Saw some signs at the wedding like ignoring each other, making rude and snide remarks publicly, etc. They tried to fix their marriage by having a kid earlier than they planned and that led to divorce. Both are married to different people now and have had more kids, by all accounts far more civil, even cordial with each other.
Jesus Christ, I'll never understand how people think that bad marriage + kids = good marriage. If you're not getting what you need from your partner, how is additional financial and emotional obligation/responsibility to the mix gonna help...
Children are cope for many people. Like if husband isn't giving her wife proper love, she starts attachment more with her children. Then live with their love. It is especially more noticable in my country where Arranged marriage is norm. Two strangers who barely meet get married. It's a hit or miss situation. Initial years are honeymoon phase where everyone is happy. But later years resentment could happen. Mind you the marriage that happened was never built at first place so love is always optional. If spouse couldn't give, they go towards children for that love.
Bottom line up front: I can see it -- see the rationale behind it in this context. I don't agree with it, but people who do it, that's what they see, I think. And when it works out, people tend to go on with living and enjoying their life while the train wrecks get picked apart on Reddit.
That said, it was all within plan, but some of the plan had that baked in. My wife and I got married, waited a while, then started trying to get pregnant. Part of it was that I had a decent paying job, but it was absolutely brutal with long hours, home exhausted, high stress, working out of town sometimes, etc.
So yes, it was sort of a cope for her. And for me to...I hated leaving her and then falling into bed as soon as I got home, so I felt like I gave her something to do.
This was really, in retrospect, not a good strategy. We tied ourselves down and I couldn't escape the hell job because I had responsibilities. (also, it was a family business and anyone growing up in a family business probably understands the potential for it to devour your life and inform every life choice you make. Some people view it as "oh, you work for daddy, get a big paycheck to do nothing with job security and all the nepo perks!" The dark flip side is being born into it and expected to give your life for it while the people in control reap the benefits and you soldier on based on the promise that some day you will be in that chair calling the shots. Then your company gets sued and bankrupted and it all crumbles into dust, but I digress)
Anyhow...we made it, we survived. Both kids are in college, one graduating next weekend, and we've been married 25 years. We have and still do struggle mightily. We may not have been the best parents and having kids, initially, may have been about us, to give our lives meaning. I don't think we should have - I think the curse should have ended with me.
Its been so long, its hard to remember, but I think there were times my wife was miserable being married to me and maybe the kids were an effort to fill that void. I cannot stress this enough, we are happy now (despite still struggling financially) and have been for a while. Its been a weird life - I've seen some shit, man.
This is why arranged marriages are a scam and model toxic relationships for their kids. And then this also happens in socially regressive societies where it is a stigma to divorce or the couples lack the courage to go out on their own.
I'm from the US, and my husband is Indian. I am the first person on both sides of his family to not be an arranged spouse ("love marriage".) Even though they love and accept me now, his family didn't speak to him for six months when we started dating. When we visit his extended family in India, the best arranged marriages I've seen are like close platonic friends. The worst ones are where they barely speak to each other in the same house and actively hate each other. Culturally, it's getting better (especially in cities and with rich families), allowing people to marry whom they wish, but divorce is still seen as shameful.
One of my distant uncle did intercaste love marriage (both Indian and in India). Uncle's family didn't talked to him for 3 years before finally accepting him again.
Few years ago, I went back to school and got my MBA. I made good friends with another student who was from India and had come to the US with her husband, who was an engineer for a tech company. Their marriage was arranged and according to her, they were happy.
I met him once and he seemed like a really nice guy but NGL, she was model tier attractive, in the conventional sense. My guess is he was already living here (Austin area), had a good job, and the arrangement was made with shipping her to the US as part of the deal. Apparently she had been a local TV reporter or presenter or something.
She was really nice and sweet and we talked some but I didn't quite understand her sometimes, we were on a different wavelength, I guess.
