Marriage, Relationships, Divorce and Children.

[Kytele]

As for myself, I don't believe in the notion of marriage. Yes my parents divorced when I was in Junior High, my mom kicked my dad out after moving back to the states from Guam and suffering months of abuse there. The three of us were on our own in Southern California, with a higher than average rent percentage. It's a wonder how we made it. I think it brought the three of us closer together. When my dad was around we couldn't say much for fear of retribution.

So nowadays I don't ever see myself getting married, or having children even less. I don't feel like I want to be obligated to someone like that. If things get rough I can just make a clean break. With no children, I wouldn't worry about custody or child support. It seems selfish but I'm being honest.

[layoneil]

It seems selfish but I'm being honest.

it's better to be honest than to have kids and than neglect them.

[Syn]

Marriage for teh green card.

[Kiro]

Only 7 people chose "No marriage, living together for the pleasure."? @_@;

[Navia]

Marriage for teh green card.

You sound like lordwafik

[Fhqwghads]

I don't see the point in marriage, personally. If you care about someone and want to be with them, then you will be. Almost every single relationship I've been in has been long-term (2.5 years, 2 years, 3 years, 6 years, and now my current GF is 3+ years... I omitted the shorter relationships but the majority have been long-term) so most of them have outlasted many marriages. People change as time passes, and the needs of a couple may no longer synch up. Why go through the hassle of lawyers, courts, and all that other crap when you never really know how long you'll be compatible?

There's only a couple of reasons I can see marriage being an option for me. Kids (ain't happening, vasectomy thank you very much) or if I need to support the person for whatever reason. Anything else and it's not an option as far as I'm concerned.

[Axil]

I don't see the point in marriage, personally. If you care about someone and want to be with them, then you will be. Almost every single relationship I've been in has been long-term (2.5 years, 2 years, 3 years, 6 years, and now my current GF is 3+ years... I omitted the shorter relationships but the majority have been long-term) so most of them have outlasted many marriages. People change as time passes, and the needs of a couple may no longer synch up. Why go through the hassle of lawyers, courts, and all that other crap when you never really know how long you'll be compatible?

There's only a couple of reasons I can see marriage being an option for me. Kids (ain't happening, vasectomy thank you very much) or if I need to support the person for whatever reason. Anything else and it's not an option as far as I'm concerned.

Theres a lot of financial things that you get from being married, I think.

[Lasitha]

There is financial aid, and some services that extend to family because of work for example. Which would be benefits. I voted living together and if it works marrying. But as far as those giving reasoning like "I don't want kids, no marriage" they are usually the first to fall to the charm of their newlyborn. My brother-in-law didn't want kids. Then their first child was born, go figure he was the one that was the most protective and who never wanted to let the child go.

[Nirokun!]

voted other, LOL GAY PPLZ CANT GET MURRIED

but if i could, i would (with the right man >.>)

lately (last 2-3 years or so [im 20]) i've fantasized about getting married, what it would be like to be wonderfully domestic, and i've pretty much decided thats how i want to live my life. I dont want to be alone anymore, and i think of myself as a person geared toward long-term relationships. Not lead by my dick, not horribly spontaneous (in my views/who i want to be)~ im pretty stubborn about who i want to be, and what i want to do.

Personally i think some (or most, lol) people just arent mentally/emotionally built for marriage in the long term--which is really unfortunate. Its like getting the original nintendo, and being happy with it for the rest of your life

For better or worse, i'll keep working on my own self/life until i meet Mr. Right (or dont )

I dunno, maybe im a still a child, just imitating an adult, but i'd like to believe im an adult, acting as an adult would/should/nannanananana~

Marriage is gewd.

[Navia]

There is financial aid, and some services that extend to family because of work for example. Which would be benefits. I voted living together and if it works marrying. But as far as those giving reasoning like "I don't want kids, no marriage" they are usually the first to fall to the charm of their newlyborn. My brother-in-law didn't want kids. Then their first child was born, go figure he was the one that was the most protective and who never wanted to let the child go.

Yeah parenthood changes people in ways they don't expect. Its easy for people to say they don't want kids when they haven't made one of their own.
When its 'your own' its a lot different.

voted other, LOL GAY PPLZ CANT GET MURRIED

Move to Massachusetts ! Have to be a resident though ;x

[Vail]

I've seen so many different familys it's unbelievable

----Family 1----

my own family my father and mother where together for 15 years (my father passed away from cancer) after that my mother got with one of my dads friends, they've been living together for 7 years now and are still "fiancee" though word from my youngest brother (who just moved out) says they will not be staying together much longer.

The sad part is those past 7 years my mother dumped money to this dude building a new house on his properity in the middle of no where, and her name is not on the title. When their relationship ends (I'm fairly certain it will) my mother will have nothing, and already her 3 children (all sons) want nothing to do with her after the crap we put up with after our father died.

