my wife gave me a choice of getting a wal-mart type job or get out.
Is it really this way in the US? As a foreigner I'm curious.
Is it really this way in the US? As a foreigner I'm curious.
Here's a different view of what may have been going on: man has a family both he & his wife work full time to support. He cannot, for whatever reason, hang on to a job for more than a year at a time. This becomes frustrating to the other spouse, because they can't ever seem to get ahead of the bills, etc. He starts his own business, but can't get it off the ground. Meanwhile, she's working as hard as ever, is probably looking at getting a second job to support the family (a "walmart-type" job), and sees him puttering in the basement all day, every day. They have a fight, she's close to breaking & if anyone is going to get the crappy second job, it should be the guy hanging around the house with nothing to do all day.
That kind of stress will destroy a marriage. We're not talking about alimony or welfare queens, but ordinary middle class families that struggle to stay middle class.
Happy ending: he finally gets his business going.
It may have appeared that she gave up on him, but she obviously believed in him enough to give him another chance.
I think the story is awesome. I think the idea is great.
Yes, there are many women who are shortsighted and only realize after the divorce that life doesn't work the way they thought.
cousin_it, in the US, women have all the advantages when it comes to marriage. If they want a divorce, almost by default the legal system provides them with the kids, house, alimony, and child support.
Chances are, it was an off-hand comment. It is similar to saying, "my wife would kill me if I forgot her birthday." Rest assured, if I forget, I do not need to worry about being stabbed to death in my sleep. I hope...
I also grew up in Russia (25 years between Siberia and Moscow) and have lived in the US for the last 12 years. From my experience, the typical Russian attitude of moral superiority (Americans = materialistic, Russians = spiritual) could not be farther from the truth.
Perhaps I am reading into your comment a bit, but it seems to me that you were essentially trying to assert the above, even if you phrased your assertion as a question. Unless you are very, very young or very, very naive, I doubt that you were truly simply curious to find out whether every single woman in the entire country is a cold-hearted bitch who would kick her husband out when he can't find work, especially based on just one man's story.
If I am mistaken and your question was really a question, then the answer is no, it is not really "this way" in the US. Believe it or not, even in big bad America there are people who understand love and other human feelings, just like "foreigners".
Sure it does. My ex-wife did it while supporting my step-daughter. Even had medical benefits for ~$20/month. She had to watch her spending and get a roommate, but she did it with zero .gov assistance (food stamps and the like).
While the unskilled jobs may not pay much, they pay more than nothing and will keep you fed and dry till you find something better.
I lived off a job where I was paid minimum wage in a small town and did just fine. I worked at a army surplus / outdoor store.
I was able to go to college, travel the world (backpacking and hostels) and do a lot of rock climbing and hiking locally all with this job. This was in the late 90s. I lived with 3 or 4 other roommates and I had no TV, a computer that barely functioned (internet access was through the university and already paid for since I was a student) and a car that got good gas mileage back when no one cared about gas mileage. More often than not I took the bus or walked. Not necessarily because it was more affordable but because it was more convenient.
Here is the breakdown from what I remember. I made about 600 a month. Food and shelter was about 60% of my income. My car was about 10%. I cut almost all unnecessary expenses. I lived in an appropriate location. I gave up perceived necessities like a telephone and cable TV.
Yes, I lived in a community where it was pleasant to make minimum wage. We had a university, a bus system and very low cost of living. I know a number of people that still make minimum wage, or close to it. They have lived in a number of locations and have made it work, including higher cost of living locations.
I can imagine many scenarios where it would be difficult. 1) Kids or other dependents 2) A location with high cost of living 3) Taking on expenses that you can't afford 4) Requirements to drive without appropriate compensation (likely a small town rural situation from stories that I've heard). I was always told that the purpose of minimum wage was to provide an appropriate starting wage for people with little or no experience. From my perspective it was appropriate. It was never meant to be a wage to support a family or pay for a cell phone or car insurance. I agree it would be very difficult, or possibly impossible, to make minimum wage and support a family on a single minimum wage income. But then again that is not what minimum wage was intended for.