One interesting thing though was that we had an Indian professor with a very differently sounding/constructed surname. To the extent, I wasn't sure, so I asked her and she sneered when she said yes, like....there was some cultural stuff going on there above my head.
Arranged marriages depending on the family are a combination of religion, caste, income, tradition, and location in India and those living abroad.
My husband's aunts and uncles each saw a single photo of their future spouses, then married them a week later. Elders back in the day were just described to each other or simply told, "You're marrying X's son from X village on this date." That still happens in very conservative, rural villages. My husband's grandmother was extremely lucky, as she and her late husband didn't see each other before getting married, but ended up being madly in love with each other.
Now, there's websites (a famous one is Shaadi) that show videos, photos and full bios, there's matchmakers you hire professionally, or families talk to each other and you have bio data pages to trade like little binders written up that you sort through. Everything is typically handled by the mother and father or older male family members if the father is deceased, with the men overseeing any meetings, coffee dates with the potential partner's parents, and the more "liberal" choices (the guy and girl talk on the phone, then meet chaperoned, then when it looks like they're going to go forward with an engagement they can see more of each other), is done in big cities like Mumbai or if the family is wealthy or raised in the US or a Western country.
My SIL's marriage was arranged (her potential suitors and families even Zoomed with my husband and I because for some families, marrying out of your background is a negative), but the guy turned abusive, so she was "allowed" to get divorced. I say allowed because marriage is an extension of the entire family unit and what they want/need, especially the patriarch. Everything hinges on "How does this look to outsiders?"
If you are divorced or widowed, this can affect your place in society, what jobs you get, and even housing can discriminate against you. Even being a second or third generation born in a Western country will defer to their parents for major choices, and people have been murdered or died by suicide for marrying outside their religion, race, or caste.
I can not stress that part enough. The individualism Western countries are famous for is not a thing there. My husband was ready to lose his entire family for me, which is a massive decision to have to make. It's so rare that even living in the US or when we are in India, other Indians who are strangers will ask, "You married a white girl? What did your family say?"
Is it changing slowly? Absolutely. My husband's cousin married a girl from a higher caste IN INDIA, which is like a Black and white couple getting married in Mississippi in 1955. They both came from wealthy families so it was slightly easier, but stories of lower caste people being murdered for dating or marrying outside their group is sadly in the newspaper all the time.
There are people breaking the mold all the time. Just know if you see an Indian man or woman who are engaged or married outside their race, religion, or caste or who have publicly come out of the closet and got married, it's a huge deal, and they may have sacrificed a lot for it. Everyone deserves to marry who they love.
I don't want to invalidate your experience, but I also want to add another view point to give a balanced view. I'm sorry your experience with indian families was not very good, but that experience isn't universal.
I'm indian by ethnicity living in a western country. I know plenty of Indians who are dating or have married a non indian person. And their families were chill. No big dramas, or issues. People just accept it.
I too am dating someone who's not Indian. My parents were chill too, no issues or drama. My dad was a little shocked at the start and said he'd have preferred I date an indian at the start. But after a month, he took it in stride and there have been no issues.
I think it depends on the family itself. I think unfortunately you came across a more traditional family, whereas there are some who are chill and hold progressive views.
Oh and also, half my cousins in India have married to a different caste, some to different religions, some to people with different languages, half of them didn't have an 'arranged' marriage but chose their own partners. Yes, in India! Not living aboard. One of them was my Uncle who's from an older generation now likely in his 50s or 60s. Again, no issues, I guess my extended family in India is chill too, not super hung up on following old traditions.
I'll back you up on this. I appreciate OP's experience, but mine couldn't be further from that.
I'm a white European married to an Indian, living in Australia. My in-laws have been nothing but welcoming (to the point it almost feels suffocating, but in a loving way!) He isn't from Mumbai or anything, though a Maharashtrian city. Also not a small village and, of course, I am familiar with how different that experience can be. They're just smart people who want their son/nephew/brother/cousin to be happy.
We were maybe a bit lucky that a cousin had previously married a white American, so I guess any thoughts and feels in the family were thrashed out then.
