Study of 50,000 women, published in The Wall Street Journal, debunks the top two “facts” couples believe about marriage. Will young people “follow the science” about marriage and divorce?
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24 replies on “Top Two “Facts” Couples Believe About Marriage Debunked by New Study of 50,000 Women”
You can’t get divorced if you never get married, because rings don’t plug holes anyway. And then they wonder why they can’t find good men.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rT_uH3ww8f4
The most important decision you will ever make is who you choose to marry. All things considered, marriage does not make sense.
My wife and I got married in our mid-40s – the third marriage for each – and we have been very happily married now for 31 years! 🙂
It seems many couples are too competitive with each other which I don’t understand. Aren’t we both on the same team? At least, that’s how I feel and we’re celebrating our 34th this year.
This is why I didn’t move in with my wife until after I proposed to her. Granted, I would have preferred to wait until the ring was on her finger, but I’m also practical. I had just gotten back from deployment and didn’t want to sign a lease for a new place (or live on the ship) until we were married. So I moved in, two months later, we got “Navy Married” and six months later we had the family-and-friends ceremony.
Five years and going strong. Probably because she only has to put up with me about six months out of every year. We’ll see how we survive shore duty.
The study sampled 0.015% of the population of the USA: (50k/330millionX100). Or, if marriage was defined by researchers as only between a man and woman, 0.03% of women in USA. Either way, that is not a sample where you you can put any confidence in the results. Sorry. Or to put it differently, there is little reason to believe another sampling of 50k women would give the same result. In psychology/sociology the rules of statistics make getting a “real” reproducible result almost impossible. The best you can say, if the researchers were honest (covid has shown that that is no longer a safe assumption) is that for the 50k they sampled, the results look as reported (assuming the reporter was honest, again not a given). You can’t extrapolate to other groups of 50k.
I wonder if those that did the study looked at any correlation with being brought up in church. Not in the way of “Catholics don’t get divorced” type of thing. Just being around other families in committed relationships.
Most of the people I know whose marriages did not last, had no model for making a marriage last. They did not have a model for the effort, the work that goes into staying together. That those vows are not just words, but foreshadowing. There will be sickness, there will be bad times, there will be tough times.
Life is not easy, going through life with someone else is supposed to make it easier because you have each other.
Right now, my wife is going through a tough time. Therefore I have to suppress my wants and needs to put her first. When I have gone through difficulties, she was there for me. This is what partnership is all about.
The Bible speaks of two becoming as one. That doesn’t mean you lose your individuality, it means you pull together and work as one. Helping each other cope with the inevitable downturns.
When there is a previous habit of not really committing to each other commitment, then it becomes much easier to bail when times get hard. And times always get hard.
If you don’t have a foundation, the house will not stand for long.
I didn’t consider myself religious until I got into my mid 20s, but I had a foundation that I didn’t know I had. Almost 30 years for us.
I’m hoping that Mrs. Ron gets through her tough time and all is well again soon.
If you enter marriage, make sure to commit to it. If you tell yourself that if things get rough you can always bail, you will. But if you tell yourself that this is not a option, you will do what is necessary to make the relationship work. This is of course assuming that issues such as substance abuse, physical and emotional abuse, and cheating are not in play. Commitment is the key. If you both follow this, then you will do what is needed in order to be happy, and not miserable.
As a 3 time loser in the marriage arena, I’m ashamed to admit all 3 divorces were my fault. Regret not staying with my first husband- had the formula described in today’s show: didn’t live together, 21 years old, and if I’d had some wise counsel it might not have gone off the rails, but being the 60’s who knows. We dated a long time ~ 6 years before we married, and then kablooey, 2 years later it was over.
Only lived pre-marriage with the middle guy, so I can’t blame anyone but me for going ahead with the marriage. One piece of advice I will give to any of you unmarried men – be very very cautious about entering into a relationship or marrying a girl or woman who didn’t have a good and stable relationship with her father. If she didn’t know her father, or have at least a good male father-figure stand in, just be sure to get to the root of her story and background before you make your fateful decision. Daddy issues are a real thing.
I almost got things right with my 3rd marriage, which totaled 33 years and produced one son, before we lost our minds. Maybe I’ll let my 3rd share some of the blame – we both forgot about each other somewhere around 2/3rds of the way to the end. We remain friends, a good thing for our son and our grand kids.
Marriage is no longer in my future, but I’m ok with that. If I had a do-over based on experience and what I’ve learned, my first marriage would have been my last.
Gentlemen, I agree with marriage being ideal. Nevertheless, with social media today, women are unhinged from previous foundational cultural and religious practices, and are not interested in the “mundane,” just the exciting things they see on social media. FOMO.
