The Case Against Remarriage

So Ms. Riddell was surprised to find herself eagerly looking for Mr. Partilla at school events — and missing him when he wasn’t there. “I didn’t admit to anyone how I felt,” she said. “To even think about it was disruptive and disloyal.

Isn't this what used to be called a crush? Does every crush merit a new set of wedding vows and a couple broken families?

Ha
 
Bestwifeever said:
but there's a reason the majority of divorces post-60 are initiated by women.
Click to expand...

I think I am too obtuse to figure out from your post what that reason is. Would you mind going into greater detail?

Ha
 
Tigger said:
About angry women and tired men:
Philip Greenspun's Weblog » All couples with children should get divorced?
(sorry ladies, I know that you're not all like this, and that men are no saints)

Some comments are worth reading.
Click to expand...
Phil himself is not delusional enough to get married.

I like to people watch. Last night I was in a downtown Office Depot, waiting for a print job and observing the young couple next to me. They were white, like really white, and dressed conservatively. I couldn't hear them talk. The man could easily have passed for American except for some subtle differences in the way he stood. The woman was way too tuned in to the man for an American woman other than a hooker, but she wasn't dressed well enough or pretty enough to be a call girl. I have seen very blanco Spanish speaking whites in USA, but this couple didn't have that flash and glitz of upscale Colombians or Venezuelans, and the woman was wearing flats. They might have been Russian, but I am pretty good at identifying Russians and the guy was not aggro enough. Finally they turned more toward me and I heard them speaking Spanish, very clean easily understood Spanish, but without the Iberian lisp, and also without the Argentine salting with Italian mannerisms and words. Possibly I have seen my first Uruguayans?

Anyway, in a nutshell she was playing to him, in an easygoing way that appeared ingrained rather than amped up to do some persuading job on him. She did not seem to be preoccupied with the American woman's number one preoccupation- "Let no one assume that I am not identical or superior to a man in every important way, except that I am a morally higher being; and let no man try to put anything over on me.”

Many of us men can see the justice in this. And in a perhaps unrelated development, ladies may find us to be "commitment phobic". Sometimes it is nobody’s fault, institutions just get outdated.

Ha
 
haha said:
I think I am too obtuse to figure out from your post what that reason is. Would you mind going into greater detail?

Ha
Click to expand...

It's not my reason, it's the comment on p. 20 by the male authors of Younger Next Year for Women (which is a prime example of how an index makes a book much more useful, as this book does not have one and it is really hard to find where the authors said things):

One of the interesting things we learned in the course of doing this book is that there are a tremendous number of divorces after age sixty and that women initiate two-thirds of them. It makes a certain amount of sense, when you think about it. A lot of women, as they come into their own in their fifties and sixties, are feeling that they've had enough of caregiving for a while. They're ready to focus on...their own interests and goals.

...He's leaking testosterone, big time.... he's bored stupid and scared to death but he's still throwing his weight around and telling you what to do.... He's going to do two things: he's going to try to depend on you for everything, and he's still going to try to give you some much needed advice on how to run your life....
Click to expand...

After they rip into the offensive stereotype of the retired male (to such an extent that one wonders why the wife is waiting til he's retired to file for divorce), they tell us (the women readers this book is aimed at) to teach him new tricks and keep him around.
 
Bestwifeever said:
It's not my reason, it's the comment on p. 20 by the male authors of Younger Next Year for Women (which is a prime example of how an index makes a book much more useful, as this book does not have one and it is really hard to find where the authors said things):



After they rip into the offensive stereotype of the retired male (to such an extent that one wonders why the wife is waiting til he's retired to file for divorce), they tell us (the women readers this book is aimed at) to teach him new tricks and keep him around.
Click to expand...

OK, I see. Thanks for making the effort to find it and explain. I think that unfortunately this is often more or less correct. Young women sometimes seem to seek this sort of dominance behavior from men, but I don't see too much of this feminine attitude lasting into middle age, while as men we often go right ahead dispensing unwelcome "help".