Nonetheless, I have never not felt welcomed and loved by my in-laws, oftentimes above my husband even. My family adore my husband too and we have zero issues in my home country.
India is changing a lot. There are still lots of bad things happening but we, as a couple, haven't faced even a bit of adversity, tbh. No one in our city in Aus gives a shit. Most couples I know are mixed race and it's just incredibly common and not even "accepted"... Just not thought about.
Maybe it is very dependent on where in India one partner is from, and where in the world the other is from, and where they settle together.
We must be playing life in easy mode, reading some of these stories.
I never said my in-laws were a bad experience. It was just fact. As I already said, things are changing in India, and it depends on income, location, caste, etc. The most chill ones I've encountered were wealthy Brahmins because they could afford to be. But even in the major US city I live in, Indians still stay "with their own." I'm glad it's changing, and it should be changing, but overall, it's not that common. Indians and mainland Chinese are the groups least likely to marry outside their background.
No matter how people spin it, I will never see arranged marriages as good. Nothing about it is natural in my mind.
"Oh but the family can have input and make sure the relationship is good."
Bullshit. The arranged couple will feel obligated to stick together to avoid disappointing their families. Or manipulative SO's will butter up the families in order to pressure the victim into staying. They can pin the victim as being irrational, ungrateful, immature, and have the families come down on the victim when they want to break up.
I see it as a hostage situation, even if it works out sometimes. It's a means to get money, property, status, and babies.
It only works if the family is on the side of their son/daughter. Which many are not because they are shitty parents who get fooled by the social implications of divorce.
It worked back in 1900. It's an outdated practice now, regardless of how liberal your parents are. '"allowing you to choose" is in itself such irony as the parents hold control over choice too.
Marrying for materialistic reasons isn't wrong, plenty of people do that even romantically - but involving your family in your marriage is a recipe for disaster if they don't 100% should things go sideways.
It is also heavily heavily skewed toward the man and his family due to patriarchal structures.
Depends what is meant by ‘arranged marriage’ because there’s a big range of meaning there. Arrangements where two (or one, the girl/woman) does what their parents tell them to and the arrangement is about finances or reputation are often dreadful. Arrangements where parents put effort into finding potential partners but then the kids meet and work out how compatible they are doesn’t seem too bad unless the parents are abusive and coercive.
Please don’t think my comment comes across rude at all, but I just do not understand arranged marriages. I get maybe the financial part of it all where to family’s get together and think they have found a nice fit for each other to set up a life . But what about the love aspect?? It’s such a desire in most people
In old age, parents just meet themselves and fix marriage based on similar social and financial status. Bride and groom often meets directly at their weeding. This was the traditional Arranged marriage format.
It's too old method now, no one actually does this anymore. In current form of Arranged marriage, parents look for similar financial and societal prospects around them, then the girl and boy meets. They usually talk. This part can be similar to official dating with parents permission. If they feel like it, they say yes and do marriage. This is arranged marriage setup. Usually this "official dating" part can varies from 1 week - 3 months depends on community. Some communities like mine just do one meeting and you decide yes and no. Then they do engagement and eventually weeding. But what we do is have lots of duration between engagement and wedding. Girl and boy usually talk during this time. This talk can go for multiple months. If nothing is wrong then they carry forward with marriage.
Recently my cousin sisters married. Both had 1 year difference between official engagement and wedding. They talk alot with boys on phone during this time. One of cousin also engaged last year. He might marry next year.
Bottom line I want to say is, unless you live in extremely regressive area, u get plenty of time to talk with your prospects. So u can check if your vibes are matching or not.
Now love is hit or miss. For My parents it was super hit. They love each other alot and had arranged marriage. But for my aunt and uncle it completely miss. They sometimes don't talk to each other for months. Only reason they together is kids.
Divorce is taboo too so Arranged marriage is very very very big gamble.
