I grew up with divorced parents who remarried and then divorced, then divorced again. My earliest memories are full of divorce, not marriage. I think that in some way that led me to think that nothing lasts forever. My grandparents were married. My Aunts and Uncles were married, but I was focused on my own family. Mom and dad got married and divorce.

Divorce is not necessarily on the rise and divorce rates are not necessarily higher than they’ve ever been. The report that I read mentions that changes in the population are not noted when divorce rates are mentioned. An example would be the time during the Depression, when people could not afford divorce, so instead of taking care of things legally men would just leave, they would abandon their families. Marriages would, in the true definition of the word, end but they would legally still exist.

A time that might show a high rate of divorce would be at the end of World War II, when men returned from war to brides they didn’t really now. 

Another interesting point…

Most divorce figures in the U.S. are estimates. Several states don’t count how many divorces they have – including California, which stopped counting its divorces years ago.
 
Contrary to popular belief, which focuses purely on the divorce rate, the fact is actually that the real growth in divorce seems to have finished – there’s been a slow decline and leveling off at the end of the Twentieth Century. Of course, divorces are still much higher than they were in decades past – but then, a wedding that doesn’t end in divorce will last decades longer than a wedding from the past, because we’re living so much longer.

You can read the rest of the report here. I know that divorce is not a happy subject, but it could be something that has been misrepresented or misunderstood and I find that very interesting.

Image credit: Sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Are Divorce Rates Really Higher Than Ever?

Here are a few “slip ups,” that divorcing folk tend to fall into……

*Do not try to entice your ex back by being overly generous when divvying up your assests. I did not fall into this one myself, but I do remember my dad telling me that he signed over “everything” to my ex-stepmom one of the times that they divorced.

*Avoid showing off your new boyfriend/girlfriend. Yeah, we know it’s a matter of pride as in, “Maybe you don’t want me, but someone else sure does,” but don’t do it. Better yet, give yourself some time before you jump into dating someone new. Your head is probably a mess and you will be doing yourself and any potential new friends a favor by waiting until you can concentrate on the future and leave the past where it belongs.

*Do not, I repeat, do not sleep with your ex. I suspect you will do it anyway, because everybody does. This is one issue that I have some experience with and it’s not an experience of the positive kind. It feels “safe,” but it’s a minefield. You need time and distance to get over a failed marriage. Getting naked together is nobody’s idea of distance.

*Your child is not a go-between. When I was a child I hated hearing this sentence, “Tell your father that his check is late.” Even as a little kid I knew it was inappropriate. I haven’t done everything right, but this is one thing that I never did – I never used my kids as a weapon.

Image credit: Sxc.hu

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Avoid These Classic Divorce Mistakes

He saw them on the news and said that they were funny, “all smiles, and best friends. He was trying to put it into relative terms like, his Grandpa was 18 at that time. His tried to explain it further, his Grandpa is no longer alive and he “was really old” when he died. I like when he gets wordy and explains the same thing 3 different ways. He’s thorough.

LAKEWOOD – When Dr. Gordon and Betty Spendlove got married Herbert Hoover was in the White House, the nation was in the middle of a depression and the thought of a man on the moon was something you’d find in a science fiction novel.

Dr. and Mrs. Spendlove both have Century birthdays coming up.  Betty Spendlove turns 100 on September 22 and Gordon hits 100 on October 10th, 2009. They reside in the Meridian Retirement Community, in Lakewood, Colorado.

Wow, 75 years is a long time. I keep thinking that over and over. If I got married today, I’d have to live to 118 to reach my 75 year anniversary and my boyfriend, whom I like to call “my old man,” because finally I have a man who is not younger than me, would be almost 120.

How sweet was it of my boyfriend to find that story for me?  I’d say it’s woo-worthy.

You can see a picture of the happy couple here.

Image credit: Michelle Smith

Post from: Blisstree

Couple Celebrates 75th Wedding Anniversary

My sister and her husband have been married for 16 years. They have been a couple for about 21 years. In that time I’ve watched their relationship change – up and down, but never out. There are times when they can be a bit bickery, but my brother-in-law never stops doing goofy stuff like goosing my sister or asking her silly and/or inappropriate questions that make her blush and punch his arm as she yells, “Matt!!”  If he ever stops the teasing, that’s when I’ll worry.

