Is It Something I Wed?
Two of my girlfriends just got divorced. Both recently admitted to me that they knew they shouldn't have gotten married at the time but did anyway. Just this weekend, another friend -- married for only a year and fighting bitterly with her husband -- also said she knew she was making a mistake before her wedding. Can you explain why anyone would go through with something as serious and binding as marriage if they have reservations?
--Confused
Consider that in most areas of life, when you're making a colossal mistake, nobody is all, "Hey, how about a coronation-style party, a Caribbean cruise, and a brand-new blender?"
But it isn't just the allure of the star treatment and wedding swag that leads somebody to shove their doubts aside and proceed down the aisle. Other influences include parental pressure, having lots of married or marrying friends, being sick of dating, and feeling really bad about guests with nonrefundable airline tickets. There's also the notion that "marriage takes work" -- meaning you can just put in a little emotional elbow grease and you'll stop hating your spouse for being cheap, bad in bed, and chewing like a squirrel.
However, it also helps to look at how we make decisions -- and how much of our reasoning would more accurately be called "emotioning." We have a powerful aversion to loss and to admitting we were wrong, and this can cause us to succumb to the "sunk cost effect." Sunk costs are investments we've already made -- of time, money, or effort. The "sunk cost effect" is decision researcher Hal Arkes' term for our tendency to -- irrationally, ego-servingly -- keep throwing time, money, or effort into something based on what we've already put in. Of course, our original investment is gone. So the logical approach would be deciding whether to keep investing based on whether the thing's likely to pay off in the future.
A way to avoid the sunk cost trap is through what psychologists call "prefactual thinking" -- thinking out the possible outcomes before you commit to some risky course of action. Basically, you play the role of a pessimistic accountant and imagine all the ways your plan could drag you straight down the crapper.
But don't just imagine all the awful things that could happen. Write out a list -- a detailed list. So, for example, if you sense you could be making a mistake by getting married, don't go all shortcutty, like "get divorced!" Parse out the itty-bitties, like "figure out how the hell to find a decent divorce lawyer"; "get lost on the way to the lawyer's office and stand on the side of the road weeping"; and "start working as the indentured servant of a bunch of sorority girls to pay the lawyer's retainer." Yeah, that kind of detail.
Making potential losses concrete like this helps you weigh current costs against the future ones. This, in turn, could help you admit that you and your not-entirely-beloved might have a real shot at happily ever after -- if only the one of you in the big white dress would bolt out the fire exit instead of walking down the aisle.
The person that doesnt have doubts and fears going into marriage doesn't exist.
The question you should be asking your newly divorced friends is: what specifically did you know about your spouse before the marriage that should have convinced you to call it off?
Second question. If you knew that about them then, why didnt you?
If there answer was "nothing" then the next question is: what have you done that justified your spouse divorcing you, or what has your spouse done that justifies you divorcing them?
As far as doubts go, I certainly had them. Everyone does.
The person who should not get married are the ones who don't have complete trust in their soon to be spouse or are untrustworthy people themselves.
Marriage is a business, and a financial arrangement. If you don't view it as a one time permanent thing, you most likely should not be doing it at all.
If you have serious alarm bells going off in your head about the values, reliability or honesty of your intended, run, no matter what you have already sunk into the relationship or the wedding arrangements.
This is why I am a big believer in simple civil ceremonies. It takes the pressure off.
They probaby ought to be mandatory.
If you want to figure out your fiancée's motives for getting married, Insist on one.
My husband is a stand up guy. 36 years now, and counting. It wasn't predestined to work out, we both just valued the relationship, and the kids, and the assets we shared. We still do.
Biggest factor of all. Neither one of us are petty people.
Isab at February 21, 2017 6:29 PM
As a boring old married person (25 years and counting), I don't have much to add. Even my boyfriend and I have been together for almost a decade, which either means I'm good at poly or even boring at open marriages!).
But I just wanted to say how lovely it was to clock on this and read a sensible, well-thought-out comment when I was bracing myself for the MRA brigade and notes along the lines of, "All women just want to marry you and steal your money, gold-digging biyotches, am I right, guys?" and "These women are lying. They all want to get married. Also, they all hate sex, also I live in my mom's basement oh God I'm so lonely."
Anathema at February 22, 2017 1:16 PM
The person that doesnt have doubts and fears going into marriage doesn't exist.