My mother and father in my eyes was a great relationship though, they both worked but both of them had time set aside to spend with us, so we would have both a fathers and mothers perspective into us.

----Family 2----
My aunt(my brothers sister) and uncle
they've been together for about 16-18 years (I don't have exact time sorry)
thier is no "love" in the relationship but both are happy with life, both of them thier goal is to raise thier adopted daughter (my aunt is not able to have children of her own)

When thier daughter leaves the home, I fairly certain they will stay together, thier marriage has been and never will be based on love. The two are more like business partners if you want a good way to describe them. I "love" the life of being finacialy set, and being in a position that if anything comes thier way the two of them can handle it.

----Family 3----
My childhood friend's parents who I still keep in contact. They have been together for almost 30 years now, and are not married.
It's not that they don't want marry it's that they can't. The mother is physicaly disabled and on social security (has been her whole life) and if she were to marry they would loss the social security money which they would be unable to survive without.

Both of them are religious and have 2 kids, however they did not raise thier children with religion. Which I don't fully agree with.

I love these two though, they are like my second family I call them ma-and-pops when ever I talk to them, and they have pictures of me (and a few other of the closest friends of thier children) in thier living room.

----Family 4----
My uncle(my father's brother) and his current wife
My uncle has been married 5 times now, he is religious and has 7 kids of his own and 2 adopted kids (from his current marriage)
The two of them have been together now for 6 years (the longest of my uncles marriages) I think this one will work out for him.
It's on odd family though and I'm not really comfortable around them: it's an interracial marriage, the only one that's in my family. I'm not racist it's just out of place to me cause it's something I haven't seen or been around.

----Family 5----
My uncle(my mother's brother) and his ex-wife.
2 kids were together for 12 years and divorced. because my uncle abused her physicaly. My aunt is now in a new marriage and with 4 kids total (2 each from previous marriages) and my uncle lives single now and is working on getting his life straightened out.
I in no way agree with what my uncle did. but at the same time they way that my family has over-reacted and treated my uncle despite his recent efforts to get things straight and to be excepted by a family that still to this day hasn't excepted him as one of thier own. Bothers me deaply of the importance of family blood on my mothers side of the family.

in contrast my dad's brother and sister have always been close to us and eachother, and have never abandoned any members of thier family.

-----
-----
that's all for now I don't wanna devolge too much but these 5 familys are the ones that influence me the most.

One day I want to get married and have kids myself. I want to be with someone who is not someone I love but someone who is my friend aswell.

I know marriage is alot of hard work and at my current point in life I am simply not ready to make such a commentment but one day (possibly in my later 20s or early 30s) I believe I will be ready.

In marriage there is so many concerns, and it gets more complicated with children, as two parents might have different ways they want teach thier kids. Because I'm religious it's also important to me that my children be religous as well, but if I was with someone who did not share my beliefs or didn't have any of thier own I could for-see it causing complications down the road.

Religion is but one of many examples: sometimes some parents want kids to be authletic, others want them to be scholors. Some parents want thier kids to follow strict rules, others are ok with thier kids being out and doing things that maybe they shouldn't be doing at thier ages.

These kinds of conflicts between parents about how to raise and teach thier children can cause more harm to thier relationship and damage thier relationship with thier children (aswell as thier children's with other poeple)

just adding food for thought

[Ksandra]

One thing I feel that has hurt marriages kinda has to do with the feminist movement.

<- biggest anti-feminist female you'll ever meet lol.

Let's think about what happened years ago:

Man to work/children go to school.

Woman did errands during the day (cook/clean/groceries/etc)

Man/children come home.

Man relaxes after long day.

Woman cooks takes care of kids, after dinner all relax.

Weekends= relax, any small things that didn't get done during the week.

What is happening today:

Man and woman goes to work/ children go to school.

All come home around same time.

Man and woman are both tired but take turns cooking (or order food/woman only cooks) while trying to watch kids (or jsut to tired to pay attention to kids).

Weekends=mad errands rushing since nothing gets done during the week = no relaxation = never rest = cranky = fight over stupid things = stress = possible divorce.


Now of course this is not the only reason. Like others stated before there's a lot of people out there that get married way before their ready (I have two friends who are going through marriage consuling, they got married after about 4 months of dating). Also, people don't look at marriage as sacred as it used to be.

However, I do consider this to be a huge problem society-wise as well.

I could see it as a teacher and I see it as a dependant person. It's very very hard to have both parents work and try to get everything done, that used to be hard to do with just one person at work.

Now again don't get me wrong, the old way wasn't perfect, and people had stress. But back then it took one family member to support the whole family, where now it takes two. Which to me says a lot less time.