He teases Robin because he loves her. He does it because he thinks his wife is adorable and sexy and her easy-to-push buttons are impossible for him to resist. It’s become their thing.

I wish them another 40+ years of the same sort of button-pushing and arm punching. And I look forward to Monday when I get to spend another short, but fun-filled visit with them again.

Image credit: Michelle Smith

Post from: Blisstree

Teasing Is Their Thing

I read Ann Landers, Dear Abby, and pretty much any other advice columnist that I could get find back in the day. I’m not sure if it was the advice itself or the people telling their troubles that interested me the most. (Probably the troubles – I am naturally nosey). 

I was reading a recent column that covered a husband having an emotional affair with his boss. The emotional affair has the man – married 25 years – spending most of his time with a boss that he admits to feeling an attraction for. He buys her gifts, they spend off-time during the weekend together, they go out for drinks after work, alone. I get the impression that believing that this affair is merely emotional is wishful thinking. It sounds like that is his way of safely explaining the time spent with the boss. He has it out in the open so wife can’t “discover” it and freak out. Wow. That sucks. This cheater sounds either very devious, very smart, and like a real ass.

This emotional affair, with a co-worker, it’s  the next big thing in cheating. People work together they build bonds, they have a team-mentality, and one thing leads to another.

How do people avoid affairs?  How do you keep your partner from cheating?  You can’t, can you? Either they want to be with you and they want to honor that commitment or they don’t.

Sometimes I think about cheating and I wonder if there’s more opportunity to cheat these days or if people simply have a weaker will, a looser set of morals than they used to have. Or possibly cheating happens at the same rate that it always has.

What do you think? If anyone has anything to say, I’d be very interested in your opinion.

Image credit: Sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Is It Possible To Avoid Infidelity?

If you have been in a serious relationship for a long time you probably think that it is moving towards engagement and marriage.  As the years tick by on your relationship calendar and you take significant steps forward (like moving in together, meeting each other’s families, taking vacations together, and adopting pets) you naturally just develop feelings towards lifelong commitment.

The common problem that I have been noticing is the feeling of waiting.  Due to stereotypes about the male “inability to commit” women find themselves suppressing their feelings of wanting to get married.  They fear that even bringing up the issue will push their man away and they will lose the relationship completely.  What does this mean for a relationship?

It means that there is unaddressed tension between the man and woman because they are not discussing their future in an open way and they are not being honest about their inentions with one another.

In this situation I think women should just put it all out in the open.  If they completely intend to marry their boyfriend, they should let him know.  Obviously don’t jump to this step too soon, but it is important to be honest so you don’t find yourself waiting for something that will never happen.

If you find that you have a definite feeling of “waiting” in your relationship, then do something about it!  Stop waiting for him to make a decision about your future together.  Don’t be too intense about it, but do have a talk. It may be the scariest thing in the world to imagine your boyfriend telling you that he never wants to marry you, but if that is the absolute truth then you need to find out and start moving on.

But in many cases you will be happy to find that it’s the opposite…guys just need a little push sometimes.  They need you to put that idea in their head and help them to realize that the time has come to make movements towards the next step.  It won’t be a quick or easy conversation that wraps up everything in a bow, but you shouldn’t keep waiting…you should start the communication now.

Being on the same page is extremely important in a relationship and finding out what your individual plans are for your future is a good way to make sure your lives are going in a healthy direction.

Image: sxc

Post from: Blisstree

Are You Waiting For Him To Make Decisions?

There were definitely the couples who got married right out of college…but those were outliers.  They had been dating since freshman year and it was very expected that they would get married young.  It didn’t cause any big commotion amongst our friends because the wedding was such a great college reunion.  Now is the time when it has really started to become a pattern.

As soon as I realized that this stage of my life had officially begun, I was interested in seeing how those in long term relationships would start to respond.  Couple who have just started dating know that they are a long ways from engagement so they don’t have such a strong reaction.  They see what is going on around them, but know that their situation is different.