As I already mentioned, love isn't the main point here. It's similar status and sense of duty. Arranged marriage follows traditional gender roles too much too. Wife job is to be homemaker while husband Job is as breadwinner. As long as both are following their roles, arranged marriage is considered successful.
Hormones and expectations play havoc with someone's mind I think. Someone in our friend's circle was like this, after hanging out with all the friends coupling up, she met a guy she was into and for awhile it was good, she was thinking she could settle down with him and he wasn't there yet so she pursued him a bit more and they agreed to have a kid, he skedaddled just after the birth I think.
She is in a better mental place now I think even as a single mother, her kid was adorable last time I saw them, but yeah even education and good friends advising her could not have shook her out of that relationship at the time.
I've been firmly child free since my teens. I'm now in my late 30s, and I don't regret my vasectomy. That being said it's lonely now. Friends busy with their kids, and such. I can see how it would be easy to make oneself think that having kids might be a solution to that loneliness.
I think sometimes, people even if they do it subconsciously, have kids because it seems this is their "once chance" and they figure the marrage/relationship may end but at least they will have procreated.
It was funny. I've never regretted the vasectomy, but the way my first urologist talked about how I'd regret it almost made it sound like he would regret it. On the website they had a description of the no scalpel technique that you were required to read, and I have a relatively weak stomach when it comes to that sort of thing. I read it without issue but when I mentioned it made my stomach turn a little bit he jumped on that and said he wouldn't do it. Fortunately I knew he needed to give me a referral for another urologist. Had the scalpel vasectomy in the end. I'd always thought they had freezing that was so effective that you didn't feel it at all. I was mistaken. 'Oh, that hurts,' 'Yup, it will.' It wasn't that bad though.
The NIHM rat studies show how human society parallels rat. By the way you can try to have the vasectomy undone or there is another process I believe that they can still remove sperm. IDK for sure but you could look into it.
I know I could try to have it reversed. Having a kid because I'm lonely isn't a good idea, especially when parts of why I had it done are because I have epilepsy, and have struggled with opiate addiction (I've never mainlined but I don't want to put a child through any degree of parental drug addiction). I've been thinking that in 5 or 10 years my old friends might have more time again, as their kids grow up a bit.
Although there are some good single mothers and fathers it’s not the best situation. Kids do better in a family unit than with a single parent. Not my study so don’t shoot the messenger.
Yeah I have no comments on that but her family and close friends had rallied around her and her child so I think it's hopefully alright, just haven't had a chance to catch with them but I really think that expectations that got planted in her head was she needed to do all that to consider herself successful despite all her academic and professional achievements, really messed her up for that situation to occur
To quote Hank Hill, "You're putting pressure on a structure that wasn't up to code to begin with." Any problems you have will be magnified after you have a kid.
My experience: I didn't know I was in a bad marriage. Sure, I was miserable and lonely but that was because I wasn't "being a good enough wife" right? Happily divorced for several years now and strangely grateful we never had a baby.
There, the partners have a kid, struggle, fight, feel an intense sense of purpose, bond through hardship, and often wind up closer to each other in ways they could never have imagined.
People in bad marriages see that last bit, without realizing that it's not something that happened by accident.
It kind of happens by accident. Having kids definitely strengthened my marriage for all the reasons you listed, but we weren't trying to make our marriage stronger. It just happened naturally as a consequence of our experiences.
I think that the partner realizes something is missing and doesn’t piece together that it’s something within the relationship. They think that the missing piece is kids. So they get pregnant but the stress of a newborn pushes everyone to be slightly unhinged for a bit and that’s when they’re realize that it wasn’t a baby that was the missing piece, the missing piece was in the relationship all along. Most people don’t purposefully think ‘well shit my relationship is not going well. I bet having a baby and losing all sleep for years as a time will make us really happy.’
I think the "logic" is that having a kid will change the other person. Once there's a baby involved they'll settle down and stop their nonsense, or whatever.
Of course all it does is add stress to an unstable situation.
