June/ Chapter 14: Marriage

Now excuse me for being pessimistic but my real parents are divorced. My mum and stepdad are happily married (I think), but I don't know what my real dad looks like because I haven't seen him since I was 2 years old.

Sob stories aside, I don't quite get why people want to get married in the first place. Now a few of my friends are married, a few more are getting married soon, and I was the best man at my best friend's wedding. So I'm familiar with the whole process. But what's the point of the whole thing?

Now just about all girls want to get marriage one day, and of course us guys are the ones to propose so guys want to get married as well. But do people even know what they're getting themselves into? The divorce rate in the US is about 55%, in the UK it's 42%, and in HK it's 34%. The rate is probably only lower as well in Asia because so many men visit professional sex workers. There's no data on the percentage of married men that visit sex workers, but I would guess it's more than 50%. Don't believe that figure? There's 10,000 sex workers just in HK, and more in Macau and just across the border, and they serve several men a day. Since most guys don't go regularly, that's a lot of men and a huge market.

When I look at the figures I realise that either most people are not really in love when they marry and only do so because they think they should. Or they are in love but fall out of love over the years. I mean when I look at most of my friends, most people have never been in relationships for longer than 2-3 years. When people find out I was in a relationship for 5 years, they go wow. But really, I don't think that's a very long time. If I get married soon, live a full life and never get divorced I'm going to be married 10 times longer than that!

There are some real distinct advantages to marriage. It's a social norm. Society judges people and because our parents are married, and everyone else is, it's better to get married rather than well......fuck around forever.
It's a better environment to have kids. A guy once told me he's given up finding the right girl for him, since that girl doesn't exist. Rather, he'll settle for the mother of his children. You'll be surprised how many men decide to finally get married because they realise they too are getting old and need to have kids soon if they want them.
Economic union. Now I don't know whether that's an advantage or a curse. Depends if you stay married or divorced I guess. But certainly with kids, it helps a couple budget and work together as a unit to keep the family going.
Commitment. Someone once told me nothing's different now that she's married, but it showed commitment from her man. Yeah, I agree with that one, if a guy can't even buy a ring and settle down, better ditch the guy because he probably never will.
People get lonely when older, and it's nice to have someone to count on in times of need.

But although there are advantages to getting married the divorce rate is still staggeringly high. Also, many married couples stay together but are not happy, and the men cheat whilst on "business trips". So what's the problem here? The fact that people want to get married even though the divorce rate is so high tells me people have hope their own marriage will work and be different from everyone else's, even though they themselves are in the pool.

The problem is most people try to achieve those advantages from the wrong perspective. I've seen big fancy weddings before, and the girl wanted to have a big fancy wedding because it was meant to be her "big special day". What about the next 50 years? Firstly, don't get married because of other people, seriously, you have to live with the person, not your parents or the 200 guests at the wedding you're trying to impress

Secondly, don't just focus on yourself, your needs. That's why marriages fall apart in the first place, people thinking about themselves when it was meant to be a partnership. When a marriage fails might as well throw away the wedding pics of that grand wedding....

What about kids? We only get to live once, and now we've evolved to be animals that understand our own needs beyond our evolutionary instincts, it really isn't a smart idea just to have kids for the sake of it. Kids that grow up in broken marriages don't grow up in a healthy environment. If people really want to get married, they should be creating a partnership with someone. To think of the other person as a partner in a team, and not cater to just one's own needs. Most people can't even do that in a 2 year relationship, and that's why the relationships fail. If you're always thinking about what you want in a relationship then it's best to just fuck around forever, at least it's more fun...

The one thing worse than being lonely is being lonely whilst in a relationship.