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I'm not going to downvote this. (I'm paying partictular attention to the "how I want to live my life" part) But there's a number of presumptions made that I think are worth calling out that should not be assumed:

- That the ending of a relationship is necessarily a failure.

- That two very young people are in a place to understand the implications of choosing a life partner.

- That extended families are necessary to "keep things from going south". (What does that mean? Helping mediate conflict, or to bury persistent issues in the name of stability?)

There's others here, but I'll stick with the three. But overall, while it may be good for some ("you do you"), I find a lot here to raise an eyebrow at and much too discomforting to simply scroll past. So much of this seems to reinforce unhealthy and oppressive norms that, in my strong opinion, lead eventually to so many destructing relationships in the long run.

For additional reading, I'd greatly recommend "The Way We Never Were" by Stephanie Coontz as to why this mid-century style relationship was highly unusual in the historical context. https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia/dp/046509...

Edit: Formatting

I am very well aware of those assumptions.

I've lived in several countries. I've found that things function better, and people seem healthier, in more collectivist societies where there are real, permanent families and communities.

To the point of the book, the way things actually were is that we evolved as tribal creatures. We didn't pick our communities, didn't have much choice of mate, and we did need to rely on our tribes and families. My belief is that's the way we're wired. We're social creatures. That's not the US in the fifties, but rather a statement on the nature of humanity for tens of thousands of years.

Now, we're wealthy enough each of us can be 100% independent. I don't see that as a pathway to happiness, though. The connections I see between people in the US seem so shallow compared to those I've seen in other cultures.

Yes, that does mean I need to repress a lot of "self" to fit in, and bury many issues, but I'm okay with that. The US has a loneliness and a mental health pandemic. The whole place is so incredibly isolating.

And yes, ending a relationship is a failure *for me*. I'm not saying it needs to be for other people. However, I want someone to grow together and to grow old with. I want more people around me too, whom I know well.

I would argue society-level collectivism is actually a big destroyer of these families.

The phenomenon of say the elderly being disconnected from the younger I theorize is in part due to the fact they extract their social security through violence of the state in taxation rather than through family bonds. The lack of mutual familial reliance destroys the unspoken quid-pro-quo arrangements that held families together. The end effect also is children are a pure cost driver as the support they provide as adults to seniors is equally distributed amongst society rather than mostly directed towards the benefit of the parent who invested in their upbringing. This brings a massive free-rider problem where everyone is incentivized for the other guy to have kids but not for you personally to have one.

I theorize this also has destroyed to some extent inner city poor families. Non-familial nation state social payments to single mothers can actually work against marriage in poor families, as the single mother may be financially penalized for getting married. The resulting lack of father figure inspires more poverty and crime and recycling of the issues.

When my partner and I were first expecting we honestly were not sure whether to get married or not, as a lot of possible government benefits vaporized when you took my partner from "single poor mom" to "married middle of the road family."

no doubt.

take away social security and state pensions and see the birth rate shoot up.

since the benefit and cost is localized. people will be encouraged to have more children i.e spread the risk of getting taken care of in the future by their progeny.

some gvt social programs are necessary - but social security is not one of them. it's one big ponzi

> but roles eliminate a lot of room for conflict.

I think that's only true if those roles line up with practical realities. The bulk of the problem with the 'old' roles is that become obsolete due to technological and cultural changes. The two biggest changes were household electricity, which enabled the mechanization of most houeshold chores; and refrigeration/modern fertilizer production, which made household gardens impractical for many people.

> As a cultural norm, divorce would only happen for fault ... Both sides would try to be good spouses.

+1. I grew up amoung pretty conservative Americans, and while they had some pretty toxic views around sex, the attitudes around cultivating healthy relationships has been one one of the most important things in giving me a happy life.

I was fairly deep in religious culture through college and can definitely argue that the "values" I learned were somewhat crippling in a liberal society. Especially ideas around interpreting intimacy as a sign of commitment. I was trying to capture some powerful sanctified physical connection, and the women I dated expected to hook up on the third date and still be non-commital. I don't think either approach was superior or healthy/unhealthy, but the mismatch can be jarring.

Ho boy. When I first ran across a date like this, I crashed-and-burned there. I thought sex implied a connection. My partner didn't. The outcome, emotionally, for me was bad.

Right, and each of these automatically get red-flagged by women, which takes out of the dating pool, people who subscribe to them. Advocating for them is the social/relationship equivalent of rent-seeking behavior: rather than compete, change the competitive landscape.