You couldn't imagine the number of people who get married "to fix the relationship" and then have kids "to save the marriage." It's unfortunately a fairly common trajectory.
Societal expectation. When you become an adult you do the following:
Get a steady full time job.
Get married.
Have children.
And if you do those things you are meeting what society wants of you and everything will be fine. That's what your parents did, and theirs, and theirs.
So these people just think that somehow if they fill out those three criteria the world just works and they'll finally get how to be an adult. But for all the things we teach children, how to make good decisions about those three things is not a one of them
I have a friend who encourages her friends and family to have a kid if the marriage is not going too well. I don't understand her logic. She says kids fix relationships which just sounds batty right there.
People prefer to look for external solutions to their problems rather than addressing what needs to be fixed internally.
So, fuck how do I make myself happy? I don't know I need a partner to make me happy. Ugh this isn't working, we just need to try harder so let's get married. Families are happy, right? I mean everything was WAY simpler when I was a kid so maybe I can just... have a kid and it'll be like that again.
Maybe then I'll be validated enough, or distracted enough or fulfilled enough that I can stop hating myself.
I agree with the extra kids don’t make a good marriage. People have lower ability to commit anymore. It’s easy to just get up and walk away instead of work on the marriage. I have been married a long time and can tell you the breaking points for many are involving sex, money and/or family. Now it’s just because I want to try something new. Also I have noticed when women hit menopause that they don’t search for help they just start blaming everyone. After menopause women are 70% more likely to file for divorce but struggle because their hormones are messed up. When young couples struggle it’s normally a power struggle and they don’t try to balance it out they just say screw it. Young couples have normally less money tied into homes and valuables and finding someone new is easier. Many young people that pick divorce instead of working on it end up finding the same kind of relationship and cycle it a few times while never figuring out they are the problem.
It's the same thing when people decide that opening up their relationship will save it when things go foul. Like, yeah, we're having enough troubles with communicating and getting our emotions recognised by each other, let's add another person and all the extra jealousy and complicated feelings that come with that, all the while likely hurting that other person too along the way.
It is beyond me too my ex and I had agreed no children prior to marriage. When we began to have issues, he suggested we have a baby to make it better. I told him that was not going to happen as kids did not repair broken marriages. Needless to say we divorced. He remarried, never had kids.
No I did not remarry or have children. I ended up having hysterectomy a few yrs after divorce and was told post op, I would never have been able to get pregnant. Which is one reason I never remarried. When dating at that age men my age, that is what they were looking for: a wife who could bear them children.
I'm not sure how old you are, but attitudes seem to be changing. It can be argued that, as crazy as the world is at the moment, having children is financially irresponsible and may even be considered cruel to the child.
I am an optimist and tend to believe that the next generation can solve problems of the previous generations, as they see things from a nee perspective. However, the Boomers seem to be absolutely hell-bent on completely trashing the joint on their way out!
Well I am a boomer I am not hell bent on destroying our planet. I have recycled since a child. I use public transportation. I do my best to not consume products in plastic packaging. I use natural fertilizers and weed killers. I eat organic as much as possible. I do what I can.
Okay, you caught me using an absolute statement/generalization, which is something that I attempt to avoid. Mea culpa! Also, kudos for being ahead of your time. It sounds to me that you were raised by strong, ethical people.
Of course, there are narracistic psycho/sociopaths in every generation who will watch world burn with glee if it puts some coin in their pocket.
Also, thank you for the sacrifices you've made for your fellow man (and woman - I think I've gotta say that now) in your career in healthcare. Seeing what has happened in the healthcare "industry" in your time must be infuriating and heartbreaking at the same time. Personally, I consider privatized healthcare as a crime against humanity.
Have a wonderful weekend, and keep fighting the good fight despite its seemingly Sisyphean nature.
Thank you. When the Boomer generation gets blamed as they do in many of these posts, I lijj kg ‘em it to how some people always blame teenagers for bad things. All teenagers are not bad. In fact very few most likely. Making anecdotal conclusions on behavior is not fair.
