To not want to celebrate people's weddings/marriages

[Waferbiscuit]

There are a number of people in my office getting married and the grumpy old cynic in me is finding it hard to get excited. I'm not sure marriage means much these days, what with the almost 50% divorce rate. Given that it's a commitment that is fairly easy to escape from, what exactly are we celebrating - the hope that it will work out or a legal contract committing them to one another?

In fact I can't help but feel that for many couples marriage is primarily the joining together of two people's assets and/or protecting one another, and in that way perhaps couples need to be more discrete about marriage, a bit like one is when they win the lotto or come into an inheritance.... keep it quiet.

Of course if couples do want to make an emotional commitment to each other, that's between them and seems like something you'd agree to privately.

I'm happy to celebrate major achievements in life that involve a lot of effort, things like someone graduating with a Phd or getting a black belt in karate. But celebrating a commitment that can easily be unravelled or a legal contract that ensures the sharing of assets... well that doesn't seem much to celebrate, does it? AIBU?

@SammySammySammytheBetterfly I think you’ve misunderstood my post. I’m all for celebrating weddings but not because getting married is an achievement- it isn’t. That doesn’t mean it can’t be celebrated as a happy occasion.

A PhD on the other hand is an achievement, irrespective of whether you find it “boring and irrelevant”. What sort of person wouldn’t celebrate a friend achieving something? Awful.

@MandyRice

I don’t see marriage as an achievement in any sense, and certainly not “more important by several leagues of magnitude by any other achievement by a woman”- Christ, who thinks like that? And why call it an achievement “by a woman” as if women are all out to hook a man and men are just passive hookees? These objections would have been outdated 50 years ago.

I think you've missed my point. I totally agree that a wedding is not an achievement by a woman. But the whole Disney culture around weddings is designed exactly to underscore this belief. It's a fetishisation aimed entirely at the princess complex in women. Men never get wrapped up in the hoo hah around weddings, most of them don't care much about getting married in the first place and they never get embroiled in discussions around table floral displays and all that jazz.

Marriage has certainly evolved and women are much more active participants than they ever were. And a marriage is an eminently sensible tactic for many people.

But you wouldn't know this from the entire grotesque caravan of avarice and selfishness which has grown up around weddings.

I just don’t agree with your premise. I don’t think many people do see marriage in the way you describe (asa great achievement). I think most women either completely see through what you call Disney culture or else pick the bits they want (with eyes open) and reject the rest.

Really interesting thread. Firstly I think there are some people who just don't feel much joy for other people. Probably ideal if they stay away from situations where they'd have to fake that. No-one expects everyone to get excited about other people's events. I was amazed when I was getting married how some people were SO interested in every aspect of the planning etc (I wasn't especially), it's not necessarily who you'd think either.

But in terms of whether marriages now are doomed etc - we have no way of knowing what the divorce rate will be for the couples marrying this year. For all we know (although it seems veeery unlikely) it could be 0%, because the only way to work out the divorce rate for a particular cohort of couples is to wait decades and decades and see. I don't know if that 33% divorce rate quoted earlier has any basis in reality, but if it does it'd have to be from couples marrying perhaps 50 or 60 years ago or longer, since you have to wait it out to see how many have divorced in their lifetimes (i.e. wait for them to die!).

If anything OP you could be more optimistic for couples marrying now as the number of divorces is getting lower in general as time goes on (most recent peak in the early 90s).

@SammySammySammytheBetterfly you're right that married women were mostly "in the home" in centuries gone by, but in the same era when most men worked at home too. I think it's fair to say that which job your future husband did had a huge impact as you were usually "joining his business" too (I think this is why so many mothers even now fret about their future SIL job). So obvious example if you married a farmer you didn't sit around at home playing with the kids and cooking tea, you would usually have a very active role doing everything from managing workers to producing dairy products, taking things to sell, animal care, helping with manual work etc depending on the size of the farm. But most businesses (esp pre big factories) were run at home and were literally "family businesses" with any able bodied family member chipping in.

I mean pre-mass industrialisation. But even in the 19th and 20th century for example all the women on one side of my family had jobs until they were elderly. There was a comparatively short time when women of some classes were expected NOT to work and/or banned from jobs.

The same amount of marriages still used to fail - it's just that you were stuck in it, and now you can free yourself free if it goes wrong.

I don't see how it's more of a thing to celebrate someone going into something they will never be able to get out of (and also to someone they probably don't know particularly well) - I would find that much less joyful than a modern wedding!! I can see that it would be a bigger deal - but not in a happier way...

I am in the process of divorce and can honestly say that the person I loved with all
my heart, who I wanted to grow old and die with having an affair and turning my life upside down, has put me off ever getting married again.

But that’s me and it doesn’t mean I am not happy for anyone else getting married.
I don’t go to many weddings these days but I enjoy them when I do. Yes, I get a pang of sadness as I remember my own and the hope and excitement I had about our future together, but I still believe love is a wonderful thing and if a couple want me to be a part of celebrating theirs then I will do so happily.

@Ilikepinacoladass

Is that really true though? Sure the abusive ones failed - but for many the marriages were couples “grow apart” but are otherwise relatively happy but still split these days - was those couples staying together in the past a failure? Did they feel the same way or did they just think this was pretty good and enjoy the rest of their lives despite the marriage not being fireworks?

