I always thought this bumper sticker was funny -
“I got this car for my wife.
Pretty good trade, huh?”
When I first read that so many years ago, I always thought
it comical because to me, the idea of trading a person for a car was
preposterous. “Why would anyone do
that?” I wondered. If they really
didn’t like their wife, then why would they have ever gotten married in the
first place? Just to trade her in? And who would take her in trade if she was really
as bad as they say?? Made zero sense. Especially to an impressionable 10 year old.
Random Task - Go around to any of
your married guy friends and ask them how they feel about their wives, or better
yet, ask them why they got married. It’s
what I did before I got married (I wanted to know how they knew it was “the
One”). And if your experience is anything like mine, I’m willing to bet 80% of
them come back with a joke about a ball and chain, a tyrant leader, or some
story on how they were coerced via blackmail, guilt or obligation into the
sacred bond of marriage. Problem is, for
a lot of those guys, it was probably true.
My money would be on them never once mentioning love or having a true connection
with a person as a reason they got married.
I don’t know if they’re afraid to say it because it doesn’t seem macho
or cool, or if it’s because they never really experienced it with the one they
ended up with. Most of the time I hear
people say “it was the next step” or it was the “logical” thing to do. Like love has anything to do with logic…. People get married for a lot of reasons, but
very seldom do they appear to be reasons that can stand the test of time. Almost half of all marriages in the USA in the
last 30 years have ended up in divorce. Almost half! FOR 30 YEARS!
And even though statistically fewer people are getting married now than
in years past, they are still reaching the same percentage of divorce.
1980 = 49.6% divorced
1990 = 48.3%
2000 = 49.6%
2008 = 49.1%
What’s worse is those numbers (for what reason I haven’t a
clue) do not include California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, and
Minnesota in 2008. Heck, including
marriages and divorces from California alone would surely send that number well
into the 60% range! (Damn Hollywood.) In
other words, the current divorce rate is even worse than what’s being reported.
Why do most marriages end up that way? In this author’s opinion, there are a lot of
real factors at play here. Not the very
least of which is the maturity of the of the people actually getting married.
(in 2011, average age of first timers is 28 for males and 26 for females). Don’t get me wrong, its not their age I have a
problem with, its their maturity level. Big
difference. Whereas 30 years ago a 25 year old may have been equipped with all
they needed to go out and tackle the word, it seems today it takes a lot longer
for the offspring to actually spring off.
I believe what we are seeing is an entire class of people who grew up
with parents so caught up with making money or being their kid’s best friends
that we now have a crop of young adults that have no social skills or ways to
relate to each other. Would they be
different if their parents didn’t place them in front a TV/video game/computer
at every chance to avoid actually being a parent? Yeah, I think so. Would
they have been different if their parents weren’t so afraid of them getting
called names or scraping their knees they may have actually played outside with
other kids? I say yes again. Sadly, even when they were old enough to make
their own decisions it seemed it was too late. Their character building days
were apparently long behind them and they would rather hide behind some
dominant video game character (to mask their insecurity no doubt), or spend the
day filming themselves doing idiotic activities in hopes of being YouTube’s
next biggest thing, than they would
trying to meet people, make friends, and socially network, WITHOUT a computer.
Pile on top of that another major contributor: People don’t spend enough time getting to
know one another before entering marriage. Maybe because it’s just so easy to
get divorced now a days? ((http://www.divorcemag.com) Really now? An entire magazine??)
Or perhaps it’s just more romantic to act on a
whim than it is to think ahead and actually plan a life together? All I know is most seem to have no idea what
their partner is like apart from the rehearsed dates they went on, yet because
they have known each other for a set period of time, and they feel there is no
other direction in which to go, marriage must be the answer. Crazy I know, but if you ask around the
divorced folk, I think you’ll be surprised just how common that answer really
is. Irreconcilable differences they’ll call it.
You know what I call it?
Selfishness and laziness, with a lack of forethought.
Most importantly,
it really boils down to communication. Couples seldom have any serious discussions
about money, raising children or what it means for them to be happy before they
get married. (Who wants to talk about
that all that boring stuff, right?) And after the fact, when those
topics come up, they answer in ways they think their partners want to hear, and don’t base answers on the
truths they feel within. I guess they're hoping that they’ll change in the future? Or
worse, they're hoping they can change their partners view when the time comes? So off
they go, trudging blissfully forward hoping they’ll never have any disagreements on
such matters. Yeah. Great strategy.
Regardless of what the Beatles think, you need more than love
to make all of this work. Sure it starts
with love , but it can only continue with honor, and mutual respect. It also has to contain trust and honesty as
well as room to compromise and the ability to communicate – things people seem
to know very little about. If you have
all of that, and you believe you can carry it on for the commitment of your
ENTIRE life, then you may be ready.
Sadly I think we’ll only see those numbers go even higher in
the future. Maybe I’m just out of touch,
but if the news, the Internet and the stuff TV producers think we want to see
is any indication of what we are like as a whole, we are in some serious trouble. (i.e. The Occupy Movement, Facebook, The Real Housewives of Who cares What City
etc) People growing up in today’s
fast paced, ego centric , and self serving, ‘I gotta have it now’, world couldn’t
care less about getting married or even staying together. If they aren’t getting what they need, right
here, right now, they just go off to the next video, search engine result set,
or in this case, relationship. Maybe
it’s because there is no YouTube video to show how to behave when someone else’s
feelings are on the line. Perhaps it’s
because there is no Google result that can tell one how to feel about somebody
or a WikiHow on making relationships work. Perhaps
if their entire married life could be carried on via text messaging or Twitter they
could make it work, but I don’t know how they’ll ever be able to enjoy holding
hands or a walk together on the beach at sunrise with those methods.
I don’t think that bumper sticker is funny anymore. That’s because I actually have a wife now, and
for the life of me, can’t ever see trading her for anything. Not for all tea in China, (not that you’ll
ever catch me doing business with the Chinese), not for any (or even all!) of
the Italian V12s on the planet, or any sort of dollar amount. And if I wouldn’t do it for any of those, what
makes you think I would do it for any one car?
Here’s the best part – We didn't have to compromise our standards to be happy. We didn’t
need to conform to what all of our friends were doing, or settle for the "next best thing" because we weren't getting any younger. We just needed to be patient, let our propensity to listen instead
of talk take over, openly discuss our feelings on all the things we were passionate about, and most importantly, we just needed to be honest with each other.
On top of all of that, my wife is the reason I still believe good people exist in this wretched society of corporate greed, self absorbed
politicians and mindless, empty Hollywood nimrods. It was her idea to create this blog as a way
for me to talk about all of the things that are of concern to me. (read as ‘all
of the things she’s tired of hearing me complain about’). This vent, as it were, is supposed to serve
as a stepping stone for me to become more of a positive person; a method to rid
me of all the evil and angry (but warranted!) demons that dwell inside me when I
turn on the news and listen to what our government is doing to this country. Or
when I read the hype and spin all the news outlets put on oil prices to makes America
think it’s getting away with a bargain at $5 per gallon gasoline. Or when someone recites me every detail of the Kardashian sisters’ lives, yet when I ask them a question about how our economy functions, they stare blankly up at the sky.
We’ll see
if it works.
New sticker -
“My wife got this blog for my sanity. Pretty good trade,
huh?”
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