That has not been my experience.

It's a difference in values. There are both men and women on both sides of the cultural divide. If anything, my experience is that there are more women on my side. The stereotype that women value commitment might be exaggerated, but there seems to be at least a kernel of truth there.

That's fine. I think we've reached the part of the conversation where we're bound by not having large-scale descriptive statistics that can convince the other.

Either way, my experience is completely opposite. I can't recall a single woman I know who, that when meeting someone prescribing any of these points, would not use them as a proxy for their willingness to engage in a relationship and their subsequent happiness in such a relationship. Maybe we just live in separate bubbles, or maybe one of us does and one doesn't, or maybe they are geographic bubbles or context dependent in some other way that introduces nuance in a way that ends with "it depends." We probably won't know unless doing some sort of statistical survey.

I don't think we need large-scale statistics to convince each other of our mutual experiences. We just need to accept neither of us is speaking in bad faith.

I don't know you, but I would speculate that you mostly interact with people from white, progressive, Western, middle-upper-class, educated, American culture, and that would be the experience there.

There are 8 billion people in the world, though. I'm an immigrant and mostly interact with immigrants. The signalling is different. Divorce is bad for kids, and a lot of people in the world would like a spouse who is committed. A lot of women want someone who will commit to one relationship and work on it.

I view marriage the same way as I do having a child, a parent, or any other family member; thick or thin, it not something you just opt out of unless something extreme happens. I do have one family member most of us disowned, but that was due to something rather extreme.

> go back to a 1930-style relationship, were I would have married early and stayed together.

I do a lot of US genealogy and this scenario wasn't as prevalent in the US as we've been led to believe.

For 1920-1950, what I've personally observed are 1) nuclear families tending to live together as adults and 2) a large percentage of adults not starting families until their 30s.

> As a cultural norm, divorce would only happen for fault (abuse, infidelity, etc.). Both sides would try to be good spouses.

As far as divorce goes, this really depended on where one lived. Divorce was routine in certain regions (north Mid-West, FL) and in many communities (typically depending on culture).

> Extended families would live together and support each other (which also keeps an eye on things not going south).

This faded as industrialization took hold. By the time we get to 1920-1950, most aging parents lived alone or in a boarding house or with an adult child who didn't marry.

There were a non-insignificant number of parents who lived in a 3+ generation household but that was usually a transient arrangement. Their final living arrangement tended to be one of the 3 above.

Relationships fail without having fault. My wife is from a culture much like you envision and at first was horrified at the bed-hopping she saw in the US. However, over time she's come to see that the old ways didn't actually work, AFIAK everyone she knew of her generation is still in their original relationships--but of those only one of those is still a meaningful relationship. All the rest are two people under one roof, neutral or hostile to each other.

So the problem about 1930s-style relationships, is that a lot more of them were held together by fear and taboo than people would care to admit. Abusive relationships usually aren't known by the public. Someone might try to leave an abusive relationship, but be shamed by the public for not being "committed enough" or even get excommunicated from their church.

I'm now happily married, and I hope to remain so for life. But the difference between the 1930s and now is that not only am I aware that if I'm a bad partner, she can leave me, but I accept that as a reasonable recourse.

Long-term marriage is absolutely possible today, but people who want that have to work for it. It's not automatic anymore because people are less scared of being branded for leaving a bad situation.

"Roles" is a very loaded term, but I think there's a definite place for understanding who is handling what. The key thing is understanding roles change, and in a good marriage, both partners will take whatever role serves the family unit. They shouldn't be attached to the gender of the partner, and can move as needs change.

I honestly don't know which is worse though. The 1930s fear and taboo or the 2020 divorce court take you to the cleaners, TRO issued and banned from seeing your kids and your guns taken away and then tossed in jail because you lost your job and the judge says you still owe support. I think I'd actually take the 1930s and I say that as someone who really dislikes those taboos and social pressures you mention.

So the experience I've seen is quite different: Family courts today are actually really focused on joint custody, to the extent that I guarantee you a lot of people have joint custody who probably shouldn't. If someone has a TRO and is banned from seeing their kids, there's a good chance a court has a really strong case to believe that person is violent and abusive.

And I think a lot of the hostility that does come from divorce starts with the belief it shouldn't happen or "isn't fair". If I accept that my wife has the right to divorce me if I'm a bad partner, if she does, the first thing I have to acknowledge is that I failed as a husband at meeting her needs (or perhaps that we are incompatible in a way that I never could do so). That would be absolutely crushing, but I wouldn't blame her for it, and if I blame myself, I am probably not going to end up communicating in that procedure in a way the court would feel I am not safe to share custody with.

