My good friend over at Hereford Nine wrote something the other day about marriage that I would like to comment on, since I think he might be misunderstood a little.
Over the years, most of my friends have gotten married. While all but two have remained married, they go against the grain on the success of marriage as they are all still happily married. Most of them have kids now, or they are on their way. I can't say anything negative about their marriages, and the complaints that I hear from them about their wives are minimal. Some are more whipped than others and over the years I have come to the conclusion that this is driven by them and not their wives. And for my friends that have stopped going on vacation with us to Vegas or golfing have valid reasons like, "Well Derek, I don't think I could leave my son with my wife for a weekend." This makes sense and I have no problem with that. What tends to get me are the comments from my friends, relatives, and co-workers about why I'm not married. To sum it up, I'm selfish. Getting married is not a top priority of mine. That is not to say that dating women is not a top priority, despite what people might say on this blog, but I'm not going to compromise my top priorities to get married. I enjoy the fact that I can wake up on Saturday and work-out, go play some poker or golf or go to the track. Or maybe I'll just hang out in my underwear and play 8 hours of Madden on the XBox. I can also decide to go back to school for my MBA. If I have to work late or work a weekend, I don't have to get approval first. Some people call this immature, while I call it being selfish and doing what makes me happy. When I find a women that likes to either do this with me or gives me the freedom to do these things, then I'll get married.
Not ALL married people that I know are unhappy. As I said above, ALL of my friends are happily married, with the exception of those who are now divorced. Now if I talk to the same number of my co-workers, they would have the exact opposite response. So what is the difference? Location? Race? Age? Salary Bracket? Well, the only thing in common is that the happily married friends are younger (30 or younger), while the unhappily married folks tend to be in their late 30s-50s. Is it that they come to a point in their lives where they realize that their life is almost over and they have wasted it doing things they don't want to do and compromised their own needs? Is this why in most marriages the best case scenario is 10 good years, a couple of kids, followed by someone cheating on someone else and then a messy divorce. It has to be along those lines, or I wouldn't hear all the complaints, see all the sleazy office relationships between married people, and the divorce rate wouldn't be near 50%. That is the point I think my friend was trying to make.
And one last note. The comments about my friends post wasn't what I was expecting. They were more of a personal attack on him, instead of a defense to marriage.
3 comments:
Can I get an "AMEN"?
Derek,
Will you marry me?
I'm not going to fall for that again. Last time I joked around like this, Lee and Dude said that I was gay.
P.S. I do
his was a rant that's seemingly based on unfounded half-truths that make it appear he's never known love or what it can mean to anyone. mine was, much like larsen's, a gut reaction first with a ridiculous attempt at humor to polish it off.
i completely understand your take on marriage. it truly is a personal freedom thing that i can definitely respect, but for me at least, that's something i can compromise on a bit when i realize all the good that suze is for me. and truth be told, i pretty much get to do what i want when i want so i still feel that sense of freedom (check back in a year or so when keira's a little older!).
i do wonder if things will change as we age. but at the same time, i often wonder if all the bad shit we hear people talking about their marriage is merely playing a role. we're practically beat over the head that marriage is bad for the male (hence ben's take on it), but i gotta tell ya, i don't think its a bad thing at all.
i think the issue with the divorce rate is related to age. people often get married in the early 20s and fuck if people really know themselves by then. i know i was a completely different person at 28 when i got married than i was at 22.
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