Marriage - yea or nay?

Not sure but Louis CK is hilarous

A divorce party is wayyyyy better than a marriage

Whats the skinny on marriage? I was watching Louis CK standup on HBO last night and he said he has been divorced 5 years and those were the best 5 years of his life. He said, sure there are people who are in love and want to get married and they should because the best part about it is the divorce, and that be happy because divorce is forever. So I scratched my *kitten* and wondered whether marriage is just bills and inlaws.

Soooooo, is this a proposal, or am I misreading your cues......?

Please reply.

I felt so grown up when I got divorced.

Nay for me too. I wouldn't want to ever give up the freedom it have now.

One divorce was enough for me.

No. Big emphatic loud messy NO.

Works for me, but I've lucked out so far.

I'm certainly not going to judge people who say nay, I've seen lots of very justified divorces go down through the years.

yay! ive been with mine for almost 8 years and i cant imagine life without him :flowerforyou: :smokin: :smooched: :drinker: :bigsmile: :blushing:

Nay for me - 47 and never married. I think a lot of people get married "because it's time" or because they don't want to be alone, and they don't take a lot of care in choosing a partner for long-term compatibility. I never understood all these people (sorry, mostly women) that post on forums or go on TV and tell people how effed up their relationship is but then say they want to marry that person anyway. I have nothing against marriage - my parents have been happily married for 50 years. But I'm not going to sign up for a lifetime with some guy that doesn't treat me right. Every boyfriend I've had has wanted to clip my wings instead of help me fly, so I choose to fly solo.

There's no formula, no right or wrong answer.

Cons, general: BORING, people didn't live past 40 until really recently, sticking with the same person for a super long time is hard bc we always want novelty. ^ risk of staying when no one's happy because of sunk costs

Pros, general: having someone there who knew you when, a witness to your life over time; sharing important events; no one's young forever, they'll put up with things going south later. Kids are really the main reason I can see to get married at all, that and legal stuff like handling your living will etc.

Special concerns for women: chances are you lost out career-wise, if you had kids (time off, loss of progress). ^ likely to stay in a bad marriage because there are usually bigger risks with divorce (you're older when you get out). Even if it's good, you're probably doing 70-80% of the emotional & domestic labour keeping the marriage going. ^ Stress, good or bad; quality of life does not improve much with a husband.

Special concerns for men: Life expectancy goes up 5 years if it's a happy marriage (is neutral or negative for women). That's because someone's picking up your mess and taking care of things for you. With a divorce after a bad marriage with kids, career not usually impacted, but possible hit taken wrt payments if wife's career suffered for kids/etc. Still have good market value up to 60s, for new relationships or remarriage.

I think serial marriage still makes sense for both men and women if kids are involved*. It's in women's interests to get out early if things are crappy with #1 though. I basically think women should NEVER stop working to make that kind of decision easier if it comes to it.

If no kids, doesn't really matter (if alternate arrangements can be made re living wills etc).

For young, sensitive people preferring definite monogamy, maybe those 2-year trial contracts like they tried in mexico would be good. << actually I am understating my support for this. 2 years is usually enough to tell you if someone's cray & you're just incompatible & it's time to go. A formal compatibility review at that stage would be a chance for unhappy ppl to get out w/o huge losses/guilt etc.

edit: i think i am pro state-mandated formal reviews at 2 years initially, every 5 after that, with easy access to mediation if required.

edit: above obviously applies to gay couples too, apols for using heteronormative constructs, main reason for that is, accidental biological reproduction is the statistical norm

*in this economy, that is. If a new world order comes soon, I'll have to revise

thank u for asking the ?, v effective procrastination tool.

If you're wondering whether it's worth it, I would err on the side of caution and say nay for you. It requires the right perspective. Most people don't have that, honestly.

Depends on the marriage and the person. I love being married currently. My first marriage was a total disaster. There's no one answer, every situation is unique.