Not saying that this is the only cause of divorce, or even the leading cause. I’m just saying that there are a lot of women out there who romanticise the wedding itself. Almost like the relationship, the wedding itself, is irrelevant.
Which totally misses the conceptual point of getting married in the first place. Some women just like the idea of having a big party, with all their friends and family, making them the center of attention for a day.
Which is FINE. If women want to have that happen, I feel like maybe we SHOULD make that a whole seperate other thing. Like a new holiday or maybe we combine the concept with their birthday.
It’s just the concept we have now, the average wedding from the time the man thinks “I’m going to marry her” all the way through the first day they get back from their honeymoon…that entire process costs an average of $100,000. From the dress, to the ring, to the hall rental, to the wedding planner, to the catering, to the flight, and hotel, and rental car, and everything else that comes with the wedding, average cost is $100,000.
And the second you call anything a “wedding” anything, it skyrockets in price. Want a cake? Ok, sure, $30. Want a “wedding cake”? Yeah, $250.
You want a big poofy white dress? Hey is this a wedding dress? No. This is a wedding dress replica. It’s being used to shoot a wedding scene in an independant movie. We’re just buying the material. Yeah, ok. $70.
Oh, this dress is actually in a wedding? $2,000.
And I know this just seems like I’m just complaining about money. But it all ties together. Because if you ask most women what they dream about when they think about their dream wedding, they have this long list of things, and everything needs to be perfect, and the planning itself, the wedding party and appearance becomes an extention of themselves. If this is the womans first wedding, it really becomes a mirror of who they are are a person. This is why you should NEVER trust a guy with the wedding planning. At all. Unless you’re willing to give up total control. Instead of your favorite flowers creating an arch that you walk under to get into the building? What if we instead had flame throwers that CONSTANTLY spewed flames which prevented you from getting in. And to stop the flames, you need to answer 3 riddles about the couple getting married. And if you get it wrong, a bunch of royal knights in platemail armor stab you with haberts until you get it right…or bleed out. And once you get inside the hall, all the hall vendors are cosplaying as classic pro wrestlers. Imagine coming in, and seeing Macho Man Randy Savage holding a plate of cheeses, and saying “OOOOH YEAH! TRY THE SWISS, IT’S AS GOOD AS MISS!!! ELIZABETH THAT IS! OR TRY THE CHEDDER! IT’LL KNOCK YOU OUT OF YOUR SWEATER!!! DIG IT!!!” Then he snaps into a slim jim.
See to me, that sounds awesome, and just as expensive as whatever the fuck would have been planned otherwise. But I also realize every woman who’s in the current process of planning a wedding, read what I just wrote how I’d plan it, and they physically recoiled in cringe. And you’re remembering that last week you asked your boyfriend what he wants at the wedding. And he said “whatever you want”. And you tried to fight him about it, saying he needs to include his ideas.
No the fuck he doesn’t. THESE are the ideas we create, and we know they aren’t going to happen. Our ideas are not “good” from your perspective. Our ideas will cause fights. Because at the end of the day, you already know exactly what you want. You’ve been planning it since you were 5 years old, and you don’t need any input from us. We’re just going to screw it up. You just want to ask what we envision at the wedding, and you’re under the delusional idea that we’re going to say “White roses on every table, and all the groomsmen have green pockets on their suit vests.” Or whatever the fuck is in your head. We’re not going to say that. We’ve never in our lives had THAT vision. We know the wedding is going to look like how you want it to look. So we just say “Whatever you want to do, that’s it.” We stay out of it, because we don’t want to start a fight over something we know we’re going to lose anyways. That’s a dumb fight. Telling a woman how to plan their wedding.
Well. I’m a dumb guy. Let me have a go.
The reason a decent percentage of these weddings end the relationships is because the money involved has no benefit to the couples long term happyness, and adds nothing to their lives. It’s a big expensive party for the sake of a big expensive party. Nothing more.
And I hear you saying “But it’s to celebrate the love between two people, and create a bond that will last a lifetime!”
No. Believe it or not, you can get married without all that stuff. The whole idea of a marriage, if you simplify it to it’s core concept, is that you both have signed a paper informing the government that you are now a legalized couple within the country of residence that you got married. That’s IT. You can both go down to the courthouse right now, fill out a form, sign it, and now you’re married. I don’t know what those forms cost, but I would assume about $100. And then you’d both go home to where you already live.