It actually may have been that people expected the mundanity of marriage more in the past and were happy within that, in a way that many can’t be today. So I don’t think it’s right to say all the divorced couples of today would have been miserable if they had to stay married and that was the expectation like in the past. I think many of them would have made the best of it and found happiness despite the lack of fireworks in their marriages.

I guess it’s hard to really know Sammy, I’m sure many people in the past who seemed happy enough would have loved the chance to get out if they could and may have had happier lives for it. But then I’m sure many people now still stay together for the marriage and because they’re “happy enough” and don’t want to break their vows etc, even when it’s easier. It’s not like all couples maintain utter bliss and sexy fun throughout decades of life, kids, loss, illness etc now but most still stay together.

Interesting that posters earlier mentioned abandonment - it was so easy to do back before proper records etc. One of my great grandmothers was left by her husband and spent probably 40 years of her life trapped in a marriage to a man who’d gone lord knows where, no chance to remarry of course and stuck in poverty as she had to raise the kids and could only get jobs where they’d employ a single mother.

I’m really sorry he did that @Sunshineandflipflops x

@SammySammySammytheBetterfly seems that for some reason we are assuming a lot of divorces now take place on a whim, and because people just 'grow apart' / 'aren't feeling the fireworks' anymore. Which I don't think is true tbh.

@Trying20 a combination of first-hand accounts from her son and daughter, and some family research (not mine but I presume it involved old censuses and things) that revealed where he'd gone and what he'd done there (had another family!).

And to be honest yeh I think it is a failure to stay in a less than happy marriage, when you could be more fulfilled and happier single / with someone else

A party's a party. 🤷 Booze, food, what's not to like?

@Ilikepinacoladass

The point is you may not be at all - either you won’t be happier or you will then the same thing will happen and the “love” for your new partner wanes as well. And I don’t think kids are really better off with parents who try to become more fulfilled with someone else (despite what Mumsnet says) rather than in a mundane Luke warm happy marriage.

And then if your new person isn’t any better or you lose the spark and you end up more or less the same in feeling - except your growing old with someone without the shared family/history which means so much going into old age.

It is interesting! For me @TheHideAndSeekingHill, it's not that I can't feel joy. I'm cheerful by nature and really dislike feeling like a grump at weddings, though you'd never know it on the outside.

It's not marriage itself I object to. It's the sexism and consumerism around it that are impossible to avoid even if the couple are being really thoughtful. I dislike the fact that men traditionally propose, for instance. And that's even before it's begun! Why does the woman wait for the man on this huge, life changing decision that binds them financially and often dictates when they have kids? Why does he traditionally prove it by giving her expensive jewellery? Why does the bride walk down the aisle while everyone looks at her rather than the groom? Some call it tradition, I call it sexism. When it comes down to it, the emphasis is on her being good looking and him being rich and able to provide. I think that sends the wrong message and I can't switch that critical part of my brain off at weddings. I'm not the sort of person who can just blank out sexism and be joyful if I think it's there and I don't love my kids seeing it (I know that sounds nuts)

All my mates know I'm weird about weddings and have been for years. They still want me to attend theirs even though know exactly what I'm thinking because we talk politics all the time. Declining invites isn't an option for me so I go and silently grump away!

I've been to some pretty dull weddings, and some that were fabulous. They're not all the same! Some people like to spend a lot on a wedding (because they can, and they want to) some people prefer more simpler ceremonies, some you might perceive to be tacky or not to your taste, people generally arrange their weddings to their own taste, budget or culture and invite friends or family to celebrate. You are at liberty to turn down every invite for a birthday or wedding but they can be fun, but I'd find it unusual to not want to celebrate the birthday or wedding of any friend or family

@SammySammySammytheBetterfly that's still assuming that lots of people get divorced from 'Luke warm happy marriages'. Which in reality I don't think is true, I think most people are usually much more unhappy than that / have actual issues before they get divorced.

Also you're assuming they are going to get with someone else - when they could be single and happier, rather than trading them in for someone new / jumping into another relationship.

I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it: the existence of divorces is part of successfully functioning marriages. Marriage with out divorce as an option does not make for successful marriages. Whenever my girlfriends get cold feet, I assure them that divorce is a legitimate option.

That's before you even get to the fact that the 50% rate is for all marriages, and the divorce rate is much higher for second marriages onwards.

You sounds like a great guest anyway @RobynNora and believe me I do know what you mean, I sit there fuming through a lot of wedding bits that exemplify the stuff you're talking about

@thecatsthecats that's interesting about second marriages. I have been thinking reading this thread about divorced people I know and they all fall into two categories: a) divorced once, usually due to getting married really young or one partner cheating, never remarried or remarried then widowed (mostly women) b) divorced 2-4 times, keep on getting married (all men)

Yup genuinely surprised by the level of responses - people stating that I am 'everything they don't want to be' which is pretty harsh, just because I question a waning institution. Weird!!!

Hmmm, I kinda agree with the OP! I'm divorced, and lots of my friends are. Marriage has such a high failure rate (40%+ divorce), and it's not always happily ever after even when people stick it out (see Relationships board ....). I'm happy for people on their big day, but would also like it if other major milestones in peoples' lives were also equally celebrated.

I have a friend who goes through one romantic relationship disaster after the next, always looking for a lifetime partner with really really unsuitable blokes (one with a DV conviction, and she maintains his innocence). But was scathing about a single colleague, thinking that she'd be much happier if she were married. Some of the comments to the OP were similar, and I think it's a bit unfair. Although she may be married too, of course!