Accepting that both parties have the right to exit, and that a relationship is a process of continual consent changes the entire dynamic.

Also: Child support, or even alimony, is a recognition that in a marriage, the income may be produced by a single party, even if the overall roles and responsibilities were divided equally. If someone is a stay-at-home-partner, they may not be bringing in the cash income, but they are still 50% of the effort of operating that family unit as they tend to take on more responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning and child rearing which all need to be done by someone. When a marriage ends, the low-income partner cannot necessarily immediately shift into self-sufficient career mode, and obviously the child should be seeing the necessary financial support they would have, so the income of the two parents needs to be compared with where the child spends most of their time (and hence, incurs the most expenses).

David letterman had a TRO because a woman claimed he was harassing her with code words over the television on his show. [0] The judge granted it "because she filled the form out properly."

This varies wildly by jurisdiction, but the burden of proof can be pretty slim and the judges in some jurisdiction have been on the record saying they grant them out of fear if something goes wrong when they haven't that they'll be held responsible.

[0] http://www.ejfi.org/PDF/Nestler_Letterman_TRO.pdf

>Also: Child support, or even alimony, is a recognition that in a marriage, the income may be produced by a single party, even if the overall roles and responsibilities were divided equally. If someone is a stay-at-home-partner, they may not be bringing in the cash income, but they are still 50% of the effort of operating that family unit as they tend to take on more responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning and child rearing which all need to be done by someone. When a marriage ends, the low-income partner cannot necessarily immediately shift into self-sufficient career mode, and obviously the child should be seeing the necessary financial support they would have, so the income of the two parents needs to be compared with where the child spends most of their time (and hence, incurs the most expenses).

This is an interesting monologue but we all know the reasoning by child support. I'm merely pointing out it's a real specter. When I'm married if I lose my job there's no court process and if I have to take a shitty one and spend way less money on the kid then we will adapt; but after a divorce you have an "imputed income" which is what the judge expects you could make. The judge also expects you're spending 20% of that imputed income towards the kid even though if when you were married it could be just 5% and the kid was fine. If I have to take up trucking and the judge says I really could be an engineer and I'm slacking then I could end up in jail. Granted most people making an effort probably aren't going to end up in jail but merely the fact you have potential debtor's prison hanging over your head at all times is a very real concern even in the event it is justified.

To point out the absurdity of child support debtor's prison as currently run, see the story of the guy arrested because he was held hostage in Iraq while working the contract job he needed to work to pay his child support... [1]. The reasoning? He did not mail the support while the captors were pointing a gun to his head. IMO any system where you can be jailed because you didn't make payments because you were taken hostage while trying to earn support for your children is just utterly fucked.

[1] https://greensboro.com/ex-hostage-jailed-in-child-support-ca...

Or she got bored of you, fell out of love, and found someone else to bang. Divorces happen for a variety of reasons. If you failed, that's fine. What if you didn't fail, but she did?

Child support is not bad in theory. It's bad in practice, because divorce is an adversarial process with lawyers, rather than social workers, and designed to inflame conflict. The whole divorce industry is corrupt and rancid.

As a footnote: Expenses with joint custody tend to be pretty equal. If you have a child 3 nights a week, and your spouse has them 4 nights, do you think it makes a real difference to expenses? However, child support in some jurisdictions and income brackets will be about 1/3 of your income. The parent with four nights will have double the income.

That's not designed to support kids. You should consider what that's designed for.

TROs and sexual abuse allegations can be used as a weapon to get concessions from the other person, or simply to hurt them. They are not evaluated adequately in either direction--plenty are granted without evidence, plenty more aren't granted when warranted. The whole situation is a mess that I don't think should be handled by judges in the first place.

I don't mind alimony per se, but we use a radically wrong standard. It should not be the standard to which they are accustomed, but where they likely would have been had they not taken the years out of the labor force.

Not going to imply you need dozens of partners but no, you need at least a few. Like every dance partner produces a wildly different outcome so does a relationship. You learn a lot about yourself in the process. Enough that it should be considered a prerequisite to a mature relationship.

"Regular sex is important" - in what way?

I find my mental health is significantly better with regular sex. Studied bear this out too.

For me, it drastically reduces stress levels.