So you’re saying “That sounds like a terrible wedding”. And the issue here is, you’re confusing the wedding PARTY with the idea of MARRIAGE.
So if you get proposed to, ask yourself this. Would you still marry this man if he insisted there were no party. No flowers. No big hall. No poofy white dress, no dancing, no family or friends, no big cake, no big vacation afterwards. Just you, him, city hall, a pen, and a form. Maybe a minister if the idea of religion is important to your marriage.
If you are in love with the person you’re marrying, it might be disappointing, but it shouldn’t be a deal breaker. If it’s a deal breaker, you don’t love the man. You love the idea of being the center of attention. And that, plus the huge amount of savings you’re blowing, is the reason for the divorces. The party has ended. The party has brought you hard financial times, and you were never in love with the person to begin with. So now, they have nothing left to offer you.
Again, I’m not claiming this is the only reason, or even the leading reason for divorce. I’m just saying it’s a significant percentage.
This ignores the conditioning that women get. Stories that portray a good ending for women as marriage, finding your one and only. You place the blame on women, as if countless men haven’t told them that was the only thing they should look forward to.
It was so bad, that I, an aroace agender person, thought that my role was to get married and have children. I thought that if I played into the role, I would finally feel like a woman, but I never did. I wouldn’t even begin to understand how actual women would feel if their femininity was defined by this.
Granted, the expectations on women have changed to be a bit more liberating, but even things such as abortion being controversial shows that in the end, serving as a baby incubator is what people see women as being. The needs of the person is thus ignored over a potential child being born to serve this exploitative society.
The demographic of women who have been indoctrinated by this thinking are still the people who get married the most. It’s obvious as to why. Realizing this is what causes these divorces. Realizing that they’ve been conditioned to stay in an unhappy relationship is what causes these divorces.
What you seem to be against is a combination of the effects of patriarchy and capitalism: the wedding industry. The patriarchy tells women that their wedding will be the happiest moment of their lives, the one thing they should be waiting for, while capitalism exploits that need for happiness in the wedding by promising that happiness can only be achieved with such expenses. The wedding industry then uses propaganda in order to reinforce this message.
Stop watching Disney movies then.
Stop eating glue.
You must be naïve if you think Disney was the only children’s media forwarding this.
Edit: Also did you read anything that I wrote? This goes beyond just Disney media.
The amount of controversy this post is inspiring is insane
Aint lemmy mostly men? How is this going to be unpopular haha
This fails to consider the insane amount of psychological conditioning most societies impose on women to get married. Its so prevalent as to be assumed the natural progression of the lives of nearly everyone.
This fails to consider the insane amount of psychological conditioning most societies impose on women to get married.
Yes, it is always somebody’s else’s fault. 🙄
People are responsible for the consequences of their actions. Not anyone else.
Yes, pay no mind to all these social pressures. Everything is your own fault.
You are talking utter rubbish, at least in the terms of western society. Nobody force women to marry these days.
Do you just consume no media? Did you miss that one of the biggest media companies on Earth has a happy line of never ending princesses to get married?
Are you so weak minded that Disney controls you more than your own mind? Lol
People are products of their environment. We encode what we intake. You are no exception. Keep gas lighting yourself though. I am sure all of your thoughts are original and you’ve experienced nothing in the world that has made it through that insurmountable fortress atop your shoulders.
Are you an idiot?
Media are also showing multiple iterations of James Bond, do you feel the pressure to become a special agent?
Right, forget about how the countless games I play makes me wish I could be a hero in real life. Media has no affect on our mental states at all people, wrap it up its time to watch a snuff film.
Once more, are you claiming that adults make life changing decisions because of media? Or it only impact women? Do you know how condescending you are?
Is 007 massively marketed to the kindergarten demographic…?
Do kindergarten children get married in the western society? Or perhaps adults, capable of making their own conscious decisions?
Or perhaps you are arguing women are not capable of making decisions who/if to marry?
If a woman marries a man with the same job position, the average income of the house goes up. How is that alone not enough.
If a man marries a woman with the same job position, the average income of the house goes up, your point is?
Have a heard about cohabitation? You know, when people live together without getting married?
Have a? Lol spell better
Yes sweetie, you hit the point here 🙄 Have a cookie.
