Round and Round the Circle Goes

On yesterday's (September 25, 2019) show. one of my favorite talk show hosts, Dr. Laura, again expressed concerns about parents acting in way that will not, as a side effect, discourage their children from marrying. This is probably because she wants children raised within marriages. Why not encourage people to remain child free? [This entry has been bumped up.]

Early in the call, which was from a woman divorcing her husband, Dr. Laura talked about the importance of the "until death do us part" vows, but as the caller explained her reason for divorcing (financial), the importance of those vows evaporated. At this point, I don't think I could make a diagram about when the vows matter in Dr. Laura's view and when they don't. But I digress...

Dr. Laura consistently has stated that one good reason to stay married is to give the children of that marriage hope to have a lasting marriage someday. This call was one of the frequent calls in which there's a divorce, but Dr. Laura still wants the parents to talk to their kids in a way that will encourage the children to think they won't go through divorce if they marry.


The caller, the wife, wanted to tell the kids that she and her husband have different desires for the rest of their lives. I fail to see what the problem is with doing that. It isn't a lie, and it IS a reason to divorce: incompatible goals.

Dr. Laura wanted the parents, or at least the caller, if the husband wouldn't go along, to explain the specific reason is the husband's handling of finances.

How is that any better?

Dr. Laura expressed that she thought the original wording was "going to scare him about ever getting married" and she didn't want him to think "some woman is going to pull the plug on him."

But he SHOULD be "scared" about ever getting married. And Dr. Laura has told many women they have "thrown away a perfectly good husband for no reason." It is a FACT that women are more likely to file for divorce, and that they really don't need a good reason to do so. They can, they do, and there's nothing (that's lawful and ethical) for a husband to do to stop it if she's bent on getting a divorce. (And, to be fair, the same thing is true for a wife who wants to stay married and her husband doesn't.)

I think Dr. Laura needs to explain better WHY she wants the kids to aspire to marriage. During calls like this, it sounds like "Protect the idea of marriage so your kid will marry. So their kids will marry." But that's pointless unless marriage itself is a positive. That's not explained during calls like this. So what we get is a circle, along the lines of "Pretend you're happy and keep the marriage legally intact until the kids are grown, so that they will get married and then be obligated to pretend to be happy." In this specific case, it is "Have the right reason to divorce, so your children won't think they're going to divorce if they marry." Huh?!?

We could sit back and say the wife should have picked a better husband. But can anyone really know for sure what someone is going to do as they get older when it comes to finances? The guy was starting businesses and they were failing. It is likely he wasn't doing that when the wife met him and married him.

If you would have asked me what my ideal house would be, even just a few years ago, you'd get a far different answer from me than you would now. If you would have told me exactly what I'd be doing for a living right now as my now-wife and I were planning to marry, I would have either not believed it, or been a bit saddened by it. It wasn't until recently that I realized that, should I live long enough to retire, I don't want a big retirement party. Isn't one of the "selling points" of marriage that it "grows" you? With growth comes change. So tell me again how she (and, in turn, her kids when they are old enough) could be assured of picking a man who wouldn't do what her husband did?

So how is saying that their father isn't a good enough ATM going to reassure them that they can expect to stay married?

Personally, I think we should stop talking to kids like they will have a lasting, happy marriage. Statistically (and we know Dr. Laura likes statistics), they won't!!! Most marriages fail. We might say to ourselves, "But they can do things to make it more likely the will have a lasting happy marriage!" Eh... it still depends on another person, and that person, if not hiding who they really were, not being changed by some trauma. At this point, we all know people who "did everything right" and still ended up divorced or in a miserable marriage.

Marriage is voluntary. Marriage isn't necessary. Stop trying to protect kids (especially older ones) from the truth about marriage. Plenty will still be ignorant, delusional, or masochistic enough to marry. I mean, please, people have enough warnings about all sorts of options that they end up taking anyway.