Dr. Helen Smith fox news interview on why men are avoiding marriage

[The_Bucket]

Finding the person who won’t run out on you at the first (or second or third or fourth or …) sign of trouble is not something I would term a relative cakewalk. Picking well is more than half the task of delivering the goods right there. To pick poorly in spite of all the tools out there is still far too common an occurrence. Even you should know that.

Picking is half the task of living out the vocation? No, you’re not married are you?!

Discerning the call to marriage? Maybe not so hard. Finding and discerning the right person? Pretty hard. Living out the marriage vows even when things get rough, your spouse changes, and nothing goes according to plan? Insane.

That’s why I said relatively. Living completely for another person is a very, very difficult thing to do. Harder still when someone who you know is a good person endures a rough patch or changes to a degree or isn’t also giving 100% to you for awhile.

 

[Xantippe]

Zzyzx Road said:

“In today’s legal environment, there are many who do not want to put in that work”

Good–more options for you, then.

(By the way, is that why some of the single guys are so loud in talking down marriage–trying to scare off the competition?)

“That said, there are ways to minimize one’s risk: marry another devout Catholic, marry someone who hasn’t participated in the secular hook up scene (or if they have, they are truly repentant for it), marry someone from a good family, marry someone whose parents are still together, marry someone whose siblings don’t have such a colorful matrimonial history, marry someone who doesn’t have anger management or other psychological issues, and more… Red flags in any of these areas aren’t an automatic disqualifier, but they do need to be discerned further.”

Yes–you will find as you go on that certain problems do not pop up in isolation. There’s often a very well-established pattern.

Divorce is practically unknown in my Protestant family, but then there’s one branch that for some reason has pretty much all of the divorce on that side of the family. One of my aunties has been married and divorced twice, her ex-husband has five children from three relationships, and in the family they raised together, there are four adult children, two of whom have already divorced. And this is a very upper middle class family. If it weren’t for their being enough money to go around, it would lead to misery for everybody.

“The risk will never be close to zero even in the upper middle classes where marriage is strongest. At some point, one does the best they can with their fiance and then honors his/her commitment by choosing love as an action every single day.”

Certainly.

As someone has mentioned, it’s a very high risk, high reward gamble.

 

[Xantippe]

The Bucket said:

“Where I disagree is the notion that it is somehow harder to find people these days. It’s easier than ever, in my opinion, to connect with people. To find your niche. The bevy of communicative tools available is mind boggling.”

Plus, there are cities with immense populations and various societal sorting machines for throwing young people together (“college” and “work”).

“Can that lead to bad things? Sure. It can definitely lead to abandonment and divorce over trivial and/or selfish issues. But it also can lead to both spouses fully embracing the vocation of marriage, as opposed to simply “making the best” of a situation.”

Exactly–in the younger generations, you don’t see people treating spouses like garbage for decades and getting away with it. I can think of a number of examples from my grandparents’ generation, but none from my parents’ generation. The totally miserable marriage that lasts forever that everybody within a block knows is totally miserable is largely extinct.

“Truthfully I see all the hand-wringing about how the system is “rigged” against men coming from never-married men.”

Yes.

Zzyzx Road said:

“It is better to live in a corner of a roof
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.”

In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit I resemble that description.

The Bucket said:

“Picking is half the task of living out the vocation? No, you’re not married are you?!
Discerning the call to marriage? Maybe not so hard. Finding and discerning the right person? Pretty hard. Living out the marriage vows even when things get rough, your spouse changes, and nothing goes according to plan? Insane.”

Exactly.

And that’s without even considering the times when children turn out to be unwell or otherwise challenging. I know a family in my immediate circle that had to wait for years before their preschooler finally got a major organ transplant. I know another family where the baby turned out to have a hereditary eye cancer and had to undergo cancer therapy in infancy. I know another family where the twin babies were born via c-section at 28.5 weeks at about 3 pounds each after a placental abruption (that’s a life-threatening emergency for mother and baby where the placenta sheers off the uterine wall). There’s a family at school whose son went into a coma after a tumbling accident. I know another family whose daughter turned out to have been abused for years to the point of permanent mental disability by a violent felon boyfriend they didn’t even know existed.

When you know what the possibilities are with regard to really bad things happening to children, all of this yammering about money and unfairness sounds ridiculous and petty. The stakes involved with having a family are so much higher than that.

 

[Estevao]

I wish you guys wouldn’t take what I say on marriage personally, it’s just a topic I have an interest in. I’m sure you all have wonderful marriages.

Maybe I should post less in the family section until I have a family

 

[Xantippe]

Or until you’ve got a hot prospect.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

@Estevao, it’s not about you. Everyone gets a little hot under the collar when this subject comes up. Myself included. Step outside, take a deep breath and thank the Lord for the day He has made.