Everybody is a product of their circumstances. To think otherwise is at best naive, and at worst willfully ignorant of your own privilege that you aren’t subject to the same circumstances. Yes, each of us choose our own actions, and have to deal with the consequences thereof- but actions are done for a reason, and this reason is not always within an individual’s control, but rather is them trying to do what is best for them with the information they have available.
In this case, weddings have been marketed to a certain demographic. Marketing tends to work- but in this case even moreso due to centuries of societal condition. Heard the term “old maid?”
Wanna bet that even though you explained that, they still wouldn’t understand, because everything is so simple and doesn’t have dimensions of complexity according to them?
Edit: told ya lmao
I’m sad for them.
If they blame trends on individuals I wonder where they think health epidemics come from. Or other things that are way more important than weddings. Neglecting system factors I could imagine comes with a side of immense blame and, assuming the self awareness to direct it internally, guilt.
In this case, weddings have been marketed to a certain demographic. Marketing tends to work- but in this case even moreso due to centuries of societal condition. Heard the term “old maid?”
Are you suggesting that women are not capable of making their own conscious decisions?
I’m saying they (we) aren’t capable of making decisions in a vacuum, void of all influence of external factors, because no human being is. We are the sum of our experiences.
Do you accept that you are solely responsible for the consequences of your decisions?
Absolutely. And not that it matters, but my wedding was less than a grand.
I also understand the need to evaluate my decisions, and weigh my influences, and even still I recognize that my choices are a result of who I am and I am the sum of my experiences. I know that my experiences and upbringing and societal expectations shape my decisions.
Off topic, are you aware of systems engineering processes for safety such as MSDS sheets, or lock out tag out procedures? Just culture in aviation? Social determinants of health? My point is nothing exists in a vacuum.
Absolutely
Good and this is the right answer.
Best of luck.
Yes, each of us choose our own actions, and have to deal with the consequences thereof- but actions are done for a reason, and this reason is not always within an individual’s control, but rather is them trying to do what is best for them with the information they have available.
Read
Are you suggesting that women are not capable of making their own conscious decisions? Simple yes and no will suffice.
Because if they are it also means they are solely responsible for the consequences of their actions.
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Why aren’t you rich then.
Your point is?
People are responsible for the consequences of their actions. Not anyone else.
You not being rich is your fault alone and there is nothing else to consider about it. Try choosing to be rich sometime.
Think again. Slowly.
Too fast for you I see… gl being poor and alone.
Try to think again, slowly. Maybe a few more times?
Homework for you: what is the difference between a decision “I will marry this guy this year” and a decision “I will have at least a million dollars and will be 4 inches taller this year”.
Don’t rush it, you may get to the answer one day.
Who makes up 50 percent of society?
Who makes up 100 percent of society? Is it people? Then how come society doesnt do people right 100 percent of the time?
If the workers don’t want to be oppressed they should just have a communist revolution already. Clearly they like having their health insurance claims denied. /s
Most men don’t want to do the work of marriage. /shrug
You’re supposed to be managing a household with a partner. Instead, it often becomes women who carry the load of housework, which is unpaid labor—try to hire a house cleaner for free to prove my point. 53% of men help with house chores. 93% of women help with house chores.
To your point, you’re more likely to get divorced if you spend more money on a wedding. And large weddings are typically a waste of money. But blaming women about divorce rates while men aren’t contributing to the work required to support a family is also a bad argument. Support is more than money.
I make 6x what my wife makes. It doesn’t mean I get to skip out on chores or even should skip out. In reality outside this stupid capitalistic hellscape, her time is just as valuable as mine because our lives are equally valuable. No one wants to feel alone in dealing with bullshit.
Why did these women marry men who don’t do chores just to divorce them after?
This is something that gets settled before you get married.
Complaining that your partner does not do something is immature. Own your mating decisions.
Things suddenly change once papers are signed., sometimes.
Well that’s a raw deal… Still a class counterparty risk issue and nobody saving you from that within current social systems
It seems to track with US capitalistic values: the marketing overpromises, performs on testing, but once bought, the warranty is voided for innumerable small-print (bs) reasons. It really is a brainwashing from birth til death. Relationships are work, every day, and happily-ever-after is knowing that we’re working together for common values and goals.
