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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

Similarly, marriage protip: Don't joke about divorces. Even if you think your partner can handle it. Mine can and we still don't do it, as policy. It's a known policy, too; we mentioned it to each other before (briefly, a long time ago, not as some big event).

This is certainly far from "the one key to a happy marriage!", but it's a brick in the house.

It generally fits into the larger social IQ element of thinking about the worst way someone may take something you communicate. This is a particularly easy place to see how you may have felt it was a light-hearted joke, but someone else could easily take it entirely seriously, or as a passive-aggressive "ha ha only serious".

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Me and my wife joke about getting divorced all the time, and we've been happily married for 15 years. Maybe that joke wouldn't be appropriate for your marriage, but I'm not really into people giving absolute truths about other peoples lives and pretending like they're gospel.

Every relationship is different, and there will be different relationship norms for everyone. It's one thing to tell people that you should act professionally at work, but please don't project your marriage onto others.

"Maybe that joke wouldn't be appropriate for your marriage"

It would probably be fine.

Of course, it's all a threshold game; if you're strong in other places you can get away with things that are technically a net negative, but you've got the buffer to deal with it. Every marriage if not every relationship does that since none are perfect.

But why blow the buffer on something so trivially stupid?

It also isn't really about "marriage strength", either, it's about basic human psychology. If you're talking about it, you're thinking about it. If you're thinking a little bit about it, your subconscious is chewing on it more than you realize. The most important message discipline is with your own subconscious. Don't feed it prompts you shouldn't. Even if you "get away with it", it's not free.

I prefer not to try and push everything down and bury it. I've definitely thought about what life would be like if I got divorced, just like I've daydreamed about what my life would be like if I didn't have kids. That doesn't mean I'm going to 'go out for some cigarettes'.

I don't think that I need to hack my psyche to ensure I don't accidentally trick myself into wanting divorce.

But my initial point stands. If you don't want to joke about divorce with your wife, then don't. My issue is with stating it as fact that other people shouldn't either.

This aligns with my experience. We haven't picked the date for our marriage yet (covid), but we've learned if a modicum of pretty dark humor isn't present, something is in fact wrong and we worry about the other party.

I'm not convinced the linkage is as strong nor directive as you make it out. Wouldn't thinking come before talking? I've had some pretty dark thoughts that end as that.

see also: parenting advice

There are very few "always apply" pieces of advice for these incredibly complex and distinct relationships, but we love to apply our single data point to the entire universe anyway.

I'm with you... and would go even further - if we ever stop making divorce jokes over the most insignificant possible items, I'll be worried. (But I'd never apply that logic to a workplace or anything other than a close personal relationship.)

Absolutely right. In my marriage we never sat down and talked about not joking about divorce, but after 25 years it's evident we both know that's the rule.

You mean not to joke about it in front of other people? I agree of course. But between you two? seriously... A married couple should be able to talk freely, including about things they don't like. No need to create policies in advance like it's a work relationship between employee/manager. I would worry if my married life looked like a work relationship.

This is the sort of comment you should only confidently make if you’re in a happy marriage that has survived at least ten years. Ideally more.

If not, you’re speaking in a domain in which you have no experience. Or rather, it’s unclear whether any experience you do have shows expertise.

Certain people are more prone to cause divorce than others, and it is dangerous to take advice from the wrong person in this respect.

I’ve been married 15 years and we joke about divorce sometimes (as well as lots of other ‘sensitive’ topics). YMMV

Yeah, I’m not saying that it’s categorically wrong to do. I just got the strong sense from OP’s comment that they didn’t have relevant experience. (You do!)

There always are policies in every relationship. Make peace with it.

Of course. Each couple creates their own policy based on what they like or don't like. As opposed to work relationship.

agreed.

I mean, it's like the golden rule. I don't think I would want my wife to joke about getting a divorce every day. I would seriously start thinking she would want one. So if you don't want to feel like that, the golden rule would have you not joke like that either.

As a man who's been married for 15+ years, I would absolutely advise young couples to consider the disciplines and policies they expect their relationship to abide by in much the same way managers and employees discuss their policies and procedures. "Talk freely", yes, but also, as this article so correctly points out, understand the effect your language has on your relationships (direct reports, friends, spouses, family members) and make sure to not treat heavyweight issues with an air of flippancy or triviality.

My wife and I decided, before we got married, that divorce was off the table for us. Understanding that it is not even an option for me (and trusting/believing my spouse that it's not an option for her) gives us so much stability to launch into uncomfortable topics and conversations with each other. If we got into a habit of treating that topic lightly, I could easily see many instances over the past decade where life has gotten hard, we would be in the middle of a stressful situation, and we would have doubted each other's commitment.

There's a broad range of experience out there in marriages, so it's likely possible to have that same stability while regularly joking about divorce, it just seems like a foolish thing to risk so huge a downside (actual divorce) for so little an upside (getting to joke about divorce).

Bringing this back to the article, that's the same idea at play. For the manager to restrain themselves from a few key topics which are inappropriate for them to joke about, they avoid a huge minefield of stressful issues for them and their direct reports.

> My wife and I decided, before we got married, that divorce was off the table for us.

Well, you can decide whatever you want before you get married. People change, things happen, it's called life...

Catholics believe that marriage ends only with death. While obviously a civil divorce is possible, the actual sacramental marriage is indissoluble. One of the consequences of this belief is that Catholic couples are considerably less likely to get a civil divorce than other Christians or atheists[1].

[1] https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholics-continue-t...

Does this mean to get a true divorce you need to choose between your terrible current situation and your faith? That's a tough position.

Except that Catholics also practice annulment, which is, for all intents and purposes, a divorce (That you carry out through the church, as opposed to secular courts.)

Instead of breaking up a marriage, they claim, post-facto, that it was not a 'true[1] marriage', and is, therefore, invalid in the eyes of God and men.

This is a loophole big enough to drive a bus through, and is practiced quite frequently.

[1] The technical term is sacramented.

Any number of factors can cause an attempted marriage to fail. Impaired consent is one major one. Unwillingness to have children is another. Even entering marriage with the expectation that divorce is possible means no sacramental marriage was formed. I suppose one can choose to view those factors as loopholes and I imagine some poorly formed Catholics do just that. That said, a validly celebrated marriage cannot be annulled.

Whether or not tribunals are erroneously issuing declarations of nullity is a question I don’t know the answer to. In any event a Catholic who tries to game the system this way would be well advised to consider that God won’t be fooled.

My go-to joke every wedding anniversary is "X years, that's long time to be married to the wrong person."

I stole it from my Dad who's celebrating 50+ years so while not causal it definitely isn't a marriage-ender...

Crap. We do. We pretty much started the moment we got married. It helped that we lived together before we married, but I think you have a point.

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