This is truth.
We were together 7+ years before getting married, acquainted for 10+ years, so we've had plenty of time to make sure we value marriage in the same way. Even so, I was still weighing the consequences of marriage on the way to the courthouse.
For better or worse, marriage is the default in our society. I am stubborn AF and relished telling my family off and making my mother cry in my early 20s, which is the only reason I didn't marry the guy I was with in my early 20s, despite big family/social pressure to do so. If I had, I'd be a divorcee today. Or miserable.
This is why I am a big believer in simple civil ceremonies. It takes the pressure off. They probaby ought to be mandatory.
We had a secret courthouse ceremony long before our Big Fat Indian wedding. IF we had changed our minds about marriage a month before that circus, I'm honestly not sure how we could have reversed the course of that Titanic of a wedding.
sofar at February 22, 2017 1:41 PM
1st, unless you are planning on having kids, or plans of being a kept spouse who provides food and sex on demand in exchange for not having to work there is no reason to get married anyway
2nd, you'll stop hating your spouse for being bad in bed
I have no sympathy for people who refuse to demand better sex from their partners, and even less for people who make no effort to be better partners
lujlp at February 22, 2017 8:18 PM
how about a coronation-style party
Yes, well, that's stupid anyway, for a whole host of reasons.
Example: I have a cousin who insisted on a 700-guest wedding - this in a town of about 10,000. Her parents are working class, and had to dip seriously into their retirement savings to fund this idiocy. WTF?
Why do women feel like they need these superstar weddings? Why do their parents pay for them?
Marriage isn't about the wedding, it's about what comes after. Have a quiet ceremony, followed by a nice lunch with a couple of family members. Then start being married.
a_random_guy at February 23, 2017 12:01 AM
Why do women feel like they need these superstar weddings? Why do their parents pay for them?
It's not just women. I wanted the courthouse wedding, my husband wanted a big wedding. And I know plenty of other couples where that was also the case. I don't know why, but it's mostly the guys I know these days who want the top-shelf open bar, limos, the pricey band/DJ, the monstrosity of a cake, the uplighting, designer shoes, special toasting glasses, and a second meal served at midnight (that NOBODY EATS). And a bottle-service after-party.
I chalk that up to social media and the pissing contest that inspires.
sofar at February 23, 2017 8:02 AM
"I don't know why, but it's mostly the guys I know these days who want the top-shelf open bar, limos, the pricey band/DJ, the monstrosity of a cake, the uplighting, designer shoes, special toasting glasses, and a second meal served at midnight (that NOBODY EATS). And a bottle-service after-party"
I think you need to find a set of new fiscally responsible friends. This attitude spills over into all their other decisons as well. That is why these people generally, make lousy spouses.
Rarely, in my opinion, is a man opting for all this shit on his own. My guess is, nine times out of ten, he is trying to please a passive agressive bridezilla.
Isab at February 23, 2017 9:32 AM
I think you need to find a set of new fiscally responsible friends.
Was responding more to a_random_guy's "only chicks do this" comment.
Wasn't weighing in from a fiscal standpoint.
Although, if they can afford it comfortably, my outlook is "do what makes you happy." I'm not going to tell anyone their house is too big, their car is too nice, or they have too many kids, if they can pay for it all. I'd prefer a small wedding, but that's me.
Rarely, in my opinion, is a man opting for all this shit on his own. My guess is, nine times out of ten, he is trying to please a passive agressive bridezilla.
Not in my experience. Might be an age thing, but, trend wise, women seem to be more captivated these days by Pinteresty "intimate" breakfast weddings or small weddings at art galleries in which they wear a dress from Modcloth. And guys are like, "Um no. Where the party at?"
sofar at February 23, 2017 12:11 PM
Not in my experience. Might be an age thing, but, trend wise, women seem to be more captivated these days by Pinteresty "intimate" breakfast weddings or small weddings at art galleries in which they wear a dress from Modcloth. And guys are like, "Um no. Where the party at?"
sofar at February 23, 2017 12:11 PM
Your ancedotal evidence is unpersuasive.
Show me all the web sites and men's magazines catering to wedding and bachelor party planning and I might believe you, but advertising dollars and media content say you are wrong.
Get back to me when *say yes to the Tuxedo* is showing on TLC.