In that context, perhaps his wife was threatening him to "get a stable job that provides us income, or else I'm doing to divorce and leave you."
A good movie to watch on the subject: "The Pursuit of Happyness" (2006)
I'm from Russia. Don't know about y'all, I wouldn't want to marry someone with a different attitude.
But you have to consider the other perspective; they have 2 kids to support and his business hasn't received any custom for weeks. I think the statement "get a job or leave" is more of a generic "something has to change" statement not something completely literal.
I would've had said "get a job or get some business, your choice". The concept of divorce should never be hung over anyone's head to spur them to action.
It's a pretty fair bet that the statement "get a job or get out" wasn't the first thing she said about the situation! And in any case we only have his version of what happened.
Just wanted to mention something that you may not be aware of. In most russian cities, housing stock is in very short supply (thanks to the legacy of centralized city planning) and people often stay together because otherwise they would have nowhere to live. I believe this skews the statistic in favor of the US, i.e. I believe that the russian divorce rates would be even higher if more people were able to live separately.
And it doesn't even seem to be a recent phenomenon. It looks like already in 1970s divorce rate in Russia was very high (40%):
"Even in Communist times, the unhappiness of Russian families was hard to hide. The divorce rate in the 1970s was 40 percent; now it is 51 percent. In the past, sociologists blamed Soviet life, its regimentation, oppression, and lack of individual freedom, for men’s alcoholism and apathy to work and family. Today, the major factor appears to be an economic free fall that humiliates men who cannot provide for their families, to the point where they just walk away with little social censure. An estimated 15 to 20 percent of all Russian families are now headed by a single parent, 94 percent of whom are women."
What's also interesting though is who initiates divorce. I believe in the US, roughly 70% of divorces are initiated by women, while in Russia the opposite is true.
From what I read, it looks like in US divorces are a way for people to try to find a better match. People shuffle themselves among marriages.
While in Russia, it looks like there are some men which leave behind them trail of divorced women (with children) that do not remarry. Thus there must be many men that never marry/reproduce. If this is true, it would be rather disturbing, as it would create unstable society.
It could very well be a US thing (I am not asserting one case or another). It could also be a self fulfilling prophecy. Unlike most other gene carrying robots, prophecies apply to us.
Even murders can be 'justified' by evolutionary biology but the court tends to put an end to further propagation of that gene :)
Kids need to come first, and they need both parents. Mom and Dad: work it out -- for their sake.
Women have cried for centuries to have equality (vote, salaries....), which I totally agree with. Now on the flip side, they still expect man to be the provider, the protector etc...If you do not provide anymore, like Mr Pumbler, you can be sure that you will soon be out of the picture.
Also, I'm still curious as to how you inferred from said story that his wife wasn't also working to provide for the family since her husband couldn't hold a steady job. It was a stressful time for everyone involved, and when there are kids to provide for in the picture, even more so.
Losing weight is what is truly materialistic, as unless the person that needs to lose weight is morbidly obese and their health is directly at risk if they do not do so, it's something that does not directly affect their ability to get and pay for day-to-day necessities. It's nice if it happens, but it wouldn't directly threaten their ability to shelter their kids, for example.
The two are just not comparable.
If the guy told his wife who did the same thing as this plumber did ($300 in savings at start and no customers for weeks) that he'd leave her if she didn't get even an undesirable job soon, it wouldn't be unreasonable, and would be a more apt comparison to bring up instead of this losing weight nonsense. However, it would be crass for anyone in the relationship to threaten to leave, but you know it happens in a lot of them. :(
Materialism is a perfectly reasonable evolutionary outcome. It is nothing to be ashamed of or scoffed at. It has serious implications at the evolutionary level. If you have children you have to provide for them so they don't die.