Well... yeah. And no. Few human beings have the ability to foresee an infinite forever. You may genuinely believe that this is the person you plan to spend the rest of your life with- and can. Then... things change. You change, they change, you both change. Or nothing changes and you just really wish it would.
Marriage tends to take work and compromise. But for thousands of hours training and in the field- even airline pilots, surgeons, and soldiers who are as ready as any human being can for what they are about to do- sometime they mess up or shit happens. So some people give up too easy on marriage, others stick out long past when they probably should have walked away for everyone’s sake.
As cryo says before me- it’s probably more to do with the fact that people now days don’t feel the same pressure to stay when things just aren’t going to work in a way that is happy and healthiest to everyone. Being divorced or having kids isn’t the kids of death it may once have been for your future romances. It’s more common for older folks to date again and technology makes it way easier to meet potentially compatible people no matter your circumstances or tastes.
Marriage lasts as long as you decide it lasts. If you’re willing to be unhappy or put up with anything or deny yourself possible happiness elsewhere you can make a marriage last forever as long as the other person agrees. You can cheat on each other day and night but stay together on principal if you want.
You can’t be ready for something you’ve never known. You can be as prepared as you can be, have as much aptitude as you can, and be as honest with yourself about those things as you can. That’s it. It isn’t society that has broken the bond of marriage- if there was a real bond there we wouldn’t have ever developed the divorce to begin. Marriage is whatever it is to YOU. So just because another persons idea of marriage isn’t the same as yours doesn’t mean they aren’t ready. Unless you’re marrying them. In which case you should probably talk that out or keep walking.
That seems to be the case for many people but I got lucky. I met my wife when I was 18. I fell in love at first sight and knew I would be with her for the rest of my life. Now, I am still happily married after 26 years.
Oooooor because women can leave men who turn abusive without risking they'll end up homeless and without a source of income.
There's a lot more factors there obviously, some of them maybe even have something to do with the unpreparedness of people (though I personally doubt it, more and more people nowadays live together before deciding to tie the knot), which I frankly don't have the energy to explain right now, but the bottom line is, a higher number of divorces isn't necessarily a bad thing and we should really think about why is there such a strong social stigma with divorce in the first place.
Well said. The divorce rate is a single metric and not nearly as important as things like overall satisfaction, satisfaction in marriage, domestic violence- etc. etc. To be meaningful we have to compare the divorce rate to something it correlates to. On its own wether it is 1% or 100% it means nothing. Is more divorce worse? We need to look at things like: do fewer marriages last long term- but all marriages are happier while they last? Would you rather have lots of unhappy marriages or fewer happier marriages? Etc.
And one more point? To get an accurate picture we have to rule out “disingenuous” marriages. “Green card” marriage, marriage for money. Marriage of convenience, marriage for taxes, marriages based on conception, etc. which aren’t marriages made with a genuine intent of marriage but for ulterior reasons. Such marriages are only at the impulse of whatever motivated them, and would dissolve without that factor anyway.
There's a lot more factors there obviously, some of them maybe even have something to do with the unpreparedness of people (though I personally doubt it, more and more people nowadays live together before deciding to tie the knot), which I frankly don't have the energy to explain right now, but the bottom line is, a higher number of divorces isn't necessarily a bad thing and we should really think about why is there such a strong social stigma with divorce in the first place.