My cousin and I were discussing this one night while drunk... Is there any data or anything at that shows any relation between the proliferation of romance novels and movies where women cheat and/or leave a seemingly happy relationship because they wake up one morning and decide that this isn't the life they dreamed of when they were 20? I feel like I hear about so many divorces and cases of infidelity these days where the problems could have and should have been rectified, but one of the two (the women in the cases I've heard) have some sort of "fairy tale" dream of being swept of their feet and living a "fairy tale" romance. This is also so prevalent with women my age who refuse to have anything but the fairy tale romance. It's so fucking annoying and so obvious that these fantasies have been built by reading and watching dumb shit. Price Charming ain't walkin' through those doors, sweetheart.
Are you divorced?
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RacerDeac
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My guess: some couples work through it, make sacrifices and even learn to like other things in the name of the relationship and some don't. Same can be said of financial issues, family issues, and the numerous other barriers to sticking together that never REALLY get exposed until you're married, no matter how much you discuss and try to hash them out beforehand. There's a reason for the "last blowjob" marriage fear...people fake it and cover up their issues or pretend they don't exist before they get married in ways that aren't possible afterwards. Even living together and sharing rent, where splitting is still relatively easy, doesn't prepare you for the issues that can come up in a marriage. If I had to guess, bad sex is rarely the reason a marriage ends. There aren't many people who just don't enjoy sex. I'd bet that the lack of good sex is almost always tied to other things not being good (see Wuffey above). If it's someone you truly want to be married to because you're attracted to them in numerous other ways, you probably won't have much of an issue being sexually attracted to them too. But, like I said earlier, probably not in the same horny way you want to stick it in every hot girl in a sundress you see on a Saturday afternoon in the spring. If you expect that sort of sexual attraction to be the norm in a marriage for an extended amount of time, you'll probably end up disappointed.
no clue if there's data on it, but i agree with this general sentiment. i think a lot of people have this idea that when you find "the one," things are awesome and perfect and you'll be in love forever. there was a blog entry that i read recently called "my husband is not my soul mate," and i loved the blog entry, because it spoke very frankly about how there isn't really "the one" and that it's all about working hard at the relationship, not just falling in love and expecting things to be perfect forever.
buckets
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yeah and then its like "Oh this woman is so strong, she went out and got the life she always wanted. Let's make a movie about it! What an inspirational tale." And I'm thinking that this chick is a bitch that just got cold blooded and left her poor husband behind and took half his dough to go bang out rando dudes around the world while he has to move into an apartment and work at a 50% discount for the rest of his life.
Shorty
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I seem to be in the minority here, but I have not been divorced and have been married to my wife for 33 years. There are a lot of things that need to be there if a marriage is to last, many of which have been mentioned on this thread. I would add to them that my wife and I simply enjoy each other's company. I know it sounds trite, but I enjoy sitting on the deck or watching the evening news with her and just talking. I could not imagine being without her.
buckets
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why are you in the minority? i think all but like three posters have said they haven't been divorced.
ChicdeaC
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I was wondering the same thing.
Perhaps he was also referring to the 33 yrs part....
qcdeac
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Are there a lot of movies/books like this? I just know the Lifetime movie stereotype of either the cheating or physically abusive husband.
dmcheatw
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this is related to the point i was making. as i said before the institution was principally intended for a families and individuals to preserve or increase their wealth and status (and also sometimes to legitimize births when abortion/infanticide aren't on the table). love was a secondary consideration or a welcomed side effect. kay jewlers and nick sparks would have you believe that not only is love the first consideration--it's the only consideration. when you start marrying for that reason, you contort and weaken the institution by increasing the divorce rate. marriage was not necessarily intended for lovers (ironic as that sounds) until a few hundred years ago at most.
Today the institution must be adapted to coincide with the reason people generally now marry for in our society if we want to save the integrity of the institution as a whole.
it's commonly known when a relationship ends, the woman leaves first the vast majority of the time. for those of you who have divorced, think about it, who left who first? these fantasy expectations are probably part of what causes women who are in a good relationship to leave and look for something better.
this, too. I was once with a girl who was my whole world for sure, but on an intellectual level, knowing there are over 7B people on the earth, i knew there were at least 50,000 other women out there i'd be a better match for. but ofc i wouldn't have traded that one girl for any of them. I agree with you and the blogger. Your spouse is not your soulmate. But i also agree with zzz.. your spouse has to be your best friend for it to work. I suspect you probably would too.
