A thought

[debka_notion]

My mother, in our conversation on Sunday, mentioned that the daughter of a friend of hers, who is in high school or college, I don't know which, was in class and the teacher asked anyoen whose parents were still married to each other to raise their hand. She was the only one who did. That's a terribly frightening statement. Thank G-d, that's not the case for the parents' of my friends, from the list I am bringing to mind. But still- it's strange to think that I'm living in a society where that's the case. Doesn't match the interal patterns (based on my family and assorted fiction) well at all.

Not sure where I"m going with this, but it's late, I should have been asleep a while ago, and it came to mind.

Comments

[arib.livejournal.com]

At this point in my life two out of the three serious relationships I've been in have been with women whose parents are divorced.

[doodah.livejournal.com]

I guess my question would be -- why does that frighten you?

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

A few reasons- one because it doesn't do nice things to my image of marriage and the ability of people to judge other people whom they presumably know already as far as compatibility and ability to compromise and work at things together, and partially because that does not paint a pretty picture for my own future. I mean, my ideal is to marry someone and stay married. Does that make any sense?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know where you're going with this either, but I don't like it. Call me hypersensitive, but you're tacitly placing a value judgment on people who get divorced. Divorce rates say nothing about people's abilities to "judge other people...as far as compatibility." People change. No one can see the future. People who stay in unhappy marriages just for the sake of "staying married" are not morally superior to people who get divorced in my mind.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

That's not quite what I'm saying. What bothers me is the societal trend towards so much divorce, not that any particular couple gets divorced. I'm not saying that one should stay in a miserable marriage. But what I'm saying is that I don't think that in an earlier point in our history (however you define our) that half of all marriages were people staying together because they didn't want the stigma of being divorced. So there's some social difference that seems, well, less than beneficial.