Isab at February 23, 2017 3:45 PM
My problem was I didn't have a single doubt about getting married. Thought that since I was a Christian and he was a Christian that everything was gonna work out fine. I'm still a Christian and he is too (I suppose), but he's an asshole, and I just can't handle being in close proximity to an asshole all the time. So I guess you could say I was naive or whatever word you want to use for a young idiot lass who believed marrying a Christian would yield the relationship her parents had. It never looked hard with them - they never, ever fought and they laughed and joked and spent all their downtime together. So my theory is a busted one. Still trying to figure that one out. Once bitten, twice shy though.
gooseegg at February 23, 2017 10:06 PM
Show me all the web sites and men's magazines catering to wedding and bachelor party planning and I might believe you, but advertising dollars and media content say you are wrong.
Mainstream dead-tree bridal publications are more targeted at 1) mothers of the bride (aka "Baby Boomer MOTB") and 2) Wealthy families. I know this, having worked for a bridal magazine you probably see at the supermarket. Saying Martha Stewart Weddings et al are indicative of what people in their 20s and 30s are actually doing with weddings is like saying fancy home-design magazines are indicative of what milennials are doing with their houses (to which I say what houses?-- we don't have houses).
Plus, GQ and various fitness magazines targeting men are ramping up their wedding content for everything from finding the perfect suit to wedding invitation designers to planning a bachelor party to wedding cocktails to getting fit for your wedding. I monitor HARO, etc. I see these queries.
If you look at wedding-planning sites designed for milennial women, specifically, it's all about getting cheap dresses, feeding your guests lentils, and trendy minimalism. Google "pop-up weddings." This is what nearly all my friends are doing.
In fact, the backlash (for milennial women) against the Wedding Industrial Complex is becoming so intense, that vendors are turning to grooms to keep afloat. Go to any Wedding Trade Show these days (not that you'd want to -- I tolerate them for my friends -- I was just dragged to one by a straight male friend, age 28.). Vendors will insist you give them the groom's email address if he's not there and send him targeted emails for months afterwards. They know brides are trying to pare down, but grooms want to party and will shell out on DJ, alcohol and bachelor party stuff. You will see booths designed to attract men, fitness centers selling gym memberships to men, fucking sock retailers selling "cool" matching wedding socks to men and their groomsmen, DJs promising laser light shows to men (women do not want lasers at their wedding), bar vendors handing out samples of "manly" cocktails and signature shots, vintage car people selling wedding-day car services to men, suit vendors that let men try on various bow-ties on the spot, beer vendors selling local brews for weddings.
Men are less likely to buy a wedding-related magazine (as they're less likely to buy supermarket mags in general), true, but the entire wedding industry knows that men are more likely to shell out on party-related things and "cool stuff" -- and they know exactly how to sell those things to men on the spot.
sofar at February 24, 2017 11:18 AM
"If you look at wedding-planning sites designed for milennial women, specifically, it's all about getting cheap dresses, feeding your guests lentils, and trendy minimalism. Google "pop-up weddings." This is what nearly all my friends are doing."
Bullshit. Demographics say 90 percent of the women in this country who aspire to get married and most of the men too, are blue collar and lower middle class.
Millennial minimalists are a tiny fraction of the market.
Most of those are probably broke, with their credit cards maxed out.
What your friends are doing isnt particularly relevant. In red states the TLC watchers and their moms are still totally in charge, Weddings and big parties like shoes, are biologically more important to women than men, and a few gay guys throwing a big wedding bash aren't anywhere close to reversing human nature.
I suspect the wedding industry, except for the very wealthy (like high priced liberal arts colleges) is nearing collape because the money just isn't there anymore.
No more 200k home equity loans to spend on a big party and blow off in bankruptcy.
Isab at February 24, 2017 12:06 PM
Also, let us not forget (because the Wedding Industrial Complex sure hasn't) that not all weddings include a bride (or a groom for that matter).
If there's no female spouse-to-be, they have to target at least one of the male ones. If some bride-marrying grooms get swept up in the same net, more money to be made.
Wallawallawanda at February 24, 2017 12:40 PM
goosegg, it sounds like your parents had marriage tip number 1 down: do not to marry an asshole.
My observation though is that it takes more than that to make a good marriage. Most everybody is not an asshole, but that doesn't mean most everybody could be married to most anybody else.
