From "They Married, Divorced and Then Married Their Ex-Spouses Again/Five couples share how and why they decided to reconcile and tie the knot again" (NYT)(free access link).
From the comments over there: "I have never forgiven our parents for divorcing while we children were teenagers — because years later they got back together again and eventually remarried. They put us kids through a lot, and apparently it was completely unnecessary. It's unfashionable for couples to 'stay together for the sake of the children,' but absent abuse, I wish more would consider it."
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One of my late aunts was manic depressive. She and her husband (my father's brother) were pretty solid Southern Baptists, living in Texas. In her moods she was dangerous enough that my uncle told their only child to stay outside of the house until he got home from work. So there was a problem.
But my uncle divorced his wife four times---and married her five times.
"It's unfashionable for couples to 'stay together for the sake of the children'"
Jesus, Joseph and reverse-cowboy Mary, who in the actual fuck designates something like this "unfashionable"? Who lets what's "fashionable" determine a decision of this magnitude? Fuck fashion. Fuck the people who follow it. Barbie-dreamhouse-Cosmo-reading-bubbleheaded retards. Don't walk away from people like that commenter. Fucking run.
I experienced this as well.
Luckily, I woke up. Screaming.
I got back together with an ex, and it was great for a while, but eventually we broke up again. Wasn't meant to be.
As far as staying together for the kids, it matters how you do it. I've seen plenty of quotes from the opposite perspective, where kids grew up miserable because their parents lived together in palpable hostility.
In the long-ago time, before Woke and before the 2007 iPhone, university research routinely found that a strong social network provided the best support for mental health. Isolation is correlated with all sorts of negatives. Then Jordan Peterson and others called out the issue circa 2016 and this suddenly became "conservative" and had to be rejected by those who were failing the worst.
You can either live in isolation and be 50%/50% happy/sad, or live with an imperfect partner and be 75%/25% happy/sad. Take your pick, and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Women file the lion's share of divorces, so it's likely that something has changed in female conversations, standards, and expectations. IMO this follows from the artificial utopian expectations generated by media (film, radio, TV, and Internet) over the last 100 years. Witness the girls melting down to Rudolph Valentino, and later the Beatles, and now sleeping with their phones, binding their breasts, and falling off cliffs when taking selfies for likes.
My wife, for whatever reason, does not like me joking that I expect our marriage to end in the traditional Catholic manner, with me stabbed to death in my sleep. Note: If ever I am found dead of a stab wound while sleeping, it probably wasn't her, although goodness knows I've given her ample cause over the years. She's a fantastic person and the best wife on earth, and would never resort to such a crude and convictable manner of disposing of me.
"It's unfashionable for couples to 'stay together for the sake of the children,' but absent abuse, I wish more would consider it."
My parents did that. There were periods of deep tension, but overall, while not every couple can do it, I'm grateful they sacrificed their happiness for ours.
RideSpaceMountain
I believe the speaker said this with much irony and a dash of bitterness.
Michael Connelly's heroes (Haller, Bosch) always have wives and ex-wives who are disappointed with them. They get back together occasionally but it never works. They're disappointed again.
I have friends that were re-married at least twice. I suspect three times but cannot confirm.
I know I wasn't at their first wedding but was at two others : )
They are currently (I think) divorced...
'I say this to him over and over ...'
Wait, they're a man and a woman? I had thought this would be a heart-warming story of two lesbians rekindling the love of their youth. Not some cis-het BS. Pole-in-hole, where's the heart-warming in that? I guess they could have an abortion. That would be heart-warming.
I know one of the couples. Fun to see them in the NYT.
Head scratching topic. But from someone married 44 years, I lack critical experience in what goes into the the divorce equation.
My better half had an Uncle that was divorced and remarried. Seems they liked each other just fine, but couldn't live together. That was discovered when his first wife turned up pregnant. But it did not dissolve his 2cnd marriage! He and wife 2 were an active father to the child.
I also know two sets of couples that just swapped spouses permanently. In both cases the second marriages both seemed a much better fit of personalities.
