The Aspies here have come through with some interesting thoughts on the high divorce rates.
When it comes to this super sensitive hot button issue, I see emotion-based arguments even here & a great deal of romanticizing & assumptions.
We seem to agree that unprepared people often go into marriage for silly reasons. A part of why this happens is that Western culture bombards us with distorted images of what marriage is. Think of it. Girls are conditioned from infancy to dream of being brides. Animated fairy tales teach girls to wait for their prince to come 'rescue' them. Then, comes the big wedding. It ends there. We learn absolutely nothing about relationships & marriage from this. Boys aren't taught to even think of marriage.
Girls are targeted by soap operas & romance movies that feature idealized fantasy males (like 50 shades of grey). We talk of nonsense like 'soul mates', finding out other half & someone completing us. How dysfunctional is that?!? you need to be a whole & complete person: not some half-human seeking to plug a hole in your character! A wedding is NOT a marriage.
Another thing we haven't really given serious consideration to is the fact that, in the not so distant past (well into the 60s in some western places, even today in some western cultures!) a daughter was legally the PROPERTY of her father to be transferred, with his consent, to the husband. She vowed to OBEY her husband (Baptist & Evangelical women still do). She had no legal status under the law. She couldn't open a simple checking account in her own name or apply for a credit card. This applied even it was one of those rare cases wherein the woman earned more than the man! My father (a retired civil attorney) told me of a couple in the early 60s. She was a doctor but her husband was an illiterate labourer. When she wanted to open a bank acct, HE had to come in & scrawl is 'X' on the dotted line in order to show that he was PERMITTING her to open the account. This case helped spur legal changes here.
Religion imposed SUBMISSION within marriage onto all women AND it still does in the USA bible belt. Ironically, they have the highest divorce rates (after the shortest time married) in the entire USA. Right now today! HE became 'bread-winner', head of household, decision-maker, final authority & all 'round boss. the woman, also a fully grown adult, remained a teenager under some man's authority & tutelage. Church law, until shockingly recently, not only supported but encouraged husbands to beat their wives regularly to correct & chasten them. Look up domestic battery rates where you live. I mean do a quick Google search. I know that in the USA, right now, every 2 hrs a woman is killed by her male partner.
As far as in the past, people fixed things & now we just throw them out & replace them, this is true when it comes to material objects. It doesn't apply to marriage. This isn't my opinion or an emotional construct but a hard numerically verifiable fact. Only a man could file for a divorce until the late 50s/early 60s in many states & provinces. A woman could only get a divorce here IF the husband had a mistress AND moved her into the conjugal home with the wife! Even there, few women even had a high school degree or any trade training. In the absence of birth control, they often had several children by the time they were 25. My father used his mother as an example. She was married at 21 & had 16 pregnancies with 10 kids surviving to adulthood. Had her marriage been toxic, where the hell could she have gone with a high school education, no job, no alimony, child support, shelters for women, no rights AND 10 kids?!? Marriage was a trap: a social tool wrapped in romance, rubber stamped by religion, used to keep women oppressed & under male control. Submission & obedience & an utter lack of basic rights is NOT romantic & is NOT a relationship.
Marriages remained intact for the most part BUT that is NOT the determining factor of a 'successful' marriage! One partner had all the power & control but the other had none. Adultery was only a crime for women: NOT men. She had to shut up & look the other way or risk a beating. If he ran off with another woman, it was the wife's fault for not keeping him happy in some way.
Let's NOT make the NT cultural gaffe of romanticizing or idealizing either marriage or some mythic past wherein people were allegedly more moral, committed & ethical. As soon as the laws began to change in the 50s, we saw the phenomenon of the runaway wife. Women were tripping over each other to get themselves & their kids away from drunk violent controlling husbands. Look up the temperance movement & see what role rampant socially tolerated alcoholism played in domestic abuse. Look up runaway wives in the 50s then form your argument.
Now that women are often as or more educated than men, their expectations of what marriage IS has changed. Working women aren't willing to be both so-called bread-winners AND be expected to come home & become 1950s subservient servile wives responsible for all domestic tasks. We expect the man to pull his weight re parenting duties & household cleaning duties. The problem here is that many guys grew up in households wherein dad went to work, mom stayed home & SHE did everything in the house related to kids & cleaning. When they marry, they expect their wife to turn into their mother. They also want to be 'heads of household' in times where a woman has her own capable well-educated head. I love having a partner. If I wanted a leader, I'd move to North Korea!
Instead of assuming why people divorce, looking up the primary reasons for divorces is more useful. the #1 reason today is fights over money. The tanked economy, job losses, credit debt are killing families. Other causes include irreconcilable differences & adultery. When we bought our 1st house, the sellers were in the middle of an acrimonious divorce. The couple bickered openly in front of us. AWKWARD! They were both cops. He worked a night shift, she worked a day shift. BOTH were having affairs with a cop on their shift. In the middle was their 4yr old son. They argued in front of us over the ceiling light over the table!!! WHAT A MESS!!! Their career lifestyle contributed to their marriage's demise. Two lonely people sought comfort in the arms of someone conveniently accessible.
Another myth: women get rich from divorce settlements. Unless she was married to a multi-millionaire, this doesn't happen. Plus, she was likely rich herself (Donald Trump's wife was a multi millionaire super model, his first wife was a business woman). Often, they come from rich families & entered into the marriage with many assets. This is a misogynistic myth. Look up the numbers where you live. After a divorce, a woman s typically left near destitute. She usually has custody of the kids & she was likely earning less than her husband. If they were middle class or working class, she likely has a low to minimum wage job & not the best credit rating. When marital debts are settled, both are likely left with debts to pay. When the kids are sick or have a ped day or school holiday, SHE must remain home for them or pay for childcare. Her job won't cover these missed days & she can be easily fired since these jobs are easily filled by others & they offer no job security. Since he often has the kids every other weekend, he is free to build his career unimpeded by parental duties.
Many couples elect to remain in failed marriages due to financial peril. Men can get mandated to pay child support BUT this is based on what he earns & a reasonable cost of living for him. After a divorce is settled, the avg man sees his income increase by between 55-65% whereas a woman's decreases by a commensurate amt. Again, don't take my word: look it up! With the tanked economy, BOTH partners get screwed. Few women even receive the child support they're supposed to get. Look up the facts on what is owned in outstanding child support where you reside.
Looking at facts (not assuming or romanticizing) is the only way we'll ever use our Aspie logic to think reasonably about the issues contributing to divorce.
