Right, Then

Today: My homie C had this to say in her blog regarding relationships, with her characteristic precision and perspicacity:

"Divorce rates are at like 50% now or some shit and the idea of good old fashioned love is becoming more and more skewed in the minds of most everyone, I think. People are different now and values have changed. Is it that we expect more out of each other? Do we consider each other easily replaceable? Are we too lazy and/or self centered to maintain and nurture and grow a relationship forever? Are we unable to give up our insatiable appetite for instant gratification even for love? Are we all just a bunch of assholes"

My commentary: I'm not really sure that things are all that much worse than they used to be. Historically, it's true that divorce was either illegal or socially taboo in most (western) societies until after World War II. It's also true, however, that adultery was absolutely rife and that there was an atrocious sexual double standard. Even after marriages started being more about affection and less about family connections during the nineteenth century, I don't think there's any evidence that marriages were actually any happier than they are today. What has changed is that, at least in the states, it's very easy to get a divorce and there's almost no social pressure not to, certain upper-crust east coast and bible belt circles excepted. So, overall, I think that what makes present-day relationships different is that people leave them more readily than they used to, instead of seeking out happiness outside of the relationship through adultery (or just being stuck and being miserable for the rest of their lives, which still happens way too often.)

That all said, it's true that most long-term relationships fail, whether or not they involve marriage. In my own experience as would-be Dr. Phil to my friends over the years, the biggest problem with our generation is that people still want the Disneyesque permanent happy relationship but don't realize how much work is involved. Marriage, or really any long-term thing, is an active, ongoing process. It's never easy and it requires constant, ongoing communication. Speaking for myself, B and I have a pretty damn successful marriage precisely because we're always talking about things and compromising; neither of us expect everything to just magically fall into place.

On a related note, and I don't think this is new, the biggest problem within the serious relationships of my friends over the years has been the fact that my friends have wanted to change their partners, without recognizing that, first, that's usually impossible, and second, that by constantly thinking about ways they wish their S.O. was different they ignore the ways that they contribute to the problems of the relationship themselves. In other words, you can't change anyone. You can only think about your own patterns of behavior and identify the times in which you're being unfair or unreasonable. Either your partner will follow suit and you'll reach the compromises you need to reach, or the relationship just isn't going to work.

Which brings me to my last point: think back over the years to all of your friends in shitty relationships and all of the times you didn't say anything. It's frustrating that one of the unwritten rules of friendship is that, outside of really blatant cases of abuse or neglect, you aren't supposed to simply suggest that a relationship isn't working. Think of all the times a friend broke up with their asshole boyfriend or psycho girlfriend and everyone threw a party and congratulated them and expressed how much they'd all been able to say something earlier, but couldn't. That's a pattern that I wish we could excise from our culture; I wish there was a polite and supportive way to tell the people we love when their relationships are going nowhere, and that the only smart thing to do is to end them.

Next time: musings on feminism, inspired by this article.