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i agree. but i would also add that just like the whole soul mate idea, best friends don't just "happen." they also take a lot of time and effort.
dmcheatw
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very true. i think all relationships take work, just marriage is a totally different animal of a relationship. it's a challenge I don't think i'm up for, and would caution others about, but i do see why some people choose it. I just really think people who are marrying w/o doing their homework and/or who are marrying for one of the wrong reasons (principal among them in my view being "in love" with no other meaningful reasons), need to be prepared for the consequences should things not work out. and the sucky thing about consequences is it's so hard to fully appreciate them until your in the midst of them.
the cool thing about best friends is when those dissolve or, more likely, grow apart, the "break up" has none of the emotional hatred or financial loss that people who have made so many major life sacrifices for each other tend to feel when that relationship ends. You'd think it would be the other way around, but it's the sacrifices we make for that other person that largely make us fall in love. But those sacrifices are also a large part of why people frequently experience such loathing for their exes as they realize all those sacrifices were in vain.
gl to all in their relationships, romantic or otherwise.
the cool thing about best friends is when those dissolve or, more likely, grow apart, the "break up" has none of the emotional hatred or financial loss that people who have made so many major life sacrifices for each other tend to feel when that relationship ends. You'd think it would be the other way around, but it's the sacrifices we make for that other person that largely make us fall in love. But those sacrifices are also a large part of why people frequently experience such loathing for their exes as they realize all those sacrifices were in vain.
gl to all in their relationships, romantic or otherwise.
Couldn't agree more Hoops. Since you are a woman, you may have some insight on this. Why do so many girls my age (20-27 or so, I'm 24) think that the "fairy tale" romance is going to happen for them and that the perfect guy is going to walk into their lives and give them butterflies every time they see them, even 10 years into a relationship? I feel like no one wants to work for it anymore and as soon as the puppy love stage wears off, they're out because it's not what they dreamed about anymore.
Is it a maturity thing and they will wake up one day, or am I stuck with a generation of idiots?
Is it a maturity thing and they will wake up one day, or am I stuck with a generation of idiots?
buckets
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well... are most of the chicks you're meeting still from the internet and from the backwoods of tennessee?
i do think some of it is a maturity thing. i definitely walked away from relationships with really awesome guys when i was younger just because i thought i should immediately know that they were "the one." dhtoy and i laugh now about the fact that when we started dating, i was 100% completely certain, like not a doubt in my mind, that things would never work out with us (i know it makes me sound bad, but he was originally just a fun distraction for me after a guy that i fell hard and fast for broke up with me). i actually think that attitude ended up helping us succeed, because it allowed things to develop at a normal pace, rather than jumping straight to "i just don't see it. we should break up."
and i think too that we've just been fed fairy tales for so long. the childhood bedtime stories that we were read were all about a prince charming who would come and save us, and then we would live "happily ever after." those stories never end with "and then she spent the rest of her life waking up every day and committing to love him for yet another day through good times and bad, and he did the same." they all end with the couple falling in love, and that's it. it's not easy to get past that mentality that's been either directly or indirectly hammered into our heads for our whole lives.
sometimes y'all talk about how girls get to be 30 or whatever and they lower their standards. i don't really think of it as lowering standards. i think girls just become more realistic. we finally realize that a guy doesn't have to be rich and handsome and buy us everything we want in order to be a good, decent man, who is worthy of our attention. i used to think i would never marry a guy who traveled all the time, because having a husband who came home every night to eat dinner with the family was important to me. but dhtoy travels for work. and no, it's not my ideal. but it's something i'm prepared to work with because he has all of the major qualities i need (he treats me with love and respect, he works hard for us, he's going to be an amazing dad and husband, and he doesn't walk away when the going gets tough). i didn't really lower my standards. i just realized what's actually important, and what things are secondary, and i can live with.
No. I moved and wouldn't mind actually dating someone. Not hooking it with OKC chicks anymore. Those days are gone.
DeaconCav06
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Eat, Pray, Love is probably the most detrimental thing to happen to relationships since I don't know when...
Also, on a side note: there was an article on whether or not 50 shades of gray was responsible for the increase in police calls for people that were handcuffed and couldn't get out.
Also, on a side note: there was an article on whether or not 50 shades of gray was responsible for the increase in police calls for people that were handcuffed and couldn't get out.
i didn't even know that had to do with relationships (clearly haven't read the book). what's so bad about it?
DeaconCav06
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It's a rich woman who isn't satisfied with life and just decides she needs to find herself and goes on an around the world trip to seek fulfillment.
Every girl I know that was working was like, "I feel like I just need to find myself and look for deeper meaning. Why can't I do that?"
Every girl I know that was working was like, "I feel like I just need to find myself and look for deeper meaning. Why can't I do that?"
awakeandready
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Weird - I didn't read the book but I saw the movie and don't remember much about relationships in it. It just made me want to travel more.