I saw as a teacher how little attention kids get from their parents nowadays. I admit some of those parents seem suspiciously greedy, but a lot of the parents felt they just didn't have the time. They're both worn out at the end of the work day that it's hard to focus after you get out.

Look at women nowadays when they have a baby. Most places give them two months maturnity leave. Two months. Now I don't have kids but I've seen two month old babies, they could care less about what time you're going into work, or how tired you are. I say f that when I have kids, I'm not working at least till they go to pre-school. I've seen mothers come into work when they have a baby, they're eyes are red and they have a hard time focusing on their work. Now way is that healthy for a family imo.

Lol ok I'ma stop for now bf laughing at me on how much I posted. XD

But ya to be honest if I was told I had a choice between working, or taking care of the house/kids. I'd choose the latter without a doubt, I think it creates a healtheir family.

But of course that's just my opinion.

[Nirokun!]

voted other, LOL GAY PPLZ CANT GET MURRIED

Move to Massachusetts ! Have to be a resident though ;x

as i remember, it wasnt a 'real' marriage, with all the designated rights and such. I'd always imagined if i couldnt get married (when it was time), i'd want to get merried in canada or amsterdam ( honeymoon there ideas )

[Vigilia]

Smart stuff

I agree with pretty much everything you said but then again it's got less to do with feminism imo than just basic human greed. Most people want to make lot of money these days to be able buy fancy gadgets, drive a Merc and shop at D&G rather than H&M, it's the kind of culture the 80s generation (i.e. us now having kids) has grown up with. And then we hit our late20s/early30s, settle down, get a mortgage, buy a house and have kids and realise that a week's worth of diapers costs more than a new DVD player. I don't have kids yet myself either but most of my friends do and sadly enough they don't keep working because of feminism (you could argue it was because of equal rights movements they now have the right to work.. still their choice what they do with that right though) or because they would really have to but because they don't want to give up all the little extras and three holidays a year in Spain they had before they had kids.

My parents married quite young (both were 21 and "high school sweethearts") but they are both smart and patient people and learnt over time how to make things work which I have immense respect for them. My mum gave up her full-time job after my younger sister was born, grandma looked after me for the first year or so but after that mum was always home and even when she went back to work it was part-time during school days. I had a really happy childhood growing up, we didn't take many holidays (in fact we only ever had one big family holiday, went to DisneylandParis the year it opened when I was 14) but my mum was always there for us and neither were we ever short of anything. Granted with four kids you had to live on a sensible budget, but all in all it wasn't that bad that we had to settle to generic brand jeans instead of flashy ones.

I remember at primary|elementary school being envious of my friends that had new clothes every month, their My Little Ponies lived in pink glittery castles while mine had a cardboard box and went on holidays abroad. Then suddenly we all got to secondary|high school and many of their homes started falling apart and by the time we were ready to hit college half of their parents had divorced and the kids themselves fell on downward slopes. I remember being gutted watching several of my best friends of ten years suddenly waste all their opportunities because somehow they felt they had lost hope in the happily ever after (yes I blame fairytales too and frigging Disney marrying people off at 16). Two of them had kids at 17 with some random guys they met at parties, so much for finishing school or having any time to go explore the world or yourself.

With the experiences I've had I'm also adamant that I'll be a stay-at-home mum for the first few years when/if we have kids. I guess I'm also lucky that my partner agrees with the idea (hell, he mentioned it first in a conversation which I was completely surprised about) and he has a career that'll let us afford it. It is really sad but even if you're willing to give up the little extra luxuries in life, just live a basic good life, raise some semi-normal children (like our kids would ever be normal... we'll train them to camp Novv as soon as they can hold a joypad!) and drive a Vauxhall instead of BMW, it still requires stupid amounts of money these days.

And yes I have big issues with governments that do not give same rights to couples with children living together as married couples. I grew up in Finland where it's far more common to live together than marry (I know many couples that have been together for 30+ years without ever being officially married, including both my aunt's families). Everyone has the same rights and any financial aid gets paid to the child him/herself, not the couple so in the end you get same grant wheter you're a single or a married parent or gay or straight couple for that matter. After all, it's love and friendship that should keep you together and not some metal ring on your finger. UK at the moment sucks a bit for that but if I wait for the day my partner learns Finnish we'll be retirement age...

Oops, longer post than I meant it to be.

Still, can't resist:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...dhousewife.jpg
:D

[Septimus]

It amazes me how many people live in a fantasy world about marriages. Some problems cannot be worked out- substance abuse (cocaine/crack, meth, heroin, etc), spousal abuse, criminal tendencies, sexual abuse, both people despising the presence of each other just to name a few. Sometimes divorce is the best option for the mental health and well being everyone involved, including the children.

Let's look at some of the healthy long-term marriages in my family.