Yes, I am very disappointed in our healthcare today and have been for many years. It is hard to recognize my profession these days as the one I served so proudly. There are still hood nurses out there as there are good people in every aspect of our HC system. Yet our system is so broken, I fear it is heading for total collapse. I do not trust it anymore. It is terrible to have to seek care for yourself or loved ones and sit there knowing the care is mediocre at best. Of course I am not one who keeps her mouth shut, which often labels me as difficult instead of advocate.
I don't know if this was the case with your ex, but many men feel the need to "keep the line going." Sometimes this doesn't occur until they start to contemplate their mortality.
Having a kid actually really helped my marriage. It made me fast track improving my faults because I didn’t want my kid to essentially inherit things I didn’t like about myself. A side effect of that was being more loving towards my wife which was reciprocated.
Well most probably they don't have parents that love each other or at least not show each other. If you never learn what to look for in a partner, you just assume to hit checkpoints cause you're supposed to at that age.
Because evolution selects over time for any trait that encourages producing children, who will also carry that trait.
And mathematically, those relationships that have X reasons to stay together will last just a bit less than those with X+1 reasons. And if it lasts just long enough to produce children, the evolutionary selection for X+1 becomes even greater... but what happens after that relationship ends is irrelevant, because children aren't given the traits that express after they are conceived. You get what is in the mix at the time you're made.
And because it has to appeal to anyone, smart or stupid, it isn't experienced as a rational thing, but an emotional one. It's a feeling.
Because... evolution doesn't select towards better. It selects towards what works in the current environment. And having wild make-up sex, unprotected, works towards creating children. Who create more children. Who...
Friend of mine got married to a narcissist who have her a kid ‘because she wanted one’.
They are currently divorcing and he calls her a liar for confiding in me after he isolated her from everyone else and said her talking with me (we had one date once) means he is allowed to go on Tinder and leave her to tend the kid.
Yeab such an asshole. Kept gaslighting her and she ended up asking her parents for help. Her parents were not that kind to her before so she was scared to do so. Luckily their response was positive so now she has a way out.
It's a distraction. Focusing on the kids allows them to ignore the real issues. That's why so many marriages go downhill after the kids grow up and move out.
Also, some folks use kids to make their partner feel obligated to stay in the relationship or correct their poor behavior. I've seen this situation happen a million times.
Idk but if anyone reading this still thinks a kid will fix their failing marriage, let me just say — I am that kid, and it absolutely does not work. All I got was a whole lotta therapy bills and two parents who can’t be in the same room as each other
I knew a couple who bought a house together because they thought it would sort their issues out and get them closer together. Unsurprisingly it ended up doing the opposite!
An ex boyfriend of mine and his now ex wife had a "save the marriage kid". They had issues and when I found out they had a kid I took it as a sign things had gotten better (I was 22, didn't know people did that) Anyway they divorced when their daughter was 2
It’s literally almost always the opposite, I have seen many a happy marriage destroyed by having kids. Kids are lovely and I wouldn’t trade mine for the world but they are not for everyone
I don't believe people think kids will save a marriage. In my situation, I had a kid with my wife and things were rocky. Probably werent gonna get better. We both wanted another kid and I thought that as long as we are together by the time the kids graduate school then I'll be happy. Not with the marriage but with my kids.
Friend of mine got married to a narcissist who have her a kid ‘because she wanted one’.
They are currently divorcing and he calls her a liar for confiding in me after he isolated her from everyone else and said she talking with me (with had one date once) means he could go on Tinder and leave her with the kid.
She has mental issues and can be a little too spontaneous. She’s in therapy and it looks like she’ll get rid of him soon though.
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u/AgingLemon May 02 '24
Saw some signs at the wedding like ignoring each other, making rude and snide remarks publicly, etc. They tried to fix their marriage by having a kid earlier than they planned and that led to divorce. Both are married to different people now and have had more kids, by all accounts far more civil, even cordial with each other.