AIBU to be very shocked only 3% of unmarried parents stay together until child is 16!

[littlemoominmamma]

3% is nothing!!! It is soooo sad. 1 out of every 3 couples have seperated before the child is 5yrs old

I am now glad that the tories are going to give married couples help.

rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

Sorry link is static.advicenow.org.uk/files/Next_of_Kin003-988.pdf

'the event' meant the split. Which, if it is to happen, would hopefully be pre-children.
Better to find out sooner, rather than waste too many years of your life with someone who turns out not to be your life-partner.

yes lady, i do believe you are right - daft innit!

I was just responding to comments by people who ran out of things to say to me.

Meita's post is interesting but it contains a false argument. She uses a conclusion (that stability means people will select marriage) to support a premise (that marriage is not a stability inducing factor); normally an argument does rather work the other way around. This turns both her conclusion and her premise into assumptions.

In addition her claim that stability means people select marriage (on average) contains the very strong implication, which perhaps she did not intend, that people who do not select marriage have less stable relationships; which begs the question as to why people who have not chosen marriage and (on her reckoning) therefore have less stable relationships, have nevertheless chosen to have children. She is second guessing herself all over the shop.

I think Fembear makes a good point. Obviously people should be free to make a choice - that's why I can't understand those who argued earlier on this thread that co-habitees should have the same rights as married people (otherwise where is the choice for those who choose to remain unmarried). I didn't think too much about marrying my dh until we moved abroad (and I had to give up work to follow him). I think if he'd been adamant he wouldn't marry me I wouldn't have gone - and I think that's what Fembear means about being wise before the event. If you are both happy to remain unmarried that's one thing, if you are unmarried because your partner refuses to marry you, you have to start asking yourself why.

fembear, if marriage is important to you but it's important to your partner NOT to be married, then perhaps you should start looking for a new partner who has more similar values to your own. I agree with that. You would have to think very carefully about having children with someone you disagree with on things that matter a lot to you. Not to say that it's impossible that it all works out - there might be other factors that completely outweigh your differences on the marriage question, and opposites attract, and all that.

If however your partner and you both agree that by having a child together you are committing long term, as in my case for instance, I do not see why our joint reluctance to get married should be any indication that we will split up.

In sum, I think what you are describing is more like "fundamentally different values bode unwell for the relationship" than "remaining unmarried bodes unwell for the relationship".

"the event' meant the split. Which, if it is to happen, would hopefully be pre-children.
Better to find out sooner, rather than waste too many years of your life with someone who turns out not to be your life-partner"

Oh because getting married ENSURES that this will be your life partner and no one who is married ever divorces after wasting years of their life on someone who turns out not to be their life partner

It is better to think before the event

IE: before you post something non-sensical!

lillian, in your circs i would have been adamant that we were married too.

im getting qutie confused now

"you make it sound like the choice is either: don't get married, eventually split up; get married, live happily ever after."

I'm not, but the statistics point that way.

oooh, i'll do anything for chocolate me, you are right fembear totally right - everyone who disagrees with you is a loon, yeah

now, give me the chocolate

"But remember most people (married or not) don't actually give a shit about how other people live their lives" - very true. In fact I couldn't tell you for sure which of my friends and aquaintances are married and which are cohabiting. I don't think it matters a jot - I myself had very good reasons for getting married, but each to his own.

Upandrunning, I'm glad you took the time to read my admittedly overly long post and to respond to it in detail. That's not something that happens very often when discussions start getting heated, and I do appreciate it.

On the first point you mention, I'd just like to clarify that I'm only really saying "these stats do not provide evidence for marriage being good for relationships".
They do show a correlation but with this data, as the author himself admits, it is simply not possible to conclude for or against the statement that marriage helps relationships last longer; for or against the causality vs. selection theory.
I do not claim that they are evidence for the selection theory. They simply do not address this question. I personally believe the selection theory to be more plausible, but that's not my point. My point is only that this study does not provide evidence for the causality theory.

On the second point: Indeed if the selection theory is correct, then couples whose relationships have the ingredients to work out in the long term do indeed choose to get married more often than couples whose relationships are unstable. That implication was not unintentional. (Now if only we always KNEW if he's Mr. Right... )
On the second second point: Why do people whose relationship doesn't have the ingredients to be long-term stable still decide to have kids? I can only assume and guess. I suppose most did believe their relationship was going to work, before they started having kids; some might not have worried too much as they were after the kids more than after the man; some might have thought that having kids would help the relationship, that was otherwise doomed, work out. So indeed on this point I'm no more than guessing. I do not quite see how it invalidates anything, though.

ohh can I have some chocolate too please? Pretty please?

I actually thought you were largely agreeing with me at first and going much further: as your argument does contain a principle assumption that unmarried = instability. Which I don't believe holds true for all cohabiting relationships, I'm sure you don't either, it's patently not true.

Tbh one of the reasons I didn't reply before was because I'd I had addressed the issue about four pages ago, and the response was "wtf how dare you say my relationship is unstable I have been with dp 14" yrs etc etc. So it seemed pointless.

That should be principal assumption: or simply principle. But you'd know that

Haven't read whole thread so sorry if this has been said before. Government stats are a load of crap and should be taken with a pinch of salt. Its all to do with statistical analysis and measurement scales so that they give you the figure they want you to have. If they had used a different measurement scale that percentage could have easily have been 60% or such.

upandrunning, very quick response from you there.

No, in fact the selection argument does NOT contain a principal assumption that unmarried = instability.

First, I'm assuming by the = you mean "causes". The selection theory does not make claims about causes for stability/instability. It simply says that those who for whatever reason, whatever cause are (long term) stable, choose marriage more often than those who for whatever reason are not (long term) stable.

Second, the relation between unmarried and unstable is not a principle - it's what is sought to be explained. The stats this discussion started with, say that there is a relation between relationship stability and marriage. I do not disbelieve them. We're starting from the numbers, assuming that the methodology and all were in principle correct.
The selection theory is an attempt to explain why there is such a relation. The causality theory is another possible explanation for the relation. Unfortunately, the figures themselves cannot tell us anything at all about which theory is more correct (it could well be part of both). But they do tell us that there is a relation - that's where I started. Not because I think the relation is a principle.

(I need to learn brevity)

Marriage is bad for your health www.news-medical.net/news/2005/12/06/14855.aspx

insicknessinhealth.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-marriage-good-or-bad-for-your-health.html

www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-essig_08edi.28ea88f80.html

Have you ever noticed there is research to support almost any view?

I have been with DP for 21 years and not married. Would any of you like to know the ecret of our staying power cos by all accounts we should be in a lab being examined.