"Women file the lion's share of divorces, so it's likely that something has changed in female conversations, standards, and expectations."
I used to subscribe to two daily emails that offered a list of free or inexpensive e-books, about a dozen per day. I started counting, and over 90% of the books on the list were obviously written to attract women. So maybe women make up the vast majority of book readers, I don't know.
As I was sort of casually looking the list over to categorize the books for my informal count, I noticed a pattern. Most of the books marketed to women were about leaving their situation - job, marriage, whatever. Many times the marketing blurb contained the exact phrase "second chance". Perhaps women who read are getting saturated with the message that you can drop your problems and start over.
Didn't Doc K post that he and his wife had divorced and remarried? Or was it another commenter?
My eldest was divorced by wife #1, who soon discovered that with divorce came no spousal health benefits... something she needs. One child, he tried it again with her. Didn't work. Said he was trying to follow our example- even though both my wife and I told him not to do it. Both initiated by her. She wasn't happy with his career choice- active duty Army- though it was what he was when they met and when they divorced both times. Didn't stay married long enough to get half his retired pay.
My wife and I aren't really good examples. Because no one who observes us, including our 5 children, can figure out how we got together, what we have in common, or what keeps us together. We, on the other hand, don't think or worry about any of that.
I have run into many examples of that in my family tree. With over 25000 people it's a statistical universe.
One married his first wife 5 times, divorced 4. They were married when one of them died- so I guess that counts as married 'til death does us part.
At least 2 couples who remarried after 20 or more years, with multiple spouses in between.
One lady, in the late 1800s, who I have multiple DNA matches to, was married 7 times- that anyone can track down. In 3 different states. No record of divorces...
--- Didn't Doc K post that he and his wife had divorced and remarried? [Narr]
Yes. Maybe this topic will catch his eye. He has been absent for a while now.
Hoping Michael K is well. I don't have his own blog address, maybe someone else knows more.
Why should I re-marry either of my last two wives? So they can take whatever money I have managed to earn and save since their greedy asses filed?
Companionate marriage wasn't a terrible idea, it's just marriage should be held to a higher standard while children are below the age of majority. Companionate marriage is about feelz, and feelz change, leaving kids drowning in the wake.
Nevertheless, there was an unmistakable and rapid trend away from the old American code toward a philosophy of sex relations and of marriage wholly new to the country: toward a feeling that the virtues of chastity and fidelity had been rated too highly, that there was something to be said for what Mrs. Bertrand Russell defined as "the right, equally shared by men and women, to free participation in sex experience," that it was not necessary for girls to deny themselves this right before marriage or even for husbands and wives to do so after marriage. It was in acknowledgment of the spread of this feeling that Judge Lindsay proposed, in 1927, to establish "companionate marriage" on a legal basis. He wanted to legalize birth control (which, although still outlawed, was by this time generally practiced or believed in by married couples in all but the most ignorant classes) and to permit legal marriage to be terminated at any time in divorce by mutual consent, provided there were no children. His suggestion created great consternation and was widely and vigorously denounced; but the mere fact that it was seriously debated showed how the code of an earlier day had been shaken. The revolution in morals was in full swing.
--‘Only Yesterday An Informal History Of The Nineteen Twenties’, Frederick Lewis Allen (1931)
My parents stayed together for the kids. When they finally broke free, all 4 of us kid asked them why they waited so long. They weren't happy. They weren't getting along. It isn't like we were blind...we could see it. Them staying together for us, was more traumatic than if my father left since he wasn't home much anyways.. I was the third kid...and they stayed until I was 17.
I ended up being my fathers caretaker before he died. He says his biggest regret was being a fool, and leaving my mother. They never reconciled, but HE was regretful.
I am now my mothers caretaker.
My parents did the same. It was certainly bewildering and it resurrected in me some hard feelings for my mother who had divorced my father for no reason beyond some self actualizing bullshit. But at the end of the day, it made them happy and one must move on with one’s life. They both did their best for us.
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