> Friends of mine that come from family backgrounds with a lot of divorce have the same view that you do.
I come from a family with a history of long, strong marriages. My parents are another success story. They have learned to tolerate each other, and we (my parents, my sister, myself) are all better for it.
What do I base my opinion on?
1. My parents fought on occasion. Screaming matches, passive aggression, shit-talking behind each others backs. It was rare and not nearly enough to threaten the marriage, but it gave me a point of comparison.
2. I had friends whose parents did this constantly. Rather than fighting 5% of the time, they fought 95% of the time. I saw some of it first hand.
3. I had friends whose parents were divorced. It wasn't ideal and it created more than a few miscommunications, but the kids got the attention they needed, they didn't complain about their parents trying to take their anger out on them, and things generally seemed to work out OK.
By "filling in the blanks" in my friend's description of #2 with my own experiences of parental fighting (#1), I believe #2 is a considerably worse state of affairs for all involved than #3.
> projection
Right back at you.
> cheaters, liars project
We are in complete agreement on this point :P
I think we would both agree that there is a "you get out what you put in" effect in marriage. More tolerance and more commitment from either partner greatly increase the strength of the marriage and are generally a good thing. My contentions are that there's a turning point where this stops being true and that contract verbiage is poor at determining this turning point and providing appropriate guidance.
I come from a family with a history of long, strong marriages. My parents are another success story. They have learned to tolerate each other, and we (my parents, my sister, myself) are all better for it.
What do I base my opinion on?
1. My parents fought on occasion. Screaming matches, passive aggression, shit-talking behind each others backs. It was rare and not nearly enough to threaten the marriage, but it gave me a point of comparison.
2. I had friends whose parents did this constantly. Rather than fighting 5% of the time, they fought 95% of the time. I saw some of it first hand.
3. I had friends whose parents were divorced. It wasn't ideal and it created more than a few miscommunications, but the kids got the attention they needed, they didn't complain about their parents trying to take their anger out on them, and things generally seemed to work out OK.
By "filling in the blanks" in my friend's description of #2 with my own experiences of parental fighting (#1), I believe #2 is a considerably worse state of affairs for all involved than #3.
> projection
Right back at you.
> cheaters, liars project
We are in complete agreement on this point :P
I think we would both agree that there is a "you get out what you put in" effect in marriage. More tolerance and more commitment from either partner greatly increase the strength of the marriage and are generally a good thing. My contentions are that there's a turning point where this stops being true and that contract verbiage is poor at determining this turning point and providing appropriate guidance.