for a reasonable person. Evidence, 50% divorce rate. At those break up rates, why bother with marriage?

[EvilEvilKitten]

Actually I disagree WSO - since neither gender needs the other for survival/gain/fun - the ONLY reason to wed & stay married is for love.
Of course, loving your spouse does not preclude a person from enjoying sex with another person. The point is to separate the physical from the emotional.

[wet_suit_one]

Good luck with having the masses understand that. Marriage as it is (or was, more accurately) commonly understood is what I'm talking about, not marriage as you're defining it.

[nuttychick]

Originally Posted by EvilEvilKitten

Actually I disagree WSO - since neither gender needs the other for survival/gain/fun - the ONLY reason to wed & stay married is for love.
Of course, loving your spouse does not preclude a person from enjoying sex with another person. The point is to separate the physical from the emotional.

Too true I am in full agreement with that

[nuttychick]

Originally Posted by wet_suit_one

Good luck with having the masses understand that. Marriage as it is (or was more accurately) commonly understood is what I'm talking about, not marriage as you're defining it.

I really don't think there would be any trouble with the masses beleiving that.


I have more trouble even trying to imagine why people would
listen to the advise of someone who has never been married or
by your words ever likely to be married.......
lol kinda like a virgin being a sex therapist

Life. love and marriage
cant not be learnt by reading the statistics etc

[wet_suit_one]

True that. I'm not looking to teach much of anything. As for the masses not believing that, well, I think you're out to lunch with that one. Can you point to any evidence to support this position?

I'm not seeking to advise anyone. If anything, I'm looking for advice by engaging in discourse on the topic at hand. I think that the parties here are up to a mature, intelligent debate of why or why not marriage and what it entails? While I may be quoting stats, they do seem to be based on something real (like about half the people I know, or a very significant number in any event are divorced and most of them aren't too happy about it). There are real consequences to divorce that the law requires. I really don't like those consequences, and from what I see for the reasons for divorce, I'm a prime candidate for it, thus my aversion to marriage.

There's a whole lot that can be learned by experience, but some things are best learned about from a distance (like what does it feel like to get shot?), or learned from authority, or by discourse. These are other valid ways of learning things about the world.

[wet_suit_one]

Originally Posted by EvilEvilKitten

Actually I disagree WSO - since neither gender needs the other for survival/gain/fun - the ONLY reason to wed & stay married is for love.
Of course, loving your spouse does not preclude a person from enjoying sex with another person. The point is to separate the physical from the emotional.

Does our species not need both members of the sexes to come together for time to mate and raise their offspring? I realize that this is far less true than it was during earlier times (say like 20,000 years ago, or even 5,000 years ago), but this does seem to be how our species evolved and survived down through the ages. Nowadays, you are likely more right than wrong, in that the only reasonably reason to get and stay married for love. However, I think the love of which you speak is exceedingly rare, or at least uncommon.

It also seems to appeal solely to hedonism (i.e. making myself happy). Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm not sure that we as a society, or whichever group of people one belongs to, is particularly well served by such a sentiment gaining widespread traction. Also, if people think they are in love and then find out there are not, what effect does that have on the individuals involved? Their children? Their extended families? Etc. I know this sounds a bit glib, but real hardship, economic, social and emotional does result from divorce. I suggest that to the extent that one bases marriage solely on something potentially so whimsical as "love" and the real harm that results from a divorce when that "love" is gone (as seems to happen all too often), one is doing a real disservice to oneself, one's nearby fellows (family and friends) and one's group or tribe as a whole (society if you will).

Or am I just talking out of my a$$?

[wet_suit_one]

I wonder if the original poster of this thread is more typical or atypical of the "masses" out there:

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relation...e-our-marriage

What do you folks figure?

[nuttychick]

Ok you go about your life reading stuff that some bitter and twisted fools have written about their bad marriages... the divorce statistics and all that crap.

It doesn't change the fact that there are still a very high percentage of happily married couple living around the world......

DON'T Knock it until you try it is my motto

[EvilEvilKitten]

People as bad as it may seem, fully 80% of men are happily wed and perfectly satisfied. Of the remaining 20% - you have that 50% divorce rate - so you're talking about approx 10% of men at the most.

So:
80% happy
10% digruntled but not divorcing
and
10% disgruntled and divorcing

WSO - stop running with that last 10%