More important than whether you are both Christians, or both Democrats, or whatever, are the personality fundamentals. Are they kind? How do they behave when you've made them batshit crazy? (Because at some point, you will.) Can they admit they're wrong on occasion, and on other occasions agree to disagree. Can you do the same?
After that, it seems to be more about tolerating someone else's idiosyncrasies. If you can't stand someone who chews gum with their mouth open, and they do it all the time, neither of you will change. Same for all the stupid crap: talking with food in your mouth, talking in a theater. Even endearing quirks can grow old over 50 years. If either of you has a habit that irritates the other of you in anybody else, just go find somebody else.
Isab, if Carolyn Hax is any indication, the expensive weddings occur on the coasts - the blue states. I actually saw a comment from one woman on how it was impossible to spend less than $25K for a wedding. I'll remain mute on which, if any, gender is the cause for that. I have no idea.
SlowMindthinking at February 24, 2017 1:39 PM
What your friends are doing isnt particularly relevant.
On the contrary, if you understand in which direction trends historically go. And it ain't from Boise to NYC.
Agreed that "The Average U.S. wedding" isn't as I've described, but I never said it was. "Average" does not equal "more relevant."
Also, if I'm not allowed to use personal observations/lived experience as relevant examples, you shouldn't either. Which you've already done. On this thread.
sofar at February 24, 2017 4:11 PM
I note, with some cynicism, that all these people the LW refers to, who have made the marital vow, regret it, and had reservations going in, are women.
So, let's rephrase this question. If you thought you could be entitled to half a man's income for his entire life, all his savings and investments, his house, his car, his kids, would you be willing to cohabitate with him for two or three years? Once you do that, you can kick him to the curb and get all the free stuff?
Patrick at February 25, 2017 1:38 AM
For what it's worth my experience is the same sofar.
And I'm really only going to blue collar Mexican-American weddings for the guys on the production floor. Hardly liberal elites, though these guys are all millenial. Their wives are very much like you describe, pintrest /instagram obsessed.
My mother is often puzzled by the reverse in these roles.
Ppen at February 25, 2017 3:50 PM
I talked my ex into going through with the wedding even though she wanted to back out. I did so in part, because I had invited people from far away to attend. They didn't show up. The whole thing was a mistake.
ken at February 25, 2017 8:23 PM
Isab Says:
"The person that doesnt have doubts and fears going into marriage doesn't exist."
You are trying too hard to relate personal experience as a universal truth here.
While it may be true that most people have doubts and fears going into marriage (I haven't seen statistics to show how prevalent it is), it certainly isn't true of everyone.
The reason I know it isn't true for every last person on the planet is that it wasn't true for me.
All it takes is one counterexample to disprove a universal statement like this.
Now if you want to argue that I am unique or unusual in this regard so be it... but you will be hard pressed to win an argument that rests upon the premise that I do not exist.
Other than that I have no issues with what you have to say on this subject. You just have a nasty habit of erroneously generalizing your personal experience to everyone else, and I would like to see you start improving in that area.
Artemis at February 26, 2017 11:58 AM
Other than that I have no issues with what you have to say on this subject. You just have a nasty habit of erroneously generalizing your personal experience to everyone else, and I would like to see you start improving in that area.
Artemis at February 26, 2017 11:58 AM
I'll get right on that as soon as you start signing my pay check.
:-).
Isab at February 27, 2017 10:31 AM
Gee. Must be nice to be certain you will be equal to any challenge your marriage may pose. Forever. That's the sort of thing associated with religious fanaticism, and the willful suppression of doubt with the irony of faith.
When the price of awareness is discontent, there goes one happy... commenter, with the lowest content/syllable index on this blog.
My bet's on Isab, who knows that after every possible variable has been considered in the firearm, there is then the wind.
Radwaste at February 28, 2017 1:30 PM
I asked my parents if I could do pizza in the backyard and the money they had earmarked for my wedding could go to my student loans and my dad said "You are no fun. No." The message was clear... pay your own loans, my parents want to throw a huge shindig.
My dad went nuts and started inviting parents of friends I had not seen in years that he ran into at the grocery store.
His mom went lavish on her share of the event as well.
I totally believe that wedding magazines are targetted to the parents of the bride and groom.
Big weddings are a chance for middle aged people to throw a huge bash. They also double as family reunions. They are about the new couple's place in a broader community. Not just about the relationship between the lovebirds.
