Divorce

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

All this is often - though not always - true. However, the choice is not that or loveliness. It's that or some other kind of hell. Generally, I think that the hell of unhappy people staying together is worse than the hell of unhappy people disentangling themselves.

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I believe that when two people are committed to the other's happiness above their own and are willing to do whatever is necessary to have a healthy marriage then it doesn't have to be hell. Every married person wakes up unhappy sometime, just like every person who is not married. I think “I want to be happy” is greatly over rated. If a person is counting on someone to make them feel happy marriage could be a really challenging experience. That's just my opinion. I do wish everyone was happy. I just think people can be a little selfish and childish about happiness.

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Originally Posted by motherhubbard

I believe that when two people are committed to the other's happiness above their own and are willing to do whatever is necessary to have a healthy marriage then it doesn't have to be hell. Every married person wakes up unhappy sometime, just like every person who is not married. I think “I want to be happy” is greatly over rated. If a person is counting on someone to make them feel happy marriage could be a really challenging experience. That's just my opinion. I do wish everyone was happy. I just think people can be a little selfish and childish about happiness.

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DING DING DING....we have a winner!!

I concur completely!!

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Originally Posted by motherhubbard

I believe that when two people are committed to the other's happiness above their own and are willing to do whatever is necessary to have a healthy marriage then it doesn't have to be hell. Every married person wakes up unhappy sometime, just like every person who is not married. I think “I want to be happy” is greatly over rated. If a person is counting on someone to make them feel happy marriage could be a really challenging experience. That's just my opinion. I do wish everyone was happy. I just think people can be a little selfish and childish about happiness.

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That's tantamount to saying "Once you've married someone, as long as you work at it, it'll work." But, as you pointed out in an earlier post, not everyone is as informed or as thoughtful as they might be when they first choose a partner - so some marriages are doomed to failure before they start. You may think that even those marriages can be made to work, but we'll have to agree to differ on that point.

And though I tend to agree with you that 'being happy' is not an inalienable human right (because if it were, most of us would have a case to take to the international courts), I do think that 'not feeling oppressed, frustrated, miserable, trapped, underappreciated and stripped of any autonomous expression of self every single day, and for the rest of one's life' probably is a fundamental right that most people should be able to take for granted.

I agree with you too that there are those who can be a little selfish about happiness. But it doesn't help necessarily to be selfless in a marriage, especially if only one party is doing it. What would you advise for a person who's following your advice, but whose partner isn't? "Just suck it up - you're the better person"?

Both of us would insist that marriage needs work, and should not be lightly entered into or easily tossed aside. The difference between us, I think, is that you believe that marriage is Such a Good Thing that the sustenance of the bond is more likely to benefit the adults and children involved than would a severance of that bond. Me, I think that if it's not working as a framework for increasing the happiness of the adults and the children involved, then it's likely to act as a machine for torturing those same people, which is going to cause immediate and long-term harm.

I speak, here, as one whose parents are still together after fifty years. I've been married for nine, and never previously divorced. The models in my life are strongly pro-marriage. But I know one thing for sure - there are people who should never, under any circumstances, get married. It's not suited to everyone. Trouble is, we are constantly told that, having fallen in love, what you do is get married. That's a conclusion drawn from a false corollary. Certainly you should not get married unless you are in love - but that doesn't mean you should get married because you are in love.

Perhaps as a society, we shouldn't recommend marriage so highly, or encourage people to aspire to it. Perhaps we should do the opposite, in fact. If marriage were broadly discouraged, there would be fewer entered into, and a higher proportion of success.

Then again, it's pointless my saying all this, as Bienvenu has already and unilaterally declared you the winner - though I'm not sure how he got that job, what was won or what your prize will be.

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Originally Posted by motherhubbard

I believe that when two people are committed to the other's happiness above their own and are willing to do whatever is necessary to have a healthy marriage then it doesn't have to be hell.

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No one can always be happy but every one can commit to "the other's happiness" - the essence of love. Yet how common is it that "two people are committed to the other's happiness above their own"? More rarely I venture than commitment to maintaining the marriage or cooperation in practical marital duties.

Divorce, like the breaking of close friendship, is a tragic admission of human failure, a failure occurring well before formal divorce. I have seen my cousins divorce and, though for the best, they have sustained damage.

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Originally Posted by motherhubbard

I believe that when two people are committed to the other's happiness above their own and are willing to do whatever is necessary to have a healthy marriage then it doesn't have to be hell. Every married person wakes up unhappy sometime, just like every person who is not married. I think “I want to be happy” is greatly over rated. If a person is counting on someone to make them feel happy marriage could be a really challenging experience. That's just my opinion. I do wish everyone was happy. I just think people can be a little selfish and childish about happiness.

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Thats very well said Mh.