Case #1- Uncle (father's brother) and aunt. She was convicted of kidnapping babies on at least two occasions from the hospital where she worked as a nurse before she married him. They were together for 32-ish years before she died of complications of cancer. Both children have been to jail on various charges. (Armed robbery, drugs, etc.)

Case #2- Uncle (father's brother) and aunt. He was convicted of sexual abuse of several of his granddaughters, a pattern of behavior stemming back to his own children. Still together after 40-ish years with his wife (in a blissful whirl of denial) after being released from prison. Several of his children have had convictions, most will not have anything to do with anyone from the family. (Not that I can blame them.)

Case #3- Aunt (mother's sister) and uncle. Until my aunt's untimely passing I thought them to be the only working marriage in my family. After her passing I found out that her husband never made as much money from his job as we thought he did and 80% of his income came from my aunt begging my grandmother and his mother for money. On one occasion he took the money that my grandomther gave my aunt for a new stove and bought a used van even though there was nothing wrong with the truck that he had. He never allowed her to get a driver's license and even though he "refused" to let her work, my aunt worked at my mother's business to get enough money to make ends meet. Now that his mother is dead and my grandmother refuses to give him money, he is leeching off of his only child.

But you know, the gays are going to screw marriage up...

Anyway, I think that one of the biggest causes of divorce is that you have one or two people who are not emotionally balanced and/or mentally mature jumping into a commitment because they believe that love will make their lives complete. They expect that outside validation from a supporting, nurturing partner will make all of their problems in life vanish; but this just is not the case.

I think another big problem with people rushing into marriages is just because people are lonely/afraid of being alone that they latch onto the nearest warm body without any consideration of whether or not they actually like this person, let alone love him/her.

And yet another reason that people jump into marriages is because they want children, not knowing that raising a child is a lot of work, and thankless work at that.

I leave you with this.

Ed Wonsler: "So what's your opinion on same-sex marriage?"

Grampa Freeman: "First of all, let me start off by stating that I believe that all marriage is wrong."

Sadly, I am forced to agree with Grandpa.

[NynJa]

Marriage is just a way for women to get a portion of your salary...

[TsingTao]

Only 7 people chose "No marriage, living together for the pleasure."? @_@;

I'm married now or I would have picked that option. We lived together for almost two years before I proposed. Besides being fun it's the best way to figure out if you can stand each other.

Love is important, but so is compatability and general maturity. You have to enjoy being around each other even when you're not doing anything. You've got to not get annoyed because someone left the seat up or forgot to put the cap on the toothpaste. You've got to be willing to care about little, stupid things (to you) that matter to your GF/BF/wife/husband.

Once you're grown up enough to not be a selfish asshole/bitch and you find someone you love marriage is easy. Knowing that marriage means constant work and not eternal, unchanging happiness is pretty big too.

Now that I'm married it's going to stay that way so that's how I voted. I've got two kids and I absolutely refuse to screw up their tiny little lives by not giving them a happy home with both a mommy & daddy.

[Cesaria]

A lot of what feminism achieved wasn't so much as "having it all" but another way of splitting women in all different directions and them taking on so many balls to juggle. I was the kid of a working single mum for most of my childhood, and I did miss my mum being at things like school plays and sports days - I got by, and I got a phenomenal role model of how a woman could achieve in a career against difficult backgrounds out of it, but I also had to grow up much too soon because of it (my brother was a very ill baby and I took on a lot of responsibility to help with his upbringing when my dad left - and I was only 10 myself).

I work in a very affluent school, from the outside it appears to be something of a rural paradise (green fields outside in a tiny little village) - but I feel so sorry for the kids there. Yes, they have almost everything material they could ever need - playstations in their cars, every gadget and fad toy going, but they're left at before and after school clubs by working mums (who always seem so flustered, tired and drawn when they drop their kids off) and they never ever seem to get any parental time at all. Instead they get more "stuff" bought for them as a compensation, and they play on parental guilty consciences with the most highly-trained pester power I've ever come across. Lots of them have quite poor social skills as a consequence, and have never really learnt how to just be able to play with other children.

Feminism freed women up from the stay-at-home role, but I bet in 90% of cases where both partners work, the women are the ones who STILL do the bulk of the domestic chores in addition to working full-time. It's not an even split - and I think it failed women quite greatly in some respects.

Having said that, I've been brought up with a strong work ethic, and I don't know if I'd be able to deal with being a stay-at-home mum if I ever had kids. I'd like to think I'd do things differently to some of the ones I see through work though, and spend time with any children of mine instead of plonking them in front of a TV with a microwave meal through utter exhaustion - I don't know how things would pan out in reality if/when the time ever comes that I go down the sproglet route.

[Norelco]

Biologically we're all animals, and most animals never settle down with 1 mate. I'm engaged to be married...so I'm screwed, so I live vicariously through my friends who try to fuck as many girls as possible.