Meh I’m calling bullshit. OP is right many women like the idea of a wedding but not the marriage itself. Women initiate the majority of divorces in heterosexual relationships.
Take men out of the equation and you’ll find lesbians get divorced at a much higher rate than gay men. What is the common thread in all of this… Women ☕️
Which part of that wiki article are you trying to cite? The US part says that the divorce rates are the same among homosexuals as the general population?
yeah that wiki does not support his position but i did hear that gay men are about the same rate but lesbians have highest rate. no sauce for that tho
I typed “lesbians have a higher divorce rate” and got a bunch of right-wing sources all quoting each other with no actual data.
Seriously. I followed like 5 links where each person was supposedly posting their source, and it was just some other asshole making the same claim. I gave up because it seemed to be going nowhere and I have the wiki right here.
If that asshole downstream here in the comments congratulating the dude higher in the comments for “posting statistics” in which the wiki article does not confirm what he says is any source, I wouldn’t be surprised if guys like these pop up and make that same claim all over the internet.
I didn’t check wiki sources… Did you?
But non us sections suggest that it is true
Yes. I did. I’m the first person who said, “this wiki link doesn’t support that.”
And another non-US source says that it isn’t. All from the same link. The argument that the top drop down is somehow valid enough to make a blanket statement when there are equal sources saying it’s false among their demographics is disingenuous at best.
ETA: you might not remember but you directly replied to my comment where I pointed out that the wiki article doesn’t support what he’s saying in his post.
It is hilarious that your comment, merely quoting facts and statistics is getting downvoted.
People don’t like truth, that’s why scum like Trump can get elected.
it is upvoted to me and that wiki link does not support the position asserted.
Can you actually read?
“The lesbian divorce rate is much higher than the divorce rate between men: in the same period on average 100 women and 45 men divorced per year (i.e., Lesbian divorce rate = 14%, Gay Male divorce rate = 7%)”
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For the NL… US does not provide this data.
And? Since when is Lemmy solely for the USA?
I never had a dream wedding fantasy. I never planned for a wedding. The first time I got married it was at a courthouse and the other person was for lack of a better term not being straight with me about basically their entire life so it ended badly. I have since remarried (backyard wedding style thing), and it didn’t cost more than $1000 including food.
When you get right down to it, your statement and the rest of the arguments you make are predicated on the idea that all women are basically the same in this respect and the actual point you made is that marriage comes with expectations that neither party thinks about or communicates before hand.
It’s just as easy to say that most marriages end because of bad communication, which is just as true.
While there is definitely a toxic wedding culture in this country and perhaps in other countries, I can tell you that there’s lots of people who get married for a lot of wrong reasons and it’s never just one thing. I pretty much guarantee that wanting a wedding might be a factor in why people get married, but it’s not as big a factor as you make out for why they get divorced.
Personally I think a lot of weddings end in divorce because people get them before they’re 25 and that’s when the brain finishes developing. Society rushes people to marry but I don’t think that’s a good move for the health of the people involved- only for the crowd that wants you pumping out babies as fast as possible.
A lot of weddings end in divorce because those who get divorced get married more.
I agree with that. It makes a lot of sense. In my case I was 28, so I don’t exactly fit the criteria. But still.
If it helps, there’s also documentation saying that people who are neurodivergent can take an additional 10 years to finish developing. I don’t know how true that is, and it needs further research, but I definitely wasn’t fully developed when I should’ve been.
From the dress, to the ring, to the hall rental, to the wedding planner, to the catering, to the flight, and hotel, and rental car, and everything else that comes with the wedding, average cost is $100,000.
The high end weddings are wildly higher than this. The median wedding is way cheaper than $100K.
I’m quite curious where the number came from. I can imagine it getting close to that if you count every dollar that every guest spends, including on travel and lodging.
$100,000 does seem a bit exaggerated. My sister spent about $40,000 on her wedding which I thought was pretty extravagant and way too much to spend. They didn’t exactly cheap out and it was for over 100 people.
You can imagine whatever you want but the average American wedding in 2024 cost $33,000. And honestly there’s a ton of higher end ones skewing the average.
I’m a woman and my absolute dream wedding is less than $10k and by a lot, and that includes the two-day on-site cabin rental for the guests (who will be sharing a single big-ass cabin because they’re not just a wedding party, they’re a LARP adventuring party.)