Ha
 
Bestwifeever said:
It's not my reason, it's the comment on p. 20 by the male authors of Younger Next Year for Women...:

One of the interesting things we learned in the course of doing this book is that there are a tremendous number of divorces after age sixty and that women initiate two-thirds of them. It makes a certain amount of sense, when you think about it.....
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I have no idea what the real statistics are but from 16 years in Family Law as a paralegal my observation is that the one who has the initial papers drawn up is not always the person who initiates the proceedings. In my state there is a petitioner and a respondent. You might think the petitioner is the original person who wants the divorce but that may not always be the case. Often the two parties have attorneys already negotiating before the initial papers are drawn up; in many cases I saw, the petitioner was the party whose attorney had someone available in the office to draw up the papers. Who becomes petitioner apparently is negotiable, IMO.

I am not an attorney.
 
CuppaJoe said:
I have no idea what the real statistics are but from 16 years in Family Law as a paralegal my observation is that the one who has the initial papers drawn up is not always the person who initiates the proceedings. In my state there is a petitioner and a respondent. You might think the petitioner is the original person who wants the divorce but that may not always be the case. Often the two parties have attorneys already negotiating before the initial papers are drawn up; in many cases I saw, the petitioner was the party whose attorney had someone available in the office to draw up the papers. Who becomes petitioner apparently is negotiable, IMO.

I am not an attorney.
Click to expand...

I was wondering the same thing, Cuppa--a 62-year-old friend's marriage is probably not going to survive and she is probably going to file soon, but the reason for its demise is squarely in his lap, if you know what I mean. So who really is instigating the divorce? Statistically, she is, but realistically?

The Younger Next Year authors make it sound like the women just up and said I'm out of here, I'm living my life now. Probably a little more complicated in most of the cases.
 
Bestwifeever said:
I was wondering the same thing, Cuppa--a 62-year-old friend's marriage is probably not going to survive and she is probably going to file soon, but the reason for its demise is squarely in his lap, if you know what I mean. So who really is instigating the divorce? Statistically, she is, but realistically?

The Younger Next Year authors make it sound like the women just up and said I'm out of here, I'm living my life now. Probably a little more complicated in most of the cases.
Click to expand...
In my mind, whoever decides to go for the divorce is the instigator, regardless of the real or imagined faults of the other party. That is not to say that it wasn't a good idea, just that the meaning of "instigator" is pretty well defined.

OTOH Cuppa's example casts doubt on the reliability of the data that may be have been used to come up with this 60% statistic in the first place.

Ha
 
haha said:
She did not seem to be preoccupied with the American woman's number one preoccupation- "Let no one assume that I am not identical or superior to a man in every important way, except that I am a morally higher being; and let no man try to put anything over on me.”

Ha
Click to expand...

Is this why a few girlfriends have asked me if I was going to let DBF "get away with _____ ?!" (more than one fill in the blank) He's a guy...it's ok if he gets to be one (I expect him to - including the "I am man, hear me roar" (shoulda seen him Sun & Mon after his NYG lost)! LOL He puts up with my stuff too...:angel:
 
@CuppaJoe and @Bestwifeever,

In my state (and in most states as I understand it) it doesn't really matter who did what, or who is the petitioner, or any of that. The idea is called no-fault divorce. The two parties are splitting, who really cares why enough to dig into the reasons, I guess.

2Cor521
 
SecondCor521 said:
@CuppaJoe and @Bestwifeever,

In my state (and in most states as I understand it) it doesn't really matter who did what, or who is the petitioner, or any of that. The idea is called no-fault divorce. The two parties are splitting, who really cares why enough to dig into the reasons, I guess.

2Cor521
Click to expand...

Yes, in Louisiana a couple can get an uncontested divorce (we did, in 1998). There is no need to show up at court. We went to the lawyer together, signed the papers, and that was all. The lawyer did the rest.
 