Nicolek at February 28, 2017 1:47 PM
And my brother totally wore weird socks to his wedding.
Sofar totally has nailed my family down.
Nicolek at February 28, 2017 1:49 PM
Isab Says:
"I'll get right on that as soon as you start signing my pay check."
I'm sorry Isab, I'm not hiring for any positions you would be qualified for at this time.
In all seriousness though, it shouldn't take someone paying you to refrain from asserting that your personal experience is the general experience for the rest of humanity.
You said yourself earlier when responding to someone else that anecdotal evidence isn't all that convincing... you should be applying the same standard to your own claims simply to be consistent.
Artemis at March 1, 2017 1:41 AM
Radwaste Says:
"Gee. Must be nice to be certain you will be equal to any challenge your marriage may pose. Forever. That's the sort of thing associated with religious fanaticism, and the willful suppression of doubt with the irony of faith."
You have a serious reading comprehension issue here. You also do not have a great understanding of how to function in life where we have no 100% certainty of anything.
Lacking doubt does not imply what you are saying it does.
When I approach a bridge in my car I do not under normal circumstances come to a screeching halt and contemplate all the various ways that I can plummet to my doom. There are millions of ways a bridge can fail and yet I only have serious doubts regarding the structural integrity of the bridge if there is sufficient reason to call that integrity into question. The only way I would do this is if the bridge appears to be rickety, of faulty construction, or is in a state of disrepair (I am aware that our infrastructure needs to be updates and various bridges are rated as barely passing from a government audit... but this is an analogy so don't wander off the path here as I know you are want to do).
Similarly, if one has properly vetted a relationship prior to marriage there isn't reason to have doubts.
This has nothing to do with your crazy statement about being certain that lacking doubts means that ones marriage "will be equal to any challenge" life may pose "Forever.".
When I leave my home in the morning I do not head toward the door with "doubts" that I will return home that evening.
That doesn't mean that I am "certain" that I will be equal to any challenge life throws at me that day.
I could be shot by a rouge gunman... I could be struck by a wayward automobile... I could be hit my a meteor... all of which are completely outside of my control. Yet I still don't stand there at my door wondering if I will return home for dinner alive.
Experience has taught me that all of those other events are extremely unlikely and there is nothing I can really do about it... hence there is no reason to waste my time worrying about them.
Similarly, the kinds of things that would challenge my marriage are extremely unlikely to occur so there is was no need to worry about them unnecessarily.
In principle my spouse could get hit my a meteor too and then my marriage would be over... but I didn't go into my wedding having doubts that things wouldn't go well because a space rock could end things horribly for us.
That you think a lack of doubts implies a rose colored glasses approach to life is kind of disturbing. It can just as easily imply a realistic understanding of probability and an appropriate application of worry.
Artemis at March 1, 2017 2:02 AM
Huh. The prior post was about the potential fickleness of men and honesty in dating and it was a ho hum 3 posts.
This is about weddings and one needs to break out the boxing gloves!
Ha!
Bubbles be bubbles. If sofar hangs around urban millennials and only sees these tiny pintresty weddings, she is not wrong. She's just grabbing a different part of the elephant.
That being said, it is hard for me to believe with this microscopic polling and analysis of marketing, that all these bridal magazines indicate that women are 'yawn' about weddings.
I won't dismiss local customs. But one doesn't sacrifice a whole forest and pay the salaries of thousands of writers, photographers, models and caterers because 'no one reads this stuff'.
If nothing else, I think most brides buy at least a couple of those things, even if she comes to the later realization that she needs to save the peanuts from her work related flight if she is going to have snacks for her wedding.
Am I right? Who knows? Who cares?
FIDO at March 2, 2017 2:12 AM
Yep. Lowest content/syllable of any commenter.
Radwaste at March 7, 2017 4:50 AM
Radwaste,
Content doesn't count when you get everything factually wrong.
Many of your posts have zero content correct... therefore the content/syllable = 0
I can't exactly do worse than that.
Artemis at March 8, 2017 8:57 AM
Raddy,
I'd also like to point out that even this statement:
"Yep. Lowest content/syllable of any commenter."
Has zero content/syllable. It is just an unsubstantiated opinion working under the guise of pseudo-intellectual babble.
Also... "commenter" is spelled incorrectly.
Artemis at March 8, 2017 9:01 AM
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