Article Re: Declining Interest in Marriage (by Men)

[rodheadlee]

20 hours ago, The Nehor said:

 

The point of the video I posted wasn't alcohol is ok. The point is people put their lives on hold to have children and raise them. Also if they decided to have an abortion instead of giving up their dreams to raise the child he wouldn't have been there to save his mom's life. FYI  I don't drink.

[BlueDreams]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

I was referring to the courts awarding custody, not to post-divorce alterations to custody due to misconduct.

A few thoughts:

First, you seem to be correct that in many (most?) cases parents agree to let mom have custody of the kids.  

Second, I am not a divorce attorney, but my conversations with friends who are confirm the perception that women are overwhelmingly awarded primary or sole custody of the kids.

Third, I don't think we need to rely on anecdotal observations.

Per this 2016 report from the Census Bureau:

The graph on page 3 of the report shows biannual data from 1993 through 2013.  In all these years "Custodial Mothers" totaled 11,000+, and "Custodial Fathers" totaled 2,000+.

The graph also shows that Custodial Mothers are awarded child support around 60% of the time, though this was trending downward by 2013 (to 53.1%).  Meanwhile, Custodial Fathers were awarded child support 42.3% of the time, trending downward (generally) toward 2013 (to 31.4%).

The graph also shows that Custodial Fathers are granted significantly less child support (in dollars) than Custodial Mothers (an average of $629 less), and on average actually receive less child support (an average of $441 less).

I'm not a numbers guy, so I'm open to correction on these.  But my takeaways are:

• A) Mothers are awarded custody far more often than men.
• B) Custodial Fathers are required to pay more child support than Mothers.
• C) Custodial Fathers are receiving less child support than Mothers.

But the figures never tell the full story, do they?  For example, this 2012 article states:

See also this graphic:

Interesting, but sobering, stuff.

Yes, joint custody arrangements do seem to be on the rise.

This seems to be changing, though, as women are more and more matching and/or surpassing men in education, income, etc.

Alimony is not related to fatherhood, but to husbandhood.  It's not supposed to be a second source of child support.

Moreover, the turning of tables, where women are paying alimony to men in divorce, is (slowly) happening.  See, e.g., here:

Nevertheless, my understanding is that this is a very small circumstance, numbers-wise.

Thanks,

-Smac

On your first point, I was referring to the same. 

 

Divorce attorneys see a small amount of all divorce cases. Most people try really hard to limit or not need lawyers. When things become hairy or are likely to become hairy then attorneys get involved. It usually goes: try to figure this out ourselves —> consult an attorney and/or try mediation—> hire an attorney and figure this outside of court —> attorneys and themselves in court figuring this out. The latter is usually for the messiest divorces. Most are able to figure things out without it. 

 

Child support is also correlated with how much time each parent has custody. The more physical custody the more child support is usually given. And again much of this is based on the general make up of families at the time. Though women can often make more than their husbands, they’re still the minority of all marriages. Most the women who’ve had children in divorce in my UT office are not making more. Most are making drastically less if anything at time of separation because they stayed home primarily with the kids. The ones making more or near the same amount were more likely ones without kids where divorce didn’t equal child support or alimony and were usually younger. 

 

And i know alimony is not child support. But minus the bezos of the world, there’s a high correlation to who seeks out alimony...and it’s usually women who’ve relied on their husbands for income...and those are usually moms. Alimony in general is not common anymore. I was reading somewhere that about 10%of divorces include some form of alimony. Not to say there aren’t systemic issues with how alimony is decided...there likely are. But as a preemptive fear about marriage, it’s more based on myth than reality. 

As it is, being a couples therapist has made me confident that most marriages do and can make it. A lot of the divorces i’ve had in my office made sense and had avoidable reasons that ate at their marriage till divorce was all but written in their stars. But that’s not what’s disseminated to younger generations. Marriage is often seen as a gamble or unnecessary...particularly if they’ve seen a lot of bad marriages. When they see stats they see a strong possibility that it could just fall out from under them one day. When in reality there’s usually some obvious fundamental flaws in their relationship or how they manage conflict. Meanwhile the benefits of marriage aren’t really expressed as much. It’s like deciding to purchase a car while only having the negatives about a vehicle being expressed to you. 

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

The point of the video I posted wasn't alcohol is ok. The point is people put their lives on hold to have children and raise them. Also if they decided to have an abortion instead of giving up their dreams to raise the child he wouldn't have been there to save his mom's life. FYI  I don't drink.