Couples who have been dating for a very long time, on the other hand, feel the most pressure.  They wonder what it is that those engaged couples have that they don’t…How did they know that they were ready to take that next step?  Are we waiting for something that isn’t going to happen?  Did we miss the moment where we were supposed to propose?  Are we going to know when we’re ready?  Do people look at us and wonder why we’re not engaged?

I think these worries can cause unneeded and excessive stress on a relationship.  Every couple needs to remember that they are the only ones that really truly understand themselves as a couple and the decisions of others around them are irrelevent.  There is no perfect timeline for dating and then getting engaged and there are no social expectations that anyone needs to feel pressure to conform to.  Some people date for three days and get engaged and some people date for ten years and never get engaged.

Regardless of what your peers are doing, you know what is right for your relationship and you will know when the time is right to take that next step forward.  Be introspective, talk to your significant other, and make the right decisions for you.

Image: sxc.hu

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Why Is Everyone Else Getting Engaged?

Image: mrsgooding

One of the things that we do on our anniversary is to talk about the following:

• highs and lows of our marriage
• what we love most about each other
• what we’d like to change or improve to have a better relationship
• our role as parents – what we want for our child
• our plans for the future

The discussion about these things does not always end happily. I remember there was one year that we sort of got into a heated discussion about a particular topic. We did kiss and make up that night though We both believe that to make a marriage work, we need to communicate more and talk not only about the negative aspects of our marriage but also the good ones. Our anniversary is also our time for just us, us as a married couple and not us as parents or career people. This does not mean that we don’t talk about important things through the year but we do make it a point that every year, when we mark and celebrate the our wedding date that we do talk about important things without prejudice.

What about you? Do you and your spouse talk about the state of your marriage? When do you normally do it?

Post from: Blisstree

Evaluating Your Life and Marriage

I said, “Well, I do hope that you wait, but they don’t cry forever.” And, if you are a parent, you know that they don’t, although they do develop even more challenging behaviors so that at a certain point (the teenage years, for instance), you look back on memories of a crying infant and think of them as The Good Ol’ Days.

Another young girl I know, also a teen, but this time a little older at 19, she wrote a comment at Facebook about how people are confused and that commitment doesn’t require marriage. I understand her point, she’s been witness to some pretty funky martial relationships, but……

These girls are so young. Why are they so negative in their viewpoints?  Where does that come from?  Am I clueless if I feel that when I make a lifetime commitment to someone it includes marriage?  If she attends my wedding, is she going to be sitting there shaking her head in disgust at my foolishness?  If I have another baby at my age, will Bay consider leaving home because she can’t handle the inevitable crying? Will I be the final nail in the no-kids-ever coffin? 

Was I so set in my opinions, so sure that I had all the answers at that age?  Probably. I think that as we age, as we gain more knowledge, more life experience, we actually realize we don’t have all the answers and I sure as hell am not giving up my hope.

There are no guarantees and there are many opportunities for hurt, mayhem, and tragedy, but if I’m really committing then I’m going into that commitment with nothing holding me back. I am all in.

Image credit: Chase Your Bliss Photography

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Perspective and Age

Now, it appears as if they are halting the proceedings. I imagine that these are not easy times for the Penns. I can’t help but respect their desire to work it out, to not let go of their marriage.

I’m divorced. I can remember just wanting to be free of my husband. I felt that he was tearing me down, tearing our family down, because he was, but later I would rethink it, wouldn’t want to be alone or couldn’t imagine another man loving my children as well as their father could. Looking back, 17 years later, I am definitely happy to be well quit of that man. He’s still tearing down the people who love him, but I’m not ashamed of my wish to fix my family back then. Waiting to give up, it was no mistake.

Marriage is such a personal thing – only the married partners really know what is going on. When I get married again, I do not want another divorce. I’m not walking away from this next one. I’m going to dig in and get help where I need it.

Image credit: Michelle Smith

Post from: Blisstree

The Penns Are Back On