Why, you…, you mean… that God knew what He was talking about??? SHOCKED! SHOCKED I tell you!! Who could POSSIBLY have known that the “Manufacturer’s Operating Instructions” could tell you how the mechanism works PROPERLY??
I wonder how many people who are willing to shack up before marriage aren’t the kind of people who are inclined to get divorced.
We dated for 3 months. Seemed like the right thing to do. On 2/3 we celebrated 43 years together. Would do it again with the same lady no hesitation!
That reads like a vignette from When Harry Met Sally. Salute
Thank you for addressing this. God’s plan is always the best plan and will never stop producing fantastic results.
During a conversation once upon a time my mother-in-law stated the old adage the title of this video is based on …
“Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?”
I looked at my wife and said …
So how long has your mother been under the delusion that you’re a female bovine that’s had at least one calf? Which is the definition of a cow ’cause darlin’, a heifer you ain’t.”
Note to other men who are still married:
Women will not see the humor in that joke so don’t try that at home, guys.
My quirky sense of humor is one of many reasons I’m no longer in the afore mentioned group of men.
I have not yet watched the episode, but I saw your comment and had to add some things.
I know you only through this site, but I feel safe presuming two things:
1) when you were married there were firearms in the house. Plural used purposefully.
2) you made sure that your wife knew how to operate many of said firearms safely, if not proficiently.
Based on these two presumptions, which again have no first hand knowledge just message board communications; I have to ask a question.
How is that you are divorced rather than your wife a widow? Because if I had said that to the sweet Mrs. Ron, I am sure that I would have awakened with a knife in a most inconvenient location. I like to think my last words would have been something like, well, that sucks, but good placement. 😉
LOL, you are correct on both assumptions. The divorce was (mostly) amicable and she got my sweet little S&W Model 19 snubby (see pic) as her carry gun in the settlement She insisted that be stipulated and I didn’t object. (She had a permit, her hubby did dangerous work back then). Might as well let her keep it, she’d been lugging that around in her purse for years and probably still does.
And yes, she certainly knows how to use it. No sense in letting your wife have a gun if you don’t train her how and when to use it. For a not-large-at-all woman she could handle that little wheelgun with full house 158 gr. JHP .357 loads like a champ. Lots of practice.
There were other weapons also. Handguns are for social work, shotguns are much better for ensuring domestic security at home. My preference in that area runs towards 12 ga. 3″ mag. #4 buck. She knew how to handle that kind of thing too.
She actually had (has) a fairly forgiving sense of humor. She had a T-Shirt custom made that said “Feel safe at night, sleep with a Marine” on the front and the EGA on the back. I wasn’t in the Marines at that point but … Once a Marine and all that.
When I said the above to her and her mom I wasn’t actually in peril of my life … Though if looks could kill I’d be long dead.
It’s both funny and sad how getting married and having a fmaily is “The New Punk”
I think the Sikhs do it right. Adult children go to their parents when they want to get married. Then the parents network through the entire country, perhaps across the world, to find a suitable partner. No money changes hands. The prospectives meet, and if it clicks, a wedding follows. If it doesn’t click, the parents try again. To be sure, they sometimes pair up and then ask parents for their blessing, which is usually given. But I really like the idea of a third party doing the background check before the heart is in front of the head.
A nephew of mine observed that relationships often smooth out when she moves in. In a difficult housing market, young people don’t have the income to rent an apartment without roommates helping to pay the bills. At first they gather up their same-sex friends, then those friends take in significant others who can’t afford their own room, then there’s a pregnancy, and… and… But the women are the ones who acquiesce in the relationship in order to keep a roof over their heads, or so says my nephew. And her compliance smooths out the relationship. I asked him if he and his male roommates weren’t taking advantage of the women. He didn’t see it that way. Hmm.
Some other observations:
There are a LOT of unmarried 30-somethings with 2 or 3 kids jammed into a 2-bedroom apartment for $2100 per month.
The state’s current definition of marriage has emptied it of meaning. And so many never bother with the document. Legal marriage has NO power to bring an errant partner back into compliance. Why pay the document fee?
The state’s only interest in marriage is in avoiding becoming the financial support of any children that are produced. A marriage certificate is not required to establish parental responsibility.
I can’t remember the last time our church was used for a wedding. I don’t think our current (young) pastor has officiated any.
Well said. The last time I am aware of my pastor (who is pretty young) married someone was my brother about 3 years ago.
Hedonism is based upon putting self before all others, and it is destructive to all one’s relationships.
The wisdom of previous ages was right again, who could have guessed!