I wasn’t trying to suggest anything about you. I just thought of the video when you responded.

[The Nehor]

Another thing to remember about divorces is half ending in divorce mean that those pitiable souls who jump from horrible marriage to horrible marriage every few years mean an equal number of lasting (and hopefully successful) marriages for many more people.

Edited December 7, 2020 by The Nehor

[nuclearfuels]

20 hours ago, katherine the great said:

And your solution to all this is polygamy?

yes. Unless you'd prefer we continue letting women not choose lifestyles you personally disagree with.

[katherine the great]

1 hour ago, nuclearfuels said:

yes. Unless you'd prefer we continue letting women not choose lifestyles you personally disagree with.

I’d prefer that women all get dogs. It’s a demonstrable fact that pets enhance the quality of people’s lives. I doubt the same can be said of modern polygamy. 

[BlueDreams]

I  finally read the thread and saw a number of posts on the relationship On s*xuality and how it effects so single men’s view of marriage. Within the church this isn’t a big problem. Most men report assuming that things will go we swimmingly and are surprised if/when they don’t after. 

WHY they don’t go well after fall in a few boats. These are in no particular order: 

Previous S*xual or other forms of abuse get triggered when they’re finally married. This usually takes both of them by surprise.

Good girl syndrome kicks in: this is usually for younger couples to work through: the women particularly have a hard time flipping the switch. Particularly if they did very little beforehand.!

Cultural silence on what healthy marital s*x really looks like. This effects men and women equally just in different ways. But what it leads to if really poor communication about s*x. Imve had couples who are amazing at communicating their needs and relationship and what’s going on with the household, but epically fail when it comes to their sexuality. 

There’s misunderstandings on phases of life and the ebbs and flow of s*x. So for example many couples have some rando number in their head as to how often makes a happy husband or good marriage. And they become fixated on infercourse slowly losing track of the finer art of making love (which in my definition expands to all forms of physical and romantic intimacy). 

Increasingly Cultural expectations set uo by p*rn and Movies in general. I not so jokingly tell my clients that s*x in much of these formats is really just two dudes doing it...one of them just so happens to have lady parts. And the amount of depth of a marital/s*xual relationship of a long-term marriage is SUPER rare. There’s just not a blue print or explanation as to why that’s one of the best relationships to have some of the best s*x. When it is shown it’s often shown as a little dysfunctional. If you try googling examples...again...silence and more likely sources griping about sexless marriages. 

Also on sexless marriages that usually more death my degrees and several factors coming together on both the men’s and women’s part that kills it. 

 

Outside church there’s still aspects of this in relationships, the specific cultural and personal baggage just varies. But for many in or outside the church healthy courtship is simply taking a hit and causes anxiety and there’s a consumer orientation to relationships that’s simply not sustainable for most relationships (ie. What does this relationship do for me...if it’s good for me i’ll keep if sort of mentality). So a little, instead if buckling down and figuring out their commitment issues, tend to coast or settle for pieces of a healtht relationship as opposed to the whole thing. They have some best friends, they get a fulfilling career, they travel the world, they get into a charity or cause, they have some s*x with either a fling or a one night stand or when they’re older maybe a long-term relationship. And over time their world gets super super specific and it’s hard to fit another human permanently into their world. So they don’t. Not all the time. Some have been burned by bad relationships and need to work that out. And there’s a stratification of marriage based on wealth and class, where lower classes often feel it makes less economic sense to tie the knot. Basically nailing it to just one thing is hard to do. And sometimes it’s just down to plain old luck...or lack thereof.
 

with luv, 

BD 

Edited December 7, 2020 by BlueDreams

[rodheadlee]

13 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Another thing to remember about divorces is half ending in divorce mean that those pitiable souls who jump from horrible marriage to horrible marriage every few years mean an equal number of lasting (and hopefully successful) marriages for many more people.

We just had our 47th anniversary.

[Robert F. Smith]

https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2021/2/13/22278256/how-drop-in-us-utah-fertility-affects-social-security-economy-education-housing-wealth-health

Quote

“A healthy society would be one where people who wanted to have kids could and they would feel confident about their ability to support those kids — and have social and economic infrastructure supports in general.”

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

On 12/6/2020 at 8:50 PM, katherine the great said:

I’d prefer that women all get dogs. It’s a demonstrable fact that pets enhance the quality of people’s lives...................

How about cats?