Hello, Dr. Robson—
Thank you for reading!
I would hope the conclusion I wrote was taken in the spirit it was intended—to remind us all that we do have a chance at a happy, healthy marriage. Just become some people get divorced, and just because some men and some women are burned in marriage, and just because some people are married but unhappy, doesn’t mean all marriages must have such dire outcomes. If you took my conclusion as a literal statistic, that would certainly be cause to perceive me as a moron, but since it’s not, whew. Seems I can have moron status for other reasons, not for this conclusion:)
You asked, “have you considered all the reasons why unhappy couples--or couples in which the husband is happy but the wife is not--may stay together?” Oh boy, have I, Dr. Robson. That’s not what I chose to write about in this piece, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t considered it. I can’t claim to have considered ‘all’ of them; perhaps there are some I’m not aware of. But many people, like yourself, are quick to point out that people, sometimes women, are unhappy in marriages. (Naturally, we have to add “some” people and wives are unhappy as some wives are happy in marriages.) And many readers are quick to tell me all the reasons why marriage is god-awful, including why women are unhappy in marriage. And lawd knows I’ve read about this topic. I so feel for them if they’re staying due to abuse, mental health, addiction, or financial reasons—or for any other reason, really. I so very much wish they’d get those underlying reasons addressed, but that wasn’t a focus in this piece. Here, I’ve chosen to write the counter point, which is to consider that some marriages are healthy, and it’s ok for us to consider marriage as a valid form of relationship despite the fact that some people are unhappy in marriage.
You pointed out that “only 13% of women marry a second time.” This topic was not the focus of my current piece, but is certainly an interesting topic. Your writing “once bitten, twice shy” seems to imply one of those reasons for this low re-marriage rate, which is that women were ‘bitten’ in marriage so don’t wish to get married again. That’s certainly one reason. However, the 13% re-marriage rate doesn’t completely imply that ‘marriage was bad so that’s why not many women are getting married again’. Like everything, there are other reasons as well. Let’s give women credit that some will recognize that just because their first marriages sucked doesn’t mean future marriages would. The 13% re-marriage rate doesn’t imply that divorced women don’t want to get re-married. Some may want to re-marry but don’t because they don’t want to forfeit alimony, pensions, social security, Medicaid payments, or affect their kids’ collegiate financial aid, etc. so they don’t choose to re-marry. Some could want to re-marry but not be able to because, unfortunately, some older divorced women struggling in a dating market where the men may seek younger women. And of course there's a longevity factor (women living longer than men, generally).
You wrote, “Marriage as an institution does great things for men's health, but the opposite for women's.” I’m aware of the numbers you’re referring to. There’s some evidence that some men were healthy while married and some women weren’t. That doesn’t mean we can make the blanket statement that marriage is good for men and bad for women. I so hope no one makes a decision to not get married based on a simplistic belief “I’m a woman, so if I get married, my health will suffer.” Let’s give women credit that they can engage in behaviors to make sure they aren’t unhealthy if they get married.
Now this is where I get a bit ticky on wording, so forgive me, but I’m very opposed to blaming “marriage as an institution” for anything. “It’s the institution’s fault that I got divorced. It’s the institution’s fault that I’m not healthy”. I wrote a bit about that in my recent piece (The Unsavory Motives of Divorce Lawyers and Divorced People Who Tell You Divorce Rates). As you know, people view themselves as having little agency when they’re blaming institutions and external factors. I prefer to emphasize that, in our modern times, we do have choices and can engage in behaviors that can make ourselves and our marriages healthy, or at least healthier. When you read my other pieces, you’ll see that’s a theme for me: There are a lot of reasons why people get divorced, but it’s not ‘marriage’s’ fault. We may err when we say ‘marriage is bad’, and base the decision to not get married—or to get divorced—on that perception. There are a lot of reasons people stay in an unhappy marriage, but it isn’t ‘marriage’s’ fault. If you choose to get divorced, ok, but to say your reason for divorce is “because marriage is a bad institution”, well, I don’t know. I’d urge the people who say “marriage is bad” or “marriage is bad for women” to dig a bit deeper to understand what’s going on there. Since some people are in happy, healthy, divorce-free marriages, that’s evidence that marriage is not, in and of itself, bad.
Ok...I'm off to go teach...thank you for giving me food for thought, Dr. Robson.