SecondCor521 said:
@CuppaJoe and @Bestwifeever,

In my state (and in most states as I understand it) it doesn't really matter who did what, or who is the petitioner, or any of that. The idea is called no-fault divorce. The two parties are splitting, who really cares why enough to dig into the reasons, I guess.

2Cor521
Click to expand...

I agree--if the marriage is over, it's over. The Younger Next Year authors are stretching a statistic (two-thirds of divorces after age 60 are filed for by women) to shore up their idea that it's important to stay married. Which doesn't even make any sense.
 
Bestwifeever said:
After they rip into the offensive stereotype of the retired male (to such an extent that one wonders why the wife is waiting til he's retired to file for divorce), they tell us (the women readers this book is aimed at) to teach him new tricks and keep him around.
Click to expand...
Being a guy, I can think of two reasons:
1. If he's at the office most of the day then it's tolerable. When he retires he's underfoot and the "problem" can no longer be avoided. In the Navy, this also explains why families whose Navy spouse is on shore duty have so many more family issues than families whose spouse is on sea duty. When you're on shore duty, you spend more time with your spouse and things can't be swept under the rug anymore.

2. Maybe it's easier to get part of the pension after he's retired and actually drawing it. But there are a lot of different pensions out there and I may be overgeneralizing.

Bestwifeever said:
... to shore up their idea that it's important to stay married. Which doesn't even make any sense.
Click to expand...
Again, it makes statistical sense if you're a guy. Married guys live longer, both chronologically and perceptually.

But I think this whole "Old Fred" issue will start to decline as the "traditional" gender-marriage roles fade away.

Meanwhile, spouse has never been so motivated by a workout program as she has by the sight of a friend who's approaching 50 and is becoming alarmingly overweight. Now that I have such a newly-dedicated workout buddy, though, my own workouts are up to 6-7/week and it's gettin' pretty challenging...
 
Bestwifeever said:
.... The Younger Next Year authors are stretching a statistic (two-thirds of divorces after age 60 are filed for by women) to shore up their idea that it's important to stay married. Which doesn't even make any sense.
Click to expand...

So can we conclude that they are taking an inherently sexist (dubious, IMO) statistic in a book with an inherently sexist title and concept and giving us the impression that we can infer more sexist ideas from it?

Disclaimer: I haven't followed this thread nor read the book, Younger Next Year for Women; and I see sexism everywhere.
 
haha said:
Phil himself is not delusional enough to get married.

Anyway, in a nutshell she was playing to him, in an easygoing way that appeared ingrained rather than amped up to do some persuading job on him. She did not seem to be preoccupied with the American woman's number one preoccupation- "Let no one assume that I am not identical or superior to a man in every important way, except that I am a morally higher being; and let no man try to put anything over on me.”

Many of us men can see the justice in this. And in a perhaps unrelated development, ladies may find us to be "commitment phobic". Sometimes it is nobody’s fault, institutions just get outdated.

Ha
Click to expand...

Are you still alive after this last post? LOL. Don't let the secret out, or else I'll be competing with a ton of other American males for South American women, and my Spanish is nowhere near fluent yet.
 
BunsGettingFirm said:
Are you still alive after this last post? LOL. Don't let the secret out, or else I'll be competing with a ton of other American males for South American women, and my Spanish is nowhere near fluent yet.
Click to expand...
For reasons that I do not understand, I am tolerated. Perhaps it is age.

Ha
 
Here's a dissenting article

5 Reasons to Get (or Stay) Married This Year
You probably already know that married people on the whole are healthier, wealthier and have more satisfying sex lives than singletons or divorced people. You also already know that, absent some serious conflict, your kids would probably prefer it if you stuck together. And even if you were to split, whoever you married next would probably have equally annoying habits as your current spouse. So herewith, five reasons to get or stay married you probably haven't heard of.

5 Reasons to Get (or Stay) Married This Year - Yahoo! News

omni
 
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