Instead of your favorite flowers creating an arch that you walk under to get into the building? What if we instead had flame throwers that CONSTANTLY spewed flames which prevented you from getting in. And to stop the flames, you need to answer 3 riddles about the couple getting married. And if you get it wrong, a bunch of royal knights in platemail armor stab you with haberts until you get it right…or bleed out. And once you get inside the hall, all the hall vendors are cosplaying as classic pro wrestlers. Imagine coming in, and seeing Macho Man Randy Savage holding a plate of cheeses, and saying “OOOOH YEAH! TRY THE SWISS, IT’S AS GOOD AS MISS!!! ELIZABETH THAT IS! OR TRY THE CHEDDER! IT’LL KNOCK YOU OUT OF YOUR SWEATER!!! DIG IT!!!” Then he snaps into a slim jim
Well fuck now I want another wedding, this time we’re doing it right!
I just view the wedding and expectations as a filter. I almost married a girl like that, but we were terrible for each other and just two addicts of the hide the sausage game.
Now, I don’t hold such aspirations against people that have them, but I am not interested in the types of persons that are so susceptible to American consumerism or gender dichotomy. There is a ton of misogyny in this paradigm and the whole economic model that goes along with this system is totally dead. Only the super rich have the whole trophy wife type dynamic that goes along with the extravagant wedding fantasy. Anyone that wants to start life with massive debt for a day of commercialism and DeBeers’ validation of true love through a chunk of industrial cutting tool medium, is totally unattractive to me as a partner. The value is on the relationship. 100 years ago it was nothing more than a back yard event in your Sunday best and a community potluck with no extravagance beyond. That is all a wedding is meant to be.
At this point, ownership over another person is a primitive concept. I feel like marriage in the western sense is harmful. I would much rather engage with a partner that is always welcome and able to leave at any time, exactly the same as me. I want to always remember that I need to compel them to stay, and the inverse as well. Getting married is not some excuse to stop trying or building a relationship. I don’t want that end game mentality. I also don’t want to marry the judiciary and give them power over me unless it is to my advantage to do so.
100 years ago it was nothing more than a back yard event in your Sunday best and a community potluck with no extravagance beyond.
Fun fact: The reason that wedding dresses are white has nothing to do with symbolizing purity. It was about conspicuous consumption.
Before modern laundry detergents, white fabric that got worn would never be truly white ever again. Rich women would wear white dresses to show off the fact that they could afford to buy a dress to wear just once. Everybody else wore their Sunday best.
Best I can do is a court house wedding followed by a bbq in the park.
Upvoted because drag doesn’t agree. This seems like a boring people problem. Women who’ve been groomed by society to think their worth as a person is based on one day, and men who’ve been groomed by society to think they should have no involvement in the romantic symbols.
It could all be solved if you and your partner were cool people who had their own original ideas about marriage instead of letting society tell them who to be. Drag’s fiance is gonna wear a suit of armour to our wedding and drag will be in a beautiful black dress. And we’re not gonna do it when we get married, we’re gonna get married first, reach financial stability with plenty of disposable income, and then have a wedding. Fuck tradition, we’re both invested in our relationship 110% and every part will be on our terms, both our terms, and nothing but our terms.
Sorry you’re into people who don’t think for themselves, bro.
How is this in unpopular opinion? Everyone knows and agrees with everything you wrote.
Narcissistic women are the only ones who would disagree with you.
Actually, Narcissus refused to marry anyone who asked him. Echo and Ameinias both tried to start a relationship with him, but he refused because he was aroace. He gave Ameinias a sword and said that he’d rather Ameinias cut off his own head than harass Narcissus with another marriage proposal. Narcissus just wanted to be alone, he didn’t want a relationship with anyone.
Okay I’ll have to say i really enjoyed reading that “akshually” meme in real life from you as a comment. Informative and interesting.
But what other words could I use to describe narcissism behaviors in a single word?
Selfish self-absorbed egotistical vain arrogant prideful performative condescending superior dandy peacock princess
Excellent. Now if only I could combine all those words into single one…
There’s no way. It’s impossible.
Dang, you’re right, of course. I wonder if there’s some sort of historically significant person who embodied all that stuff so we could use their name to identify all those characteristics in a single word as